Nosebleeds be gone!

One night when Gavin was younger than two I woke up to the sound of him crying in his crib.  When I entered his room I turned on the light and saw what looked like a CSI crime scene, there was blood in his crib, on the walls, the carpet and all over his little body.  I screamed for Jeremy and it took us a few minutes to find the source of the blood, Gavin's nose.  Ever since that night, we have been battling nosebleeds.  They happen at home, in the car, at school, swimming, church, they have happened everywhere.  Gavin has gotten quite good at the drill and grabs a tissue and pinches his nose, it is second nature to him now.  We have tried humidifiers, vaseline, saline spray, and even butter to try to minimize the occurences, but nothing has really helped.  We have taken him to two ENT's and had his nose cauterized in the office 6-8 times, using a little bit of lidocaine on a cotton ball and silver nitrate sticks.  Still the nosebleeds have persisted.  Last June I got a call from the nurse at school telling me that she could not stop Gavin's nosebleed and it had been 30 minutes.  She agreed to wait another 20 and when she called again I was asked to take him home.  He had another one really bad this summer that we could not get under control for probably about 45 minutes, the blood just kept coming and I thought we would have to take him to the ER.  It was too scary.  We made another appointment with his ENT and he told us about an option to use electrocautery but Gavin would need to be anesthetized for the procedure.  We scheduled it.  As the day approached the nerves crept in and we started to worry.  I have never had any of my children anesthetized, we haven't had tubes in ears or tonsils removed, so for us, this was a big deal.  We didn't know anyone else that had had this procedure done so we really did not know what to expect.  On the day of the surgery, Gavin couldn't eat or drink anything, and his surgery wasn't until 1 pm.  We went to the surgical center and go him all checked in.  Gavin wore an adorable hospital gown and I got to wear what looked like a painters coveralls since I would be going in with him while he got the gas that would put him to sleep.  They asked him questions about his halloween costume and withing seconds he was out.  Jeremy and I waited for what seemed like hours but in reality was only about 20 minutes.  The doctor came out and told us that this was one of the most extreme cases  he had ever seen.  He said he just touched the blood vessels and they began to bleed, and he suspects they were arteries instead of the small capillaries that are supposed to be in your nose.  We then went to recovery and they brought him to us.  He woke up painful and grumpy and it was a difficult recovery, especially to have to watch, but eventually the pain meds kicked in and we were given the green light to go.  Poor thing slept the rest of the day and much of the next.  We hope and pray that this is truly the end of Gavin's problems with his nose, he has been through so much.