Day 10

Today I will check in at various times to log my recovery progress. I am just expecting day 10 to be an interesting an exciting one, although so far it isn't starting out to be very different.

10:30 a.m. -- Upon waking up this morning, I did not experience any miraculous feeling of recovery. I woke up one half hour before I was due to take my pain meds (thanks to the doorbell). The last half hour before pain meds is always tough. So, I will update again later after taking them.

*** Update: I am considering going without pain medicine today. I don't really think they do that much to help and I so want to be able to drive my car today and get out and about. I am going to try this.

****Update 2: Already re-thinking this idea about pain meds ...

So, I did take the pain meds. Overall, I feel that I am a shade better than yesterday for these reasons:

1.) It feels like the pain medicines are helping more than they were.
2.) I took a nap today and overslept my next dose of pain meds by two hours (I did wake up in terrible pain, but still, this is progress.
3.) I can eat better than in the last few days ... it's still painful and a lot of work ... but I can do it again without extreme fear.
4.) When I am not eating or talking, there are moments I feel great and forget that I am still
recovering.

Day 9 once again

I decided to change my recovery day to day 9 versus day 10. I was counting my recovery days the way I was because I was done with surgery by 10 a.m. on the day of surgery (so I called that day 1). But, I found out that this is not how my doctor's office or other people who are recovering typically count the days. You don't get credit for the day of surgery :)

I also figured this particular day 9 (today, which I had expected to be day 10) pretty much sucks as bad as the previous day 9 (yesterday) So, why call it day 10?

Day 10 is magical in my mind. I will wake up with a smile. I will breathe freely; my kids will act perfect; I will win large sums of money just for being a cool person; the stars will line up and spell my name; and I will go out to eat; have no pain; and be all done with this adventure =)

Tune in to hear about Day 10 tomorrow. The Real Day 10. It's gonna be so good!

Day 9

I called the Dr.'s office this morning. I am on the strongest pain medicine possible. Apparently, this level of pain is normal, even with a pain med. So o.k., I'm gonna get through Day 9. The worst time period thus far in my recovery was the night of Day 6 and the morning of Day 7. This pain medicine I am on right now does contribute to sleep, so I can do this.

Here is my plan. I just took the pain med and now I am eating a bowl of Vanilla ice cream (chasing down my jello breakfast!) I can't eat too much ice cream because it is almost too cold; but on occasion, it has a great numbing quality. As soon as I am done, I will take a shower and hopefully be ready to nap again :)

My mom took Ellie to preschool today and will participate with her in the classroom. I could have moved my participation day, but I knew Ellie would get a kick out of having her Nana go and then she won't have to wait so long to have her adult helper in the classroom again. At the Co-op, the kids really enjoy when their parent helps for the day. They get a special job and they just think it's really cool :) My dad is here "babysitting" me and Katie ... lol! I am so blessed to have this help and to have my family nearby and willing to be so helpful.

The most encouraging aspect of this morning was when the nurse suggested that by weekend's end, I might be feeling great. I think this has to do with the Day 10 theory on tonsillectomy recovery. So, there is hope that in the next day or 2, I will pull right out of this and be mostly recovered. I have read that it can take a full 4-6 weeks to feel totally recovered. I am o.k. with that as long as I feel mostly pretty good :)

Day 8

Day 8 has been ugly. I am on a new pain medicine now and it feels like it might work anywhere except in my mouth/throat area. I am tempted to call the doctor tomorrow and ask if I can just take a double dose of the meds since they don't seem to do much. (But, I am sure they do. My friend who is a pharmacist said that my pain med is a very powerful one.)

So, I guess I can only imagine what the pain would feel like without meds in my system. Oh yeah, it would feel exactly like it does NOW ... LOL! I tell ya, the pain med does nothing!

Anyway, mostly I can't talk now without pain. It feels like I want to rip every part of my mouth and throat out of my skin. The pain med has made me want to sleep though. As long as I am actually asleep, I am unaware of the pain. But I never sleep for long without waking up feeling some horrible sensation.

Hoping for a better tomorrow!

Day 7

Day 7 is by far my worst day so far. Excruciating pain the entire night and so much tenderness this morning. Right now I am eating a bowl of berry blue jello again. It's funny how today this jello is working for me again. This recovery is crazy like that; you never know where the comfort will come from in a given moment.

