Update on Rylee's Tonsillectomy

* Update:

Some of you are sending suggestions about medicine-giving, and I appreciate it!  I have had a few of you mention the flavor of the medicine, which can often be a deterrent to taking it!  I should have said that the medicine she is taking, fortunately, tastes ok.  In fact, pretty good.   I would even take the medicine every now and then for a little snack if it weren't frowned upon by the medical community. We had one of her stronger pain meds flavored at the pharmacy, but lucky she hasn't even had to take that one.  So, I don't think that the flavor has anything to do with her not wanting it.  I think it has to do more with the fact that... we're asking her to take it.  And she's the boss, you know.

*****

Rylee is doing pretty well at home.  She seems a bit more tired than usual, and I find her sitting on the couch with her blanket more often than normal.  She is up and about playing from time to time, but she's also asking to be held more (which Carter doesn't find acceptable -- I am only HIS Mom, you know!)

Rylee is eating and drinking well -- whew!  That is a biggie after a surgery like this!  We haven't seen any signs of pain yet... but giving her an antibiotic for 10 days and pain meds every 4 hours for a week or so is the key to keeping things under control.

Giving her meds has been a challenge.  She's never been big on taking medicine, so unfortunately I thought... okay, knew this would be difficult for us.  

How difficult?  Well, do a little math lesson here. The antibiotic is given 2 times a day for 10 days... and though I wasn't a Math major in college, I believe that makes 20 doses of that.  Then the pain meds... well, every 4 hours means 6 doses a day.  They say that days 5-7 post-surgery can be painful, as the scabs (I know that's a gross word... sorry) may start to fall off.  The doctor and nurses (along with many parents who have gone through this with their kids) say that the worst thing you can do is stop the pain meds when you think they don't need them.  It's just about that time that the pain gets worse, and it's difficult to catch up after you've stopped the meds.)  So, let's say we have 10 days of pain meds... that's 60 doses.

Recap: 20 doses + 60 doses = 80 doses of meds

For Rylee, that means 80 times we are/will be begging, pleading, and bargaining with her to take her pain meds.  Statistics show at this point that begging, pleading and bargaining works only 10% of the time.  Therefore, we have 72 times in which we will have to find alternative means for giving meds. 

About 30% of the time, I can hide the medicine in something she likes to eat, and she'll take it just fine.  Whew.  There's 24 more times we can deceive our child and she'll take the meds. Not that I feel good about this.

40% of the time, Jeremy and I wind up having to do the least-desirable... hold her down and squirt the medicine in her mouth (without her choking) -- wipe up what she manages to spit out -- and decide if she spit out enough that we should give her a bit more, or just forget it because we don't want our poor kid to OD and hope she got enough.

So, we've got 20% of the times left... 16 more times in which we have to find an answer.  We've had her give her baby doll some pretend medicine before her, we've blamed it on told her that the doctor said she needed to take it to feel good, we've asked family members who have visited to ask her to show them what a big kid she is by taking her medicine... 

and Rylee just keeps reminding us that she's the boss.

Can we blame her?  I wanna be the boss, too.

So, if you have any fabulous medicine-giving suggestions, or if you want to get on our family/friend rotation of coming over and asking Rylee to show you what a big girl she is, let us know. 

Though, keep in mind... that doesn't always work either.