*Tonsillectomy, shmollosectomy
Don't know if that made sense, but shut up anyways.
Soooooooooooooo - most of you know how GINORMOUS my tonsils are/were, well, friends, if you've ever slept in the same room as moi, be thankful because THEY'RE GONE NOW. Mahahahah. Although my parents have informed me (since they're listening to me over a baby monitor just in case I start screaming in pain in the middle of the night) that I'm snoring just as much as ever, although I have a feeling it has to do with the extremely intense swelling that is going on in my oral cavity.
Moving on. I was scheduled for surgery originally at 7:30 a.m., but it got bumped back to 12:30 p.m. LAME. But I was like, whatever, at least it won't be SO far into the day that I'll be starving. (Keep in mind, right now, that this is FRIDAY THE 13TH that I had my surgery on - not a lie). So anyway - we arrive at the outpatient center at 10:45, since they told us to be there at 11:00. So I check in and it only takes them 5 minutes to call my name. I'm thinking - sweet, maybe they'll start me early. Ha. Hahahahah. Ha. Hmmmmmmm. So I go into the pre-op room and as soon as I get in there, I have to put on the hospital gown and pants and socks. (I was soooo hot). Shortly after that, my pre-op nurse, Nancy (she was what made it all bearable) put my IV in - which, by the way, if you've never had an IV in your hand, thank the ever loving lord, because it sucks - and then proceeded to tell me that my doctor was backed up and I had 3 people still AHEAD of me in his list. Gggggrrrreeeaaattttt. So mom, dad and I proceeded to wait in the pre-op room for FOUR hours whilst I starved my guts out and peed like 80 times because I drained an entire IV bag plus some of the next one before I actually got to surgery. It actually all worked out pretty well because everyone was sooooooo nice to me, I think they felt bad and I had a good sense of humor about it and wasn't pitching a fit, so I think they appreciated that.
I got into the OR, they put a bunch of probes on me, and then I basically passed out. I woke up in one of those recovery rooms where there are a bunch of people, all separated by curtains. They were talking to me and I tried out my voice and it worked! I was surprised because I had no idea what to expect. They asked if I wanted apple or cranberry juice or ginger ale and I went for the cranberry. My parents came in and my pre-op nurse came with a cute little orderly to escort me to my room. He was a pretty good driver, we only slammed into something once. We got to my room and I was delighted to see that I had a roomie (groan) and she was a geriatric. Even better.
**Warning, if you have a weak stomach or are otherwise grossed out by small things like vomit or poop, do NOT read the rest of this entry. Just thought I'd warn you - but just so you know, the best parts are to come, so you really don't want to miss out**
No sooner did I get all settled in my room when I swear to god I hear Shrek in the hallway. I'm like mom, seriously, what is Shrek doing at the hospital. (Anesthesia hadn't worn off yet apparently...) and my nurse technician, James, walks in and its this 50 something grey haired guy with tats up his arms and a fucking SCOTTISH ACCENT. I just about lost my mind. He was so great. Moving on. So we were sitting there and I was being checked like every 15 minutes on my blood pressure and blood oxygen and all that business. Mom and dad were STARVING, I could tell, but they were being good since they knew I was just about ready to eat one of those supersized breakfasts at Dennys. (By this time, it was 6:00 and I had gone....almost 24 full hours without FOOD.) So I'm telling them to please go get something to eat, because I'm feeling bad and they're like, are you sure, are you sure. And I'm like GO! Then all of a sudden I got really hot and my mouth started watering. I look at mom and I go - oh my god, I'm going to throw up. Mom gets up real quick to get the nurse (there was NOTHING near me to throw up in) and by the time she got to the door, I was already spewing ALL OVER MYSELF. It was SO fucking disgusting. I threw up two huge gallons and then a little spittle at the end. Mom was like DON'T LOOK! DON'T LOOK! I think dad wanted to pass out.
