I had initially thought to do more regular posts of my surgery and recovery, but I'm at the end of day six and here we are, my first report. In the interest of not being gruesome, I opted to not post pictures ;) I do find myself struggling in the creativity category, so please bear with my dry, more factual account.
Working where I do, it is not uncommon for me to catch a cold. When I have, historically, my tonsils took particular care to let me know, swelling nice and large regardless of the duration of whatever symptoms I may have had. The last few times I've gone to my clinic (noting that my history almost always included swollen tonsils) I've been asked if I'd considered seeing an ENT (ears nose throat specialist). I was told that if your tonsils swell more than 3 to 5 times a year, it is frequently recommended to have them removed. I blew this off the first couple of times I heard it, but the time came when I decided ignoring it probably wasn't a good idea anymore.
About a month ago, my tonsils once again got large. I figured that my tonsils were giving me a warning signal that I was getting a cold. Sigh. I called an ENT that day and set an appointment for August 24th, figuring that while my symptoms may be gone by the time I got there a week and a half later, I could at least get an idea of what might happen, given that this was my eighth or ninth time of them swelling this year. Oddly enough, even though I never did really get the sniffles or a painful sore throat, my tonsils stayed nice and big. Not only that, I began having difficulty sleeping at night, waking frequently unless I was absolutely exhausted. That didn't take long, frankly. By the time I got in to see the ENT, I was a little desperate for sleep.
At that point, he essentially told me I had two options-wait until I actually did get sick, at which point my tonsils would make it even harder to breathe and possibly create a medical emergency, or get them taken out now. As nervous as it made me, I opted for the second. Surgery was scheduled for September 6th. He also mentioned the possibility of taking out half my uvula, which was also enlarged to the point of causing problems.
No surprise, this freaked me out a bit. There were a few times I panicked, but ultimately I made it through with the support of family, friends, and a great blessing of comfort. The day hadn't even dawned on the 6th when Amy and I pulled up to the hospital (thanks again, Amy! you're the best!) for the procedure, listed as a tonsillectomy and uvulectomy. I thought he'd only take half of the uvula, but I later found only a little nub where it had been...so much for that theory. Ah well. Anyways, I'm told the procedure went well, and I was an ideal recovery patient, drinking plenty of water and pleasing my nurses. I vaguely recall asking to have my oxygen removed, and being told to take a deep breath, but not much else. After Amy got me home and helped get me set up on my couch, I slept for a couple of hours. Upon waking, all I really thought of was taking my meds and wishing someone had let me know I'd put my shirt on backwards ;)
I started a Top Gear marathon that day, and slept surprisingly well that night. The next day I kept ice on my throat, took my meds, continued the Top Gear marathon, did four blog posts, hosted guests (thanks Shaunelle, Shannon and Sherilyn!), and started in on a major Sudoku phase. I felt surprisingly good, all things considered, but knew that the worse times in recovery were ahead. Once again I slept fairly well, and wasn't surprised when my throat hurt a little more the next day. On with the sudoku and Top Gear.
Days three and four were progressively a little worse, not just on the throat front but in general. I figured this was just the anesthesia finally wearing off and didn't worry too much, but did fill the ice bag more frequently to keep my throat as numb as possible.
Day five, yesterday, was different. I developed a fever. I knew that it wasn't uncommon, and had run a degree or so higher than usual, but I had thought that was only supposed to be for the first couple of days. I continued to feel more and more lousy, though. I slept more, and was very sore all over, more than could be accounted for by a couple of days laying around. Just before ten pm my fever was over 100 degrees. After calling a 24/7 nurse hotline, and consulting my parents, the decision was made to go to the hospital.
We waited for 2 hours. Remind me to pick a different emergency room next time. Mom had taken me, then dad came and relieved her so that she could sleep for work the next day. Thanks, mom and dad, you are both awesome :). After 2 hours, though, I was done. I decided that if I wasn't going to get seen soon I would just go home, and I let them know. At that moment, the nurse had come up to call me back. Well, better late than never, eh? I figured at that point it was probably overkill, but since I was there and the paperwork was already filled out, well, may as well see it through. Not to mention I was thoroughly miserable. Entirely. I didn't even want to walk, using a wheelchair because I was soo tired and shaky.
A bunch of questions and a chest x-ray later, I was diagnosed with pneumonia. Good thing I didn't just leave, eh? At least I had an answer. I was justifiably weak, sore and tired, and not just a hypochondriac.
Day six has been an odd basket. I've done less today than on any other day of recovery thus far, except perhaps the first. I've slept more today than any other day, and finally cheated on the hard sudoku puzzles when my mind wanted something to do but couldn't come up with even just one more number after five or ten minutes of staring at the same puzzle. I gave in on watching Top Gear straight through and have just been picking some of my favorite episodes, including the Lorry episode and the Quaint my Ride episode (definitely youtube worthy segments!). Thanks, Christian, for picking up my prescription when I was forbidden to leave the house. There's probably a good reason for that, I guess that its just hard sometimes for me to justify staying at home when there's so much that can be done.
Well, its bedtime. Stay tuned for more updates, I'll probably post on facebook again when I do my next blog post. G'night!
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