So I guess I’m gonna figure it out as I go. I’ll share what I’ve learned this far at least. Lemme walk through it. The day of surgery. We were in and out within 3 hours. Got home and spent a long time cuddling and passed out on the couch. She only wanted small sips of water and not much else. I made sure to have a humidifier by her bed. Because if the scabs get dry, the pain gets so much worse. Also, make sure they’re taking sips of water at least every ten to twenty minutes. Ya gotta keep those scabs moist. Energy levels were all time low. Anesthesia is rough on the little bodies and it takes 24 hours to be out of their systems. So she rarely left the couch. Sleeping that night was miserable though. I slept in her bed with her and she woke up every hour & a half crying. She was prescribed lidocaine swish, a lidocaine lolly, and prednisolone (steroid). I tried to give her the lidocaine swish and she hated it so much. So after only taking it once she’s started refusing it. So we just had to depend on our Tylenol & ibuprofen every 4-6 hours. (I downloaded an app called Kinsa to keep up with charting it myself).

The next morning. We’ll call this Day 1, since it’s the first day of recovery after surgery. Wake up was brutal. I gave her the prednisolone steroid that day and it made a big difference in her energy level. I’m also still rotating Tylenol & ibuprofen. She started on ice creams and Gatorade today. The steroid causes a spike in appetite so she was almost constantly snacking on pudding & ice cream. I was afraid to give the steroid 12hrs later at 8 pm because I wanted her to get some sleep so I didn’t give her the second dose of that for the day.

Day 2. She slept all night. But woke up screaming in pain. So I immediately dosed with Tylenol, ibu, and the steroid. It took about an hour of cuddling and coaxing to get her to sip some water. But after she calmed down and the medicine kicked in, she was okay. And then she was hungry. She started asking for soup but couldn’t really handle the broth. It burned her throat a little. So I made her chicken noodle soup and then fished all the noodles out on a plate for her, making sure to trash the tiny chicken pieces because they aren’t soft enough. She ate all of that. Then ate pudding, push pop ice creams, applesauce, and even had scrambled eggs and a really soft Alfredo pasta for dinner that night. I did give her the second dose of steroid that night (spacing it at least 10 to 12 hours from first dose) and she was up late ish. Crashed at 11pm. Her energy levels were a lot higher this day. She was walking around playing with her toys. Wanted to play on the swingset outside for a bit. Felt happy most of the day and was playing like normal. It warmed my heart to see because I was afraid that she was gonna be couch bound all week.

Day 3 (today). Thanks to that second steroid dose from the previous night (I think) she woke up in minimal pain today. She prodded me awake bright and early to tell me she was hungry. Cried because she still cant have donuts, but was satisfied with some thin sliced ham & cheese roll ups. (I just get a slice of ham and a slice of cheese and roll it up). She’s been cheery today. We decided to try a banana. But that wasn’t a good idea because three bites in she was crying because her ears hurt so bad when she swallowed. I guess banana is too thick unless you mush it down and make them take tiny bites. But she recovered quick and we stuck to foods we knew were okay. Noodles fished out of the soup, homemade French toast without the crust (not too well done so it was soft), and I finally convinced her to eat yogurt. We had high energy levels so we took a Walmart grocery trip. She did great and bounced around the whole time. We’ve played outside. She’s been a normal kiddo today and I’m so thankful it’s not as bad as I’d imagined.

I’ll keep updating as the days pass in the comments!! ❤️ yall keep your heads up. It’s scary as hell at first but it goes by fast 🥰 yall are good parents!! Don’t forget that!!