Todays goal: stick with jello only and pray a lot.

Today is a bit humiliating. I had to call my parents in for reinforcement this morning. I couldn't talk at all and was choking in my early a.m. sleep after ds went off to school. If something were to happen to me, the girls would not have been able to help of course. They were still sleeping, but I had to call for help.

My dear parents rushed right over at 7:45 a.m. to babysit me and the girls. The humiliating part is that my mom has asked my MIL to watch me for a few hours in the afternoon. It's so embarrassing but they have determined that I should not be alone (I do agree).

I am doing this for my immediate family at this point. We still need dh at work and MIL wants to help. The kids need great care. So, I am going to suck it up and get babysat =)

On another note, due to feeling so terrible this morning, I completely missed dh's call from work. Today his boss was announcing his leave from the department (where he has reigned for 20 years). I soooo wanted every detail on this. The story from the leaving boss (as of yesterday) is that he did not want to make this career change at this time. I will look forward to an evening of hearing more about this :) It's going to be a good day!!!!

Days 6 and 7

Today was Day 6 of my tonsillectomy recovery. When I wake up tomorrow, Day 7 will begin. Today was my toughest day yet. Still bearable, but some new, weird stuff set in.

Today I had episodes where it was more painful to eat than it has ever been during my recovery. But it wasn't consistent. Other times today, I felt almost all better and that I could eat anything ... or even stop pain medicines completely.

The biggest and weirdest issue I noticed today was that I experienced a lot of sensitivity to noise. My parents brought dinner over and my family was so loud, (mainly the kids just being kids), that I felt like the noise was coming in through my ears and hurting my tonsils. I had to leave the room and sit quietly in the living room before my throat pain could get back in line after my ears became irritated. Strange, huh?

Also, whereas the last two nights Ramen noodles felt like therapy sliding down my throat; tonight, just swallowing them at all was painful. It's too bad too because I would have loved to have finished them up. I am a hungry type of gal ... no bird-like appetite here! But, it's just too painful. Maybe I will lose some weight out of this after all!

Right now I am alternating bites between a bowl of berry blue Jello and a bowl of rainbow sherbert. They each have their pluses, but I am not feeling much help from either of them tonight. I wish I had some plain 'ol Vanilla ice cream; I'm not sure why I didn't think of buying that. For the most part ice cream has felt too cold overall to me during this recovery though.

But, O.K., I am throwing out the sherbert now ... it's worthless ... it just isn't mild enough or something. It's not helping me one bit. I would like to hold fast to the Jello, but it's not working either.

Soooooo, now I am eating a peppermint .... ahhh ... thank God in his heaven for his peppermint!! I think I might survive another night in tact after all. The peppermint is doing a nice job of keeping my tongue busy. My tongue began to feel (just today) as if it has one million canker sores underneath it. I think this is referred pain as it does feel connected to my tonsil area.

I am sure hoping this is the worst that it gets! I have been so blessed, so blessed ... tune in tomorrow for an update on Day 7!

Day 5 and job stuff

Today is Day 5 of my tonsillectomy recovery. Overall, things continue to go well. It can be painful to eat, but the food is really yummy when I do. I would not say massive improvment in pain has occurred, but it has not increased either. I still feel really good, with a lot of energy ... and sleeping is going well too.

I can see why people complain about the recovery process. It does move slowly. But, I would definitely still maintain that people make way too much of it. If you want the benefits of having your tonsils out, go forth and get it done! Don't let anyone scare you away from realizing the benefits. (I am still not to the benefits yet, but I am really encouraged. It already feels like I am breathing better while my throat continues to be quite swollen.)

Something wonderful happened today. My husband's boss told him that he was leaving the department ... he is going to work somewhere else within the company (location not shared). Have you ever heard someone was leaving a position and felt nothing but pure relief? Well, that is what happened here.

I still remember a sign I used to have for my former office (given to me by a family member when I supervised a few obnoxious people along with some very cool ones).

"Everyone Brings Joy to the Office -- Some When they Enter, Others When they Leave."

All I can say here is Hallelujah and Ah-men!!!