Today I am on post op day 5. I feel like I deserve some sort of award but all I really want is to see a slight improvement in my recovery. Nothing is really wrong, my wife would argue I am doing better, but I just do not feel as if I am bouncing back fast enough. Everyone told me it gets worse before it gets better but in all honesty it really has only been about the same since day 1. Pain levels are about the same, hunger, exhaustion, and the inability to concentrate for long are also the same. With all of that said, this has been an easy process that I believed heading in. The pain is never overwhelming, it is just constantly annoying. Different days have different pains but for the most part everything stays the same. For example, post op days 1-3, I had horrible phlegm that made swallowing difficult at times. Days 4 and 5 I now have a shifting pain on the left side of my throat that makes swallowing difficult at times.

Anyway, other than the monotony of just being a little off all the time, the recovery is going much smoother that I had anticipated. Hopefully the next few days will be uneventful as my scabs start coming off before the weekend. I’ll keep praying that I get through this without experiencing some of the horror stories I have heard and I will keep posting as well. Here is a photo I took today of the surgery site following a tonsillectomy. Again, I am on post op day 5 but for the most part my mouth has looked this way since post op day 1 just with a little more swelling. Sorry the photos did not turn out all that well but between the two hopefully the tonsil beds are visible. I will make my wife take a better photo in the morning. Until then…..

So you made it though surgery, felt great coming home and now you woke up this morning (assuming you slept) with a nasty sore throat I assume? Hopefully you didn’t but that was my experience the day after my surgery. Now granted, my pain was no where near what I had expected it to be based upon what I had read, so please do not think that this is terrible thing. It just kind of sucks no matter what but you will get through these first couple of days. (As it turns out, these are actually the easiest, go figure!)

So the first night I was home and into the first day post op, were pretty easy days for the most part. The biggest problem I had was that I had to prop myself up with so many pillows, sleeping was a real challenge. The other problem was on day 1 post op, I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I was so tired from not sleeping and my pain medication was making me drowsy, I would literally dose off wherever I was about 20 minutes after I took my meds. Not a big deal, but that was the only sleep I really got during the first 48 hours. In one way that was really good because it allowed me to stay hydrated easier but on the other hand I was super grumpy and miserable without sleep. Other than that, the first day home plus the day after were actually pretty easy and not anywhere near the misery I had expected from other’s experiences.

Here are a couple of things to keep in mind during the recovery process but specifically during the first few days at home:

1. Stay hydrated!! Keep drinking, all the time. If cold water does not work try it room temperature. Whatever you do, you must drink constantly! That is the key to recovering from this surgery and any slight discomfort in drinking liquids greatly outweighs the negatives of dehydration.
2. Get a cool mist humidifier and run it all the time. This won’t make your throat magically better but based upon other’s experiences it really seems to help. I used one from day 1 so I cannot honestly say what the difference would have been without it but others swear there is a difference.
3. Chew gum! This honestly helped with so many different things I am surprised Dentyne hasn’t tried to require a prescription for their “Ice” gum. Really, this gum helps keep the jaw and neck muscles moving and helps sooth the throat. I was chewing a piece the last half hour before I could take more medication.
4. Ice everything! Ice the neck, the throat, the back, or anything else. Keeping the ice packs on the neck the first few days I believed help keep the swelling down and lessened the amount of discomfort I experienced.
5. Find out about taking pain medications in smaller doses more frequently. For instance I took half of the recommended dose every 2 hours instead of the full amount every 4 hours based upon a nurse’s suggestion. That was a huge help in managing the pain as I was never in a situation where I had to stare at the clock waiting for the magic time that I could take my meds. The only downside was waking up every two hours in the middle of the night to stay on top of the pain but I would do it this way again because it really worked.

Those are not ranked in order but number 1 certainly is the most important. Everything else really helped me and I hope it helps you too.

Had to mention quickly that I do not have a lot to say about the day of surgery. I was extremely anxious, had suffered from anxiety attacks for more that a month, and thought the absolute worst would happen based on all of the things I had read online. Truth be told however, it was only through the support of my family and the strength of Christ that I was even able to walk into the hospital on my own power. Really, I was pretty much running on prayer alone at that point and boy am I grateful that He is loving, listens, and comforts! I would encourage anyone that is nervous or anxious to just turn over your fears to Christ. Seek Him first in prayer and stay focused on Him; everything else will fall in place.

