Help for Ella to get her tonsils removed
Ellas story
Ella first got tonsillitis at the age of 8 months old since that day she has had tonsillitis near enough once every 4-6weeks. She is now turning 3 in December and we have counted at least 18 episodes of tonsillitis in her little life already.
Ella has been on more than 8 different antibiotics, this is due to most of them stopping working to get rid of the infection because of how many times she’s had to have them - this is a huge concern in itself as Ella will struggle if antibiotics are needed for any other infection going forward.
Ella has ended up in hospital 4 times due to the severity of her tonsillitis, on these 4 occasions she had a temperature of 40+ and was having Febrile seizures. She would not eat or drink for days and her tongue was hanging out of her mouth as everything was just so swollen - Ella had to be put on a very strong antibiotic to get rid of this and even with that she still contracted tonsillitis again 1 week after her last hospital admission and also many times since then. Each time Ella gets tonsillitis we are sick with fear that it will end in another hospital admission.
Ella is the happiest, cheekiest little girl even though she struggles everyday with her tonsils due to how big they are, if you look in Ella’s mouth you can see them straight away they cover the back of her throat to the point you can barely see the dangley bit in the middle, Ella can not breathe through her nose she constantly breathes through her mouth, Ella struggles to eat most foods and is quite fussy with hard foods and again this is due to her tonsils, Ella has not slept a full night in 2 years she wakes up 2-3 times a night if not more crying in discomfort, she snores very loudly and has pauses in her breathing where the tonsils are so big they block some of her airway which is worse when laying down.
Ella was referred to the ENT doctors from her GP just over a year ago after a battle with trying to get just a referral. Ella had her first appointment with the ENT, the doctor did not run any tests, check Ella over or take in anything that was said even though it is all documented on her record. All that the doctor said was that she is to young right now, she seems happy in herself, she will grow out of it eventually and that the risks are to high they wouldn’t consider operating and to have a follow up in 6 months.
6 months came around ( Ella had 6 more episodes of tonsillitis in this time ) and they cancelled her appointment due to covid, the ENT doctor rang to say that they still wouldn’t do anything due to Ella’s age and again he never once asked how Ella has been in the 6 months since her first appointment. We asked for a sleep study to be done for her breathing which we was told this will take a while because of covid but he will get her booked in for one and they will follow up afterwards, We also asked for a 2nd opinion on the decision to not take Ella’s tonsils out as we didn’t agree with the decision.
6 months passed again and we called the GP to chase up the sleep study/2nd opinion appointment to be told that there was no record on Ella’s file that any doctor had spoken to us on the telephone regarding Ella’s health or the sleep study or the 2nd opinion. The GP sorted out the sleep study for us and Ella had a appointment within a few weeks, we was told we would be contacted by the ENT doctor to go through her results and next steps.
A week later we received a text message saying ‘ Hi Ella, your results are normal. ‘ no phone call, no discussion nothing.
Ella yet again got tonsillitis after this so we went to the GP for another round of antibiotics, we asked the GP if he knew when Ellas next appointment with the ENT doctor would be as we didn’t hear anything and he advised that on the system Ella had been signed off and passed back to them.
This is when we decided enough was enough and our only option to help Ella have a pain free life is to go down the private route due to feeling extremely let down by our nhs. It is heartbreaking as Ella meets the criteria set out by the NHS for a Tonsillectomy, she actually has had double the amount of tonsillitis and other problems needed to meet the criteria.
We had a private consultation with a ENT surgeon very recently and he has diagnosed Ella with grade 3 tonsils and a reduced air flow. He is very happy to go ahead and do the Tonsillectomy on Ella in April 2022 but this unfortunately will be at a huge cost .
Anything you can donate, no matter how small, will be greatly received by Ellas family.