Long story short, they brought in some nurses to look at my puke (danger of blood in puke) and they were FREAKING out until mom told them I had had cranberry juice in post-op. They were like, oh thank god. Hahahahah. So before they could get organized, the puke had seeped into my gown & pants & bed, and I was like, eh, cute. So my lovely Scottish NT came in to clean me up. He helped me into a chair and got me a new gown, I cleaned myself up and he re-did my bed and I got all hooked up again and settled. It was a lovely occasion. I was feeling bad for the old lady on the other side of the curtain, but that feeling badly went away later in the evening...don't worry...you'll find out. So a few minutes after I got settled, I started tasting blood. I looked at mom again and was like, um I can taste blood (which they had told me watch out for). No sooner did I say that, my mom got the nurse, she summonsed another nurse, and then two more came in, including the charge nurse, to check my throat. They said it looked fine and to let them know if it continued. It didn't, so I'm assuming it was the irritation from the puking. Yum.
So shortly after this, my savior, Rory Burpee shows up to visit me. My parents got to go eat and I visited with Rory while slowly making my way through a chocolate milkshake. It was glorious. So we chat it up, mom and dad come back, she leaves and I decide that I need to go to the bathroom. By this time, James was off duty (sadness) and Melissa was my new NT. She helped the old lady go to the bathroom and then came back and unhooked me and took me (I had to carry my IV pole and all that shit) So if you haven't seen a hospital bathroom in a patient room - heres how it goes - there is a toilet, a shower, a handicapped toilet (one of those portable ones with the arm rests on it) and a sink. Plus I'm supposed to get myself and an IV pole in there. Super. So Melissa and I are arranging ourselves so that she can step out and I can go pee when I step back into something on the floor. Any guesses? Oh yes. It was POOP. ON THE FLOOR. OF MY BATHROOM. OLD. LADY. TURD. I was like "ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. there is poop on the floor." Just like that - no joke. Thats how I said it. The NT was like oh my god. I asked her nicely to clean it off of my foot and she did so. I wanted to punch Ethel (the geriatric in my room) in the gut when I walked by, but she was sleeping and my NT was watching. So that was friggen disgusting.
So its about 8:45 and mom and dad decide that they're going to go home and let me get some rest. HAHAHAHAHAH. Right. Because Ethel decides that she is going to have loud conversations whenever a nurse comes in to check her, (mostly about what its doing outside, is it raining? is it snowing? hows the temperature? - at 2 a.m. mind you) and she also moans in her sleep. Then Captain Fucker down the hall decides he is going to throw up for 10 minutes at a time, 3 different times in the night. It was real real neat. So needless to say, I didn't get any sleep. I watched Nick at Nite, did some Sudoku, read Stephen King, listened to my iPod and watched the clock tick by.
Sometime around 2 a.m. my IV pump and the geriatrics next to me start beeping - we both were on our call buttons because they were annoying as shit, but no one came. Errrrr. So we listened to those for about 10 minutes until someone showed up. My blood oxygen level was also getting low at times (mostly because my throat was filling up with mucus) and it would beep if it got 90 or below. Neat. So again, did not sleep. I'm starting to think that it was a good thing that my surgery was later in the day, because it meant less time in that room. I basically knew ahead of time that I'd be staying overnight since I have sleep apnea and they wanted me to stay the first night just to monitor my blood oxygen levels. Mmmmmmmm.
So the next morning, my breakfast arrives at 8:45. They gave me 2 cups of tea, custard, a bunch of sugar packets, and a piece of dry toast. Ummmmmmmmmm. Just had my TONSILS out, morons. As if I dry piece of toast is going to feel very good going down. I was like um, is this a joke? Fortunately my parents showed up about that time and I found out that moaning Ethel didn't want her scrambled eggs (they gave that bitch scrambled eggs and a muffin) so she gave them to me. One good thing that crazy lady did for me.