As for the actual surgery, here is what I remember from my experience:

1. The entire process should have you checked in to checked out within 3 hours tops.
2. When you wake up in recovery, you are going to feel pretty decent. Make sure to start sucking down fluids right then and there.
3. Talk! Just do it. Don’t yell, don’t lecture, but talk in a soft voice as often as is comfortable. One of the nurses told me to speak up for myself as I was trying to signal messages for my wife to relay. The nurse explained that the more we use our throat, the less likely the muscles will become stiff and swollen. This greatly helps during recovery and makes it a little easier.
4. Trust your doctor! This is my second surgery with my ENT doctor and he is absolutely great. Do not go into a surgery with a doctor that does not instill 100% confidence in you before hand.
5. Once home, make sure to start hitting the liquids hard! Even if it hurts a bit, start drinking as much as you can until your eyeballs float. Best advice I received before my surgery and the best that I can pass on as well.

Okay, enough rambling here. The day of surgery was sort of a blur minus the constant praying before hand. By far, the surgery process is probably the scariest part going in to this process but in hindsight is by far the easiest phase. Just put your fears in the Lord’s hands and say a little prayer; you will get through this.

As I stated in a previous post, my tonsils were yanked from my body a week ago this Thursday. I have been posting at another site that has a support group for people going through this but I soon realized that the site stinks and the administrator “archives” things way too frequently. So I decided to start posting here on my own blog the experience’s that I am having on the road to recovery. Who knows, just maybe someone will stumble across this site and find encouragement as opposed to the doom and gloom read elsewhere on the intranet. In the following posts, I will try to break things down by day or group days together if nothing significant happened during this time. Off to day 1….

So how much fun does a tonsillectomy sound like? The first thing I usually think of is ice cream, mounds and mounds of glorious ice cream. Really, that is all there is to it. Make an appointment with your ENT, pony up a thousand dollars or so, and then stand in line at local creamery to start indulging. Easy as 1-2-3!

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Received a CNN breaking news alert text earlier today on my cell phone letting me know that Michael Jackson’s gold casket was on stage at the Staples Center. Wow, thanks CNN! Thank goodness I was aware of that breaking news. Not to be outdone by themselves, CNN followed that up with a news alert text letting me know that Jackson’s daughter said he was like the best father ever. Boy, I feel so much better knowing these tidbits of information. When did journalism in this country die? Between this sick obsession with the accused child molesting freak show and the undying devotion to the “One”, journalism is long dead here in the States.

Where is the questioning of all the spending being done by Washington? The hard hitting stories on what Cap and Trade really means to the average American family and the future generations that this country is screwing for their personal gain today? We have officially lost our independent journalists and I fear because of it that we have also failed at the experiment our founding fathers started all those years ago. The founding fathers seemed concerned enough back in the day to make sure they include a freedom for the press; it was key to ensuring fair, democratic information was distributed to the masses. I propose today that we call our representatives and demand that they put forth an amendment giving us the people freedom from the press. I suggest we call that the Fishdeck Act of 2009. Now go make that phone call.

So, the other day I applied for a position with a county agency, specifically a county community college district. To be completely forth coming I applied for two positions, one that matched my experience although I was short the college degree that I will have in a few months, and the other was a much lesser job for which I was very overqualified. Anyway, I get called in for an interview for the lesser of the two positions. Oh wait, first I had to go take a test for the position that involved looking at a picture of Microsoft Office (2003 edition) toolbars and identifying the icons. That was the qualification for this position apparently, being able to identify an icon in a blurry photo. Ten years in the IT field, mostly as an administrator, and that was the first time I ever had to pick an icon out of a lineup.

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Just a quick note to kick things off. Again. Are the American people really ok with a foreign court pursing prosecution of Executive Branch officials? Isn’t that our job as Americans to either remove the President, and thus his advisers, via national elections or through impeachment by our representatives? Allowing this farce to continue will only ensure that every time America steps out of line in the eyes of the International Community some retard of a judge somewhere will claim jurisdiction. Our way of life, our freedom, cannot survive the meddling of foreign powers that have their, not our, best interest in mind.

With more and more Americans feeling the effects, either directly or indirectly, of the economic slowdown, there are a few things to keep in mind. The first is that God is in control. I really could stop there because that sums up where our focus should be, on God. Since as a nation we have turned our back on God, believing that we are somehow bigger than He, there are a few other things we should keep in mind.

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Yeah I just couldn’t stay away from this dumb blog. Actually I could but since this is one of the few things I can do for free I am back to writing. The only difference going forward will be less emphasis on politics. These days there seems to be enough outrage at politicians on both sides of the aisle, no need for me to add my voice consistently to the growing noise on the interwebs. Although I will probably scream anyway in future posts because the state of this nation is bugging me daily. What other topics will be covered going forward? (It is weird asking questions of yourself that no one will actually ask isn’t it? Oops, just did it again!) The quick answer is whatever is bugging me that day, which today is my lousy employment situation (back to that later today). Anyway, welcome back self, it is good to have you here again….