Last night around 8:30 p.m. Ben’s ENT called us to answer some of our questions. (Are Jen and I the only ones really impressed that a doctor was personally doing this? – And on Friday evening?!)
One of the questions we were wondering about was if having his tonsils reduced would be a problem because he still takes a bottle a lot of the time. (Our thoughts had more to so with a milky coating hindering healing than anything.)
Turns out that’s not a problem, but, the suction from taking a bottle is.
He said there is about a 1-in-4 chance of bleeding the way it is (no major problem, bleeding, but prolonged healing type) and having suction taking place will not only suck formula from a bottle but blood from the healing tonsils.
Makes sense.
That means that we have a couple of options:
- Wean Ben off completely within the next week and a half or so. (Hardly a reality.)
- Put a hole in the nipples to greatly reduce/eliminate the vacuum pressure and suction. (We’re trying that now.)
- Reschedule the tonsil part until #1 has happened.
It is quite likely that even in trying to reduce the suction Ben may not be ready for that part right now. But he has to get those adenoids removed and the tube put back in. His hearing (and therefore speech) is greatly affected and reduced because of this so, even though we really want to have everything done at once, we may not be able to.
We’ll see.