Entries Tagged 'Tonsillectomy' ↓

Okay, had to post a quick update even though I am starting to feel twice my age since all I can talk about these days is my health. Tomorrow will be six weeks since my surgery and I have to say I feel pretty good. The throat is still sore at times when I yawn and the swelling has not completely gone away. My doctor said that I should expect another few weeks to a few months before everything feels 100% (basically the swelling on one side will finally subside). Otherwise everything has been good and I cannot wait for my ears to start draining like they should once the swelling is gone. That will be the magic moment and the main reason I had this surgery in the first place. Good luck if you are about to have this surgery, the horror stories out there are rare, so don’t worry yourself sick (I did, I know how you feel).

For those of you that are drugged out right now and stumbled across this site at 3am because something doesn’t seem right, you are worried about the recovery, worried about the surgery, couldn’t sleep, or were bored with no one else in the house to talk to at this time of the morning, please leave a comment to say hello. I try to check the site at least every other day but at times am away for a few weeks so please do not feel as if no one cares about what you are going through. I may not know who you are right now but please know that I am praying for you to have a safe, speedy recovery.

As I write this it has been two weeks to the day since my tonsillectomy. The two days I am writing about here are the reason I am so late in posting to the site and I can’t believe how quickly things went downhill. Woke up early in the morning on day 6 and had a nasty taste in my mouth. I went to the bathroom and started spitting up little traces of blood. Nothing serious but in the process of rinsing I happen to notice that my scabs looked like they were starting to come off. Throughout the day I would have little sensations of blood and the feeling of something stuck in the throat. No big deal, just annoying.

The morning of day 7 however was a little worse. I woke up in the early hours of the morning with the sensation of choking. Somehow in the middle of the night (morning) I started choking on I’m guessing a piece of scab and my body’s coughing reaction was enough to wake both my wife and myself up. I ran to the bathroom, spit in the sink, and noticed a fair amount of blood (it seems like a lot when it is coming out of your own mouth but I know now it wasn’t enough to be concerned about since it stopped pretty quick). After some rinsing and what not, the bleeding stopped and I had an appointment to see my ENT who made me feel much better.

Along with the very minor bleeding came an annoying pain in the ears and throat that I had not experienced the first few days after surgery. The throat and ear pain was bad enough that I had trouble getting liquids down. The pain does go away but for a few days there I could do nothing more than lay down, take meds, try to drink water, and watch TV.

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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