OUCH!

When she woke up after surgery, she was not a happy girl.
"What in the heck just happened?" She thought. "My throat hurts. BAD!"

Poor Anya has been through a tough ordeal this past week. On December 9th she had her tonsils and adenoids whacked. (Incidentally, this is our 3rd T&A surgery in our family in a little over a year. I'm done.)

Did you know that most kids who sport the extra chromosome have some level of sleep apnea?  The reason is that they have a combination of low muscle tone and small airways. When we sleep, everything relaxes so much it's almost like our insides are paralyzed. So naturally, those small passageways get even smaller, causing an obstruction of air flow.

What happens if apnea is left untreated? The lungs can cause stress on the heart (pulmonary hypertension) and the heart has to work extra hard, causing the walls to thicken. It can eventually lead to congestive heart failure.

Our sleep doctor, Dr. Pfeffer said that it's only been in the past 10-15 years that kids with DS are monitored for sleep apnea from the time they are born. This is one of the reasons that the life expectancy of people with DS has risen to an older age. Heart problems can be prevented now at a young age, before damage can occur.

We didn't expect that Anya had this happening because she seems to sleep so soundly and she doesn't snore. But when we moved into this house last summer and Sadie started sharing a room with Anya, she noticed that her sister makes all kinds of weird noises at night and stops to catch her breath at times.

So we took her to a sleep specialist, who recommended a sleep study.
Jeremy took her for that fun night (I let him go because he sleeps better than I do) on Nov. 1. We learned that her breathing was stopping quite a bit, which put her at a moderate level of apnea. We were referred to a pediatric ENT, who said that the best line of defense was to remove the tonsils and adenoids, even though they are a normal size. The first thing we do is make more room for the air to get through. If that doesn't do the trick, then we try giving her oxygen at night. If that doesn't do it, then we go to a C-pap.

After this past week of hell...that dang surgery better have done the job.
Holy cow, it's been a rough one. Anya lost about 4 pounds. All of her 4t clothes that were tight before are hanging on her. I can feel the bones in her back.  Poor pumpkin.

Although this week was really hard for our sweetie, I have to tell you about something so wonderful that has happened. I hope I can put it into words.

Last weekend, I learned that Anya didn't completely trust me.  When she hurt really bad, she wanted her sister, or if she wasn't available, she wanted Daddy. But not me.

This was news to me. She's never been in pain like this before.

Talk about rejection.

I know why. It's because all of her caregivers the first five and a half years of her life were women. And these women had 11 other kids her size to take care of. Any woman that she felt attached to ended up disappearing from her life at some point or another.  For her to completely trust me after only 8 months of being her mom is not realistic. Heck, she didn't even know what a mom was until now.

Luckily for us, Sadie and Daddy weren't always home. They had to go to school and work. And Anya needed comforting. A lot of comforting. So I was the next-best source. I'm totally amazed that she forgave me after all the times (every four hours on the dot) I had to literally force pain medicine and liquids down her with a syringe. I felt like I was abusing her.  Seriously. 

Even still, my baby girl let me in. In one week, she went from refusing my snuggles when she hurt, to finding me when I was out of sight, putting her arms up to be held, then melting right into me.  It makes me weep just thinking about it.  I know this probably doesn't seem like a big deal to someone who has never adopted an older child. But it was huge for me. Yet another little "thank you, here you go" from the Lord.

OK, it's 12:30 am. Time for bed! It's one week till Christmas and we have carpet coming for the basement tomorrow morning. Woo hoo!  Good night.