I made it through all of high school and college without having to take anyone to the hospital on St. Patrick's Day. Some of them probably should have been checked some alcohol poisoning, but they never were. It took becoming a mother to require a hospital visit on St. Patty's Day.
We reported to the hospital at 8am for his 9:30am tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy, just as the hospital required of us. What they expected me to do with a 1-year-old for 2 hours when he wasn't allowed to eat breakfast, I don't have a clue. I was anticipating the worst because Luke, well, let's just say he likes to eat when he's hungry. Surprisingly, after about 20 minutes of being upset in the car, he stopped crying about it and seemed to get over the hunger.
Anyway, they took him back to surgery at just about 9:30am and we were called back to Recovery in about 45 minutes. The adenoids really had to come out; the ENT said they were quite large. There was a debate about removing the tonsils prior to surgery since they weren't a huge issue or frequently infected, but the call was made to remove the tonsils too. I'm sure that was the best call in the long-run. No waiting around to see if the tonsils would become a bigger issue now that the adenoids were gone. Just get them all out and eliminate the issue entirely.
Recovery on Day One went pretty well. He ate Teddy Grahams, Goldfish crackers, a popsicle, apple juice, a hamburger, and cold-cut turkey, just like a good Maples' boy should. He did pretty great for the most part. Overnight was a totally different story. You know how well an adult sleeps in a hospital? I'm pretty sure it's worse for the kids. He was up about every 1.5 hours. Sometimes it was more frequently than that if the nurse came in and checked the monitor or blood-pressure or whatever. Every time he woke up, it was a struggle to keep him in bed and get him to calm down and go back to sleep. At one point during the night, he was up walking around, half out of it, and crawled up screaming on the hospital vinyl couch (you know the couch, every hospital room has one!) and passed out. That was fine for him, but was not my favorite part of the night as I just had to sit there next to him making sure he didn't squirm around and fall off the darn thing. Sure enough, that was where he posted the largest stretch of sleep too. He REFUSED to keep his little toe oxygen/pulse monitor thing on. I mean absolutely REFUSED. The nurses just eventually gave up and stopped replacing it. He also later pulled his IV out during the middle of the night, which luckily was not a big deal since he was drinking pretty well, and they didn't have to replace it. It was in his foot, so I'm pretty sure that could not have been comfortable.
The next morning was okay, despite the fact that he woke up for good at 5:30am. The biggest problem that morning was keeping him quietly entertained. All he wanted to do was go take a ride in the hall in one of the push cars and no one wanted us doing that at 5:30am! I think we were eventually released from the hospital at about 11:00am, but I was operating on so little sleep, that may not be exactly accurate. The rest of Day Two went pretty well - he ate less, but was still drinking and that's all that mattered. Then, he seems to have slept soundly all night in his crib because I didn't hear him on the monitor at all last night.
This morning was a different scene however. Whoa Boy! Was he M-A-D this morning. He was obviously in pain despite me waking him up in the night to take his pain medications. He was grabbing at his nose, mouth, and face and just crying and crying. His face was a bit swollen. He was obviously all full of mucus too. It was gross, I'll spare you the details, but it was coming out of his nose and mouth for quite a while. It was pitiful, but what can you do. He just needed to cry about it, which I don't mind, but I wish he didn't try to take it out on me. I mean, he was in the midst of a meltdown and was just grabbing at me, pulling hair, etc. It took about an hour for him to stop throwing a fit and calm down. I guess the morning pain meds started to kick in? I mean, even Dora didn't help during that hour and if you know anything about Luke's addiction to Dora, you KNOW he must not have felt great. He has warmed up slowly the rest of the day. He's eating a little bit but not drinking as much as he has the last two days. I'm trying to push the fluids, but there's only so much you can make a 1-year-old do. He's not really interested in the jello I made, but it would help if he'd eat it. He's drinking enough that I'm not concerned about dehydration, but I wish he'd drink a little more. He's napping right now, so I have no idea how he'll be after he sleeps for a little while. I guess I'm about to find out pretty soon.
All in all he's doing well, much better than the horror stories I was prepped with! The ENT says the swelling and pain tend to peak somewhere between days 3 and 5, so keep your fingers crossed that Luke has hit his peak early and it all gets better from here!
Spending time in the cars, waiting for surgery. 
An hour or two post-surgery, feeling pretty good with juice, popsicles, and Dora on TV. 
Jackson came to visit later that night, which seemed to make them both happy. Jackson's teacher reported that he was pretty worried about Luke that day at school. He apparently told them that Luke had to go the hospital and that they were going to use a knife on him and he was quite concerned. The teacher said that it took a good hour for Jackson to recover from their conversation where she assured him that the surgeon knew what she was doing and Luke would be okay. Jackson brought a Dora backpack toy to Luke in the hospital and that seemed to make both Luke and Jackson feel better about the whole situation. Plus, Jackson seemed okay with it when he walked in the room and saw Luke walking around and giggling with him.
