Booger Situation

My first born was the boogery one. Now I’m sure some of you are thinking, “my kid has boogers too.” Wrong. Your kid has nothing compared the mass amount of boogers that flowed out of my son’s nose. I’m not trying to be a one-upper here but never in my life have I seen an amount of boogers like this kid.

Drew spent his first three years of life in daycare. With that obviously comes a fair share of illness. In his first year of life, he had about four ear infections. We thought that he might need tubes or something but then the summer came and everything was fine.

The second year of his life, which I like to refer to as the “Booger Year,” there was not a moment when he was without boogers. Every picture we have of him has boogers in it. Every caregiver, family member or teacher commented on how his nose incessantly ran. Most people became so accustomed to it that even squeamish people were wiping up his snot.

Finally I told our doctor that something HAD to be done about our “Booger Situation.” We tested him for allergies and feared that we would have to find a new home for our cat. We finally ended up at an ENT. After some horrendous scopes and tests that required four adults to control my 30lb. child, we had a best guest of enlarged adenoids. (If you want to read the blog I wrote after the surgery, click here)

At first my family was very skeptical about having a little two year old’s adenoids removed. He would have to be put out for the procedure and it seemed like a traumatic, dangerous thing to put such a small child through. The more research I did, the more I realized how common this procedure was. So then I started being nervous that it was just another useless procedure that doctors made lots of money from. I couldn’t even get a guarantee that it would solve our “Booger Situation.” (For more on the procedure, click here)

It’s been almost a year and a half since that difficult day and I can clearly say the leap of faith we took in having Drew’s adenoids removed was such a blessing. I don’t think he has been sick in the last year! Unfortunately that stretch ended yesterday with a fever and puking all over me, but that’s besides the point!

Dr. David Walner changed our “Booger Situation” and I will forever be indebted and happy that I followed my gut. It’s not easy making decisions to advocate for your children, but as a parent it’s part of the job requirement.