Finally recovered! (I think)

Last Thursday, two weeks and two days after Zadie's tonsillectomy and two days after her last ER trip for bleeding, she woke up early in the morning and was coughing up blood.  This time, it was coming out of her trach as well.  It was a pretty large amount of bright red blood that she coughed into a paper towel.  I called the ENT's office when they opened at 8 am (the ENT resident on call didn't return either of my calls...hmmmph) and they asked if we could come down there to their ER (at CHOP, in Philly.)  I had already assumed that would be their suggestion/request and I didn't really want to go back to St. Barnabas since they didn't know what to do with us anyway.  So we headed down there.  Since it's a two hour drive, the nurse told me to call en route if there was more bleeding and they would possibly reroute us to another, closer hospital.  Luckily, we didn't need to do that.

CHOP's ER monitored her and the doctors told us they were deciding whether to take her into the OR to try to figure out exactly where the bleeding was coming from and cauterize the area or just admit her for observation.  Either way, she was not going home that night.  One of the doctors told us that bleeding is normal after a tonsillectomy, although it's rare, occurring in about 1% of cases.  When bleeding does occur, it's usually earlier in the recovery period, around 7-10 days post op.  And even though bleeding is normal, it's always taken seriously because of where the tonsils are located.  Because of the OR possibility, they wouldn't let Zadie eat or drink anything but clear liquids.  The worst part was her getting an IV.  They were good enough that they got it in on the first try, but it was pretty awful.  She was hysterical, and kept crying "Mommy, Mommy!"  I felt terrible.

Sleeping in the ER

She finally got into her room around 7 pm.  We decided BJ would go home with Jonathan and Beatrix and I stayed with Zadie.  It's really hard to be so far away from everyone!  On Friday morning, they allowed Zadie to have regular food again and she ate a bit and drank and was cleared to go home, although we had to wait awhile for BJ and the kids to make it back.  Traffic was terrible thanks to the start of Memorial Day weekend.

Feeling pretty good

Since Thursday morning, there has been no more bleeding and (knock on wood) I think we're in the clear!