So those (both) of you who are not on Facebook will be happy to hear that I finally had my throat surgery yesterday. And not a moment too soon because I was two days into yet another cough and had just hacked up the first bit of lung butter the day prior. I did not share this bit of info with the doctors, lest they choose to send me home after having already risen early and made the trek to Antioch Kaiser.
Yeah, so we arrived around 7:30, checked in and waited. And waited. My surgery apparently was not scheduled until 9:30. I was called in for all the prep work; the stripping down to nothing (which I don't understand but hey, if the nurses wants to sneak a peak during surgery what the hell do I care? I'm a giver, though not much of one) getting the IV, answering the same dozen questions at least three times from three different people, and then waiting some more.
They finally wheeled me into the surgery arena around 9:45. Waiting for me were the surgeon, the anaesthesiologist, and at least three other nurses. My name was written up on a white board along with my procedure. The team did a round-robin of what they were responsible for, the equipment they had, etc. Hell, I have expected them to huddle up and give a "go team" before knocking me out. It was pretty impressive though.
That's about all I remember from the surgery. I woke up an hour or so later with an oxygen mask on my face and Lisa at my side. I don't recall what else happened at the hospital. Lisa got some prescriptions, I got dressed and they wheeled me out. All in all I felt OK, but by the time we got home I was wiped out and crawled into bed.
As the afternoon wore on I started feeling really nauseous nauseated (thanks, John), the after effects of the anaesthesia I'm told, and I developed a splitting headache, the effects of not having my morning caffeine I'm speculating. That was pretty much how the rest of the night went; headache, barfing and trying to sleep.
When Lisa finally came to bed I was still tossing and suffering, so I got up and roamed the house for hours, not comfortable enough to stay still, though I managed to sneak in short naps on the couch between walks. The motrin was doing nothing and I was afraid to take anything stronger since my stomach was finally feeling better, but I broke down around 3AM and took some Excedrin with caffeine and that seemed to finally do the trick. I crawled into bed around 4 and was up before the boy left for school at 8:15. I stumbled out to the kitchen and he gave me a big hug. I think he was happy to see me up and around.
SO it's now Thursday around 1:00 PM and I'm starting to feel the effects of my long night. I do plan to go to work today though as I don't feel horrible enough to miss another day. I'm only allowed to talk 5-minutes of every hour for the next week or two. I have no idea how that's going to happen, but I'll give it a shot. My throat doesn't actually hurt it's my neck that's sore. My hunch is that they had my head tipped backwards during the surgery.
Aren't you happy to see something here other than a theme song?
Congrats, Joe. Glad you're okay. How are you going to not talk?
Posted by: Pambasilea | February 02, 2012 at 06:33 PM
Yeah, that's going to be the tough part. My mom calls on the phone and then in her message says "Don't pick up...blah, blah, blah...." I dug out a dry erase board for communicating with the fam. Far from ideal.
Posted by: heyjoe | February 02, 2012 at 07:17 PM
Glad to hear things went well, Joe.
One point of English a lot of docs are reminded of daily, to my much more erudite friend:
http://phrogz.net/nauseous
Nauseated means to feel like barfing.
Nauseous means to cause nausea.
I always bite my tongue, but I couldn't help myself with you :) GET WELL!
John
Posted by: JohnF | February 03, 2012 at 08:18 AM
Correction made. Thanks, John. I'm sure Pamba caught the same mistake but held her tongue.
Speaking of tongues, they also took a little chunk out of mine because the dentist was concerned about some white globular and they wanted to check out. My tongue hurts more than my throat does, which doesn't really hurt much at all, except when I cough.
Posted by: heyjoe | February 03, 2012 at 09:17 AM
ouch
Posted by: JohnF | February 03, 2012 at 09:23 AM
Hope you are feeling better & so glad for you that you didn't have to wait - again!
Posted by: t | February 03, 2012 at 02:12 PM
Glad you're doing better, Joe. Du and I were praying for you. I'm not worrying about how you're going to talk less, I'm more worried about how you're going to stop singing! LJ
Posted by: Jude | February 04, 2012 at 07:53 AM
Hope you're feeling better! Is the classic post-tonsillectomy treatment of limitless icecream a possibility for you? If so, abuse it!
Best wishes from a mind-numbingly cold south of France!
Posted by: Kirsty | February 04, 2012 at 07:07 PM
Jude - Yes, it's been a struggle not to sing in the car. Sometimes I just turn off the radio so as not to be tempted.
Thanks Kirsty. Actually the pain has not been bad, not that I wouldn't choose to abuse ice cream privileges regardless. Stay warm. Drink more red wine.
Posted by: heyjoe | February 05, 2012 at 12:22 PM
I can't believe no one else has hit yet on the point that Joe could JUST as easily been 'nauseous' as 'nauseated'. This is Joe we're talking about, right?
I hope your voice is all back to normal by now!
Posted by: jf | February 14, 2012 at 09:00 AM