Surgery for Chase

Chase has had terrible trouble with his allergies since he was 6 months old. As that point he was hospitalized for croup and started on Singulair. He started having ear infection, after sinus infection after eye infections for the next 5 years. :( He took 4 allergy medications daily, along with weekly allergy shots. We also made all kinds of modifications in our home (allergy pillows, having someone come and start cleaning, air purifier, etc.), but this poor little guy was still sick all the time.

At his yearly allergy appointment in April they did a CT scan of his sinuses. Children have six sinus cavities and all six of Chase's were totally full of fluid....after a month of antibiotics. At that point we were told to see our ENT.

The ENT said he needed sinus surgery to open up those cavities and to clean everything out. We had two trips to take so we got those out of the way and then set our date for the surgeries. Yes, there were two surgeries, a week apart.

The first surgery they went in with a balloon and opened up the cavity openings. The they cleaned out all the fluid in there. The doctor also said there was just a lot of swelling in there, keeping those cavities closed. They put stints in the openings of all six cavities with stitches and then we were done.

We went back a week later for the second surgery, which wasn't nearly as involved as the first. They took out the stints and stitches and cleaned out all the old blood and scabs.

Chase was a trooper and did so well! He was was sick after the first surgery so they gave him anti-nausea meds in his IV for the second surgery and he did much better in recovery. Note to self- anesthesia make Chase throw up.

He asked for three surprised after his surgeries- each one. So of course I complied. He got some sticker books and lego sets and pirates. Have I mentioned that this boy loves pirates?

Look, it's Johnny Depp, in my kitchen!

I really hope this is what makes him start to feel better and we can start backing off his meds and allergy shots now. We go back to see the ENT in two weeks and then the allergist a couple of weeks after that.