Recovering

I'm back! This is what, day 2 or 3, depending on how you count. The surgery was Tuesday morning, this is Thursday, and I'm finally able to stay awake for a few hours at a time.

Let me start at the beginning - I was trying to assembly my list of products to help everything go better. I could not find the hypercal tincture! I stopped at the pharmacy on my way to surgery and asked the pharmacist about it, she'd never even heard of it. She even looked in the book and then online and couldn't find it. I told her that every reference I found for it online was in the UK, so she was really surprised about it. But she did recommend that I try some Viscous Lidocaine which is a pain numbing liquid that dentists use for major mouth surgeries. So I had to wait and ask my doctor for a prescription - he gave me the strangest look when I asked him! Then he says, did someone tell you to ask for that? I'm like, why? What's the problem? He gave me the prescription but goodness, why wouldn't he automatically be prescribing me anything that would help ease the pain? I don't get that. I was reading where someone else said their doctor warned them about all of the pain, then when they went back and told the doctor they couldn't stand it, he THEN gives them Viscous Lidocaine - why don't they just give it to you upfront?

Anyway, my concern was that I have all of this stuff for pain relief, but nothing that actually promotes HEALING. The nurse said that just swallowing water would help with healing, but I feel like I need something else, aloe vera gel, vitamin E, something.

The day of the surgery, I was really nervous. I wasn't scared at all when I went in for my gallbladder surgery, but for some reason, this surgery bothered me so much. The whole idea of someone working inside of my throat, was just unnerving. Then the nurses kept coming in to look at my tonsils, saying that I had the largest adult tonsils they had ever seen! They kept calling other people to come in and look at them, just grabbing random folks walking by, to come look in my mouth. The janitor, the family of the patient next door, lol. So basically, I really needed to get the tonsils out, despite trying to talk myself out of it. My throat was nearly completely closed up, and apparently I was in danger of a heart attack or some other issues.

It went quickly though, one minute they were talking to me, the next minute I was in recovery signaling for more pain medication because the pain was pretty bad. I had to ask for two more blasts of the good stuff until it was bearable, then they let me sleep for a couple of hours. I could have just stayed there all day, sleeping, but the nurse made me open my eyes so they could discharge me. I was loopy from the anesthesia, and a little nauseous, but the painkiller was working pretty effectively.

Luckily, my doctor did give me a script for liquid Vicodin, which I was prepared to fight for, because he had said he was giving me Tylenol with Codeine. I was sick for a while at home, I think just getting the anesthesia and blood out of my stomach, but that passed after the first night.

All I've done is sleep. Take meds. Sip water. More sleep. The pain is only really bad when the meds wear off so I've tried to take before the last dose wears off. But its nothing I can't deal with. I'm still not hungry, just the ice water and occasional popsicles are sustaining me. I weighed myself and I lost 10 pounds so that must be water. I feel a little more tired today than anything. I'm not so sure I'm going to need more than two weeks off work, and if I had to judge on how I feel today, I might be able to go back Monday, but I may as well take the full two weeks.

I hear the 4th through 8th days can be difficult because of the areas scabbing over and then the scabs come off, apparently that produces some amount of bleeding. So I don't want to dismiss this so soon, but I'm so glad that right now my experience hasn't been anywhere near what I read from others.

What I am concerned about though is that my surgeon went ahead and took my uvula out! I didn't ask him to, I didn't know he was going to, this wasn't even discussed, so why did he do it? He told my husband that it was swollen and that it would decrease my snoring by taking it out. But don't you need that???? I always thought you needed it to help with swallowing, now I'm afraid that when I go back to eating, the food might just slip right down my throat. It already feels funy when I drink water, like there's nothing back there to help guide it down my throat. It's kind of scary. I'll have to look more into this and see what the effects are at not having an uvula.

adult tonsillectomy