salve

Post Op Days 8-15: Are we there yet?

Hi everyone! I got sick of talking about my surgery, so I took a little break from posting. Also, it's been busy around here - my mom left, Norah started kindergarten yesterday, I've been ordering text books and generally prepping for school and Julian's about to move in to a new classroom at daycare, so there hasn't been much down-time to speak of.

My throat is ok - I guess? On day 11 I saw the doc for my post-op check-up - he said all looks well but because of my bleed I was still a "high risk patient" and should take it slow when reintroducing solids. I had a few days of feeling good and eating real food - I even managed a bowl of Cheerios, which in retrospect was perhaps a bad idea? All I know is that about two days ago my throat pain got worse again - another round of scabs coming off, perhaps? I don't know. I'm tired of it though - I'm back to taking codeine at night and Advil all day. And back to soft foods. I'm ready to start feeling better. I'd like to exercise again. I'd really like to eat something crunchy.

Upside: I've lost a total of 11 pounds.

Post-Op Days Six and Seven: The Hospital Edition!

Well! It's been an exciting few days, I guess that's what I get for complaining about being bored with my recovery. Tuesday night I went to bed as usual but woke up to some extra bad tonsil pain. Shortly thereafter, I started spitting out copious amounts of blood. I called my doc (he didn't sound happy to be woken at 2:30am, by the way, which I found amusing. Dude, you're the on-call doctor and I'm sorry to disturb your beauty sleep, but you know what's disturbing my beauty sleep? Spitting blood. So suck it.) He told me to gargle ice chips, which seemed to stop the bleeding for a bit. I went back to bad, but let me tell you, it's a bit hard to relax and sleep when you're worried that your throat may start to bleed again. And sure enough, at about 4:30am it started to bleed again and ice would not stop it.

I woke up Jeff and my mom, and my mom took me to the North Austin Medical Center ER, where my doctor was kind enough to show up to see me just before 7am. By then the bleeding had slowed and a clot had formed and my doctor decided that rather than do another surgery to cauterize the bleed right away, he wanted to see if the clot would hold and the throat heal all by itself. To give the clot every chance of succeeding, I would have to not ingest any liquids, not even my own spit. I was admitted to the hospital, put on an IV, given IV pain and anti-nausea meds, and instructed to suck the spit out of my mouth using a Yankauer catheter (one of those things they use at the dentist).

Over all, I have to say the hospital experience has been good. I've done pretty much nothing but sleep for the past 24 hours, as the Demerol/Phenergen combo knocks me out. And the bleeding has completely stopped, and I should be getting discharged around 4 today, once they are sure that putting me back on a liquid diet again won't re-start the bleeding. I've never been so excited to have been given permission to swallow my own spit. I'm so relieved the clot seems to be holding because more surgery to cauterize bleeds would have set my recovery back by a week, and I don't know about you, but I don't think I could have faced another week of complaints about feeling shitty.

So - here's hoping my next update will be from the comfort of my own home and that it's smooth sailing for the remainder of this healing process. I will, however, miss the IV Demerol. That shit is good.

Post-Op Day Five: I would like to be done with this now thank you very much

People, I am tired and bored of this. I am ready for it be over. Instead, the pain is worse today! Dammit!

Physically I feel stronger, have less nausea, am no longer running a fever, etc. But boy-howdy does my throat hurt. And it's a new kind of pain - right after the surgery there was just a big, fuzzy, vague, "don't look too closely at this pain, just take your meds" kind of pain. But now, there's a very specific type of sensation. Imagine your worst case of strep throat ever and then imagine that someone decides to rub sandpaper vigorously all over your strep-throat-infected-tonsils and then jams sharp knives in to them as a parting gift. It's like that, each and every four hours when my pain meds start to wear off. And the pain and the stinging kind of takes over your tongue and your ears too, so basically you do want to cut your whole head off, you DO! - that dude on that website was right!

It's tiring. It makes me cranky. I'm sick of it and would like things to go back to normal now please. I'm ok again once my pain meds kick back in, but it's making it hard to sleep - I wake up every four hours in pain and lie there all breathless and indignant with the pain until the new dose of codeine starts working. I'm back to not eating very much - it hurts too much, plus I think my stomach is starting to shrink - I ate some scrambled eggs this morning but got halfway through the plate and thought "Meh. I'm full. What? I'm full?"

When the doctor told me recovery would take ten days, I sort of thought "Ok, yes, you feel bad for the first few days, and then you feel significantly better and then by the end you feel normal." But really, I think the doctor meant "You will feel bad for ten days. Different kinds of bad each day, but basically - bad."

He's right. It's bad.

Post-Op Day Four

Who knew there were so many different kinds of throat pain? Today I've moved on to the raw/scratchy/stabbing throat pain from the plain old throbbing pain of the early stages of recovery. The change happened last night while I tried to eat some instant creamy mashed potatoes (made even creamier by the addition of chicken broth and cream - we're talking about some pretty liquified potatoes here). Cooled to almost room temperature and rendered extra creamy, the potatoes were still painful to eat. But I was so damn hungry for something semi-solid that I forced them down. I don't know if it was the little grains of potato or what, but my throat felt raw afterward. I chalked it up to "no pain, no gain" (or "no pain, no food" in this case), took my meds and went to bed.

Woke up at various stages in the night and this morning with this new scratchy pain. It travels all the way up my jaw and in to my ears and it's very unpleasant. My meds had worn off just in time for my morning conference call so I was on the phone trying to down enough milkshake to coat my stomach and allow me to glug some codeine. Once I got the codeine down I proceeded to become intensely sleepy. Highly productive call, as you can imagine. The sound of my poor voice trying to struggle its way out of my swollen throat did garner some sympathetic "awwws" from my co-workers though, so it wasn't a complete waste. Ha. Then I took a nap.

I'm telling myself the shift in pain is a good sign - maybe it means I've moved on to some new stage of healing? I've heard that the scabs forming and then sloughing (eww) off can make your throat feel very raw, so perhaps that's what's going on here.

Post-Op Day Three

Today is better than yesterday, but worse than Friday. Thursday and Friday were walks in the park compared to this weekend. Things sort of came to a head last night - I was feeling so nauseous and feverish and weak that I couldn't face taking another dose of codeine for fear it would push me over the edge and I'd start vomiting. So I let my codeine wear off, thereby breaking the cardinal rule of tonsillectomy recovery. It wasn't that bad, actually. I was still taking Advil, which helped. And at that point I'd rather have felt my tonsils (ex-tonsils, I should say) than thrown up.

Today I've been able to eat a little more (two milkshakes, one bowl of soup), so I'm reintroducing half doses of codeine. Still feeling very weak though, and spending most of my time in bed. Just got the doc to call in a refill of the Zofran (anti-nausea med that I've been taking this whole time), as I was down to my last pill.

One thing I didn't anticipate and nobody warned me about - you will snore like a banshee during the surgery recovery. My throat is so swollen that I'm sleeping with my mouth open and my tongue kind of lolling out and poor Jeff says that it is LOUD. I am usually only an occasional snorer.

Jeff's mom has gone home and my mom is here now. I'm supposed to start working from home tomorrow, but am praying for a slow start to the week.

Post-Op Day Two

Post-Op Day Two sucks so hard that I might just have to wait until tomorrow to tell you about it in detail. I feel like I've been hit by a truck. Running a low-grade fever, throat incredibly swollen, meds barely making a dent in the discomfort. Basically, the surgeon was right. The first few days post surgery are rough, but then the shit really hits you. I'll write some more when I've come out the other side.

Blerg.