I found out also that morning, what exactly my doctor had said about the surgery. He said that it had went well and that he didn't need to take out my adnoids because they were really small. But, if you're aware at all, about how I've been picking nasty shit out of my tonsils for months now? Pieces of food and other shit that gets stuck back there? Well, get ready for this one. Dr. Giebfried said that as soon as he sliced into my tonsils, they started oozing of that shit. NO KIDDING. They were FULL of that nasty stuff. He was like oh wow, I guess it really was time for them to come out. He said that I will feel so much better once I've healed and all the swelling goes down. That I would feel completely different after all of the recovery is over. I thought that was the greatest part. I guess that whenever I had shit that I could see in the back of my throat to pick out, it was when my tonsils were getting so full to the point that they were pushing some of it out of the caverns in my tonsils. Haha I'm totally trying to gross people out here, and I'm sure that its working.
So mom and dad basically sat there with me for 2 hours while I munched on dry toast (making it soggy enough with my spit so that I could swallow it) and Ethel's eggs. Dad went and got me some jello thank god. Mom ended up hunting someone down since no one had come to check on my in 3 hours (it was about 11 and my new nurse had come in at 8:00 to give me more meds - James was back too - yayyy!!) They came in, took out the IV, had me sign paperwork and I got dressed and got the hell out of there via wheelchair and again, a cute orderly. I think its a requirement to work at EMMC to be cute if you're an orderly.
So I got home by noon time, took a nap, visited with Shane and Christina and had dinner - mac and cheese surprisingly enough! I am so thankful to be eating solid foods! Then we watched a movie and I spiked a fever (I think the highest was 101.7) and mom tried to call the doctor but no one called her back. I ended up going to bed around 11 with a fever of about 100 and slept almost through the whole night - only getting up once to go to the bathroom and not taking any meds. When I got up this morning, my pain level was high, but I decided to stop taking percoset and just take tylenol because the other stuff was messing me up big time. So basically I've been sitting around all day and will continue to do the same until I'm fully recovered. I'm totally drained and get tired easily. My throat consistently hurts, but its not unbearable and I can swallow soft food fine. My aunt Jackie and Rory's mom both came by today to see me which was nice.
Well thats all for now. Money and flowers would be greatly appreciated. Hahahahah. KIDDING. My goal is to be able to eat crunchy things by Thursday - Crosby's is opening and I'm determined to get onion rings on opening day. :) Hope all of you who have April break have a great one - I'll be sitting on my ass for all of mine, so feel free to give me a shout.
Soooooooooooooo - most of you know how GINORMOUS my tonsils are/were, well, friends, if you've ever slept in the same room as moi, be thankful because THEY'RE GONE NOW. Mahahahah. Although my parents have informed me (since they're listening to me over a baby monitor just in case I start screaming in pain in the middle of the night) that I'm snoring just as much as ever, although I have a feeling it has to do with the extremely intense swelling that is going on in my oral cavity.
Moving on. I was scheduled for surgery originally at 7:30 a.m., but it got bumped back to 12:30 p.m. LAME. But I was like, whatever, at least it won't be SO far into the day that I'll be starving. (Keep in mind, right now, that this is FRIDAY THE 13TH that I had my surgery on - not a lie). So anyway - we arrive at the outpatient center at 10:45, since they told us to be there at 11:00. So I check in and it only takes them 5 minutes to call my name. I'm thinking - sweet, maybe they'll start me early. Ha. Hahahahah. Ha. Hmmmmmmm. So I go into the pre-op room and as soon as I get in there, I have to put on the hospital gown and pants and socks. (I was soooo hot). Shortly after that, my pre-op nurse, Nancy (she was what made it all bearable) put my IV in - which, by the way, if you've never had an IV in your hand, thank the ever loving lord, because it sucks - and then proceeded to tell me that my doctor was backed up and I had 3 people still AHEAD of me in his list. Gggggrrrreeeaaattttt. So mom, dad and I proceeded to wait in the pre-op room for FOUR hours whilst I starved my guts out and peed like 80 times because I drained an entire IV bag plus some of the next one before I actually got to surgery. It actually all worked out pretty well because everyone was sooooooo nice to me, I think they felt bad and I had a good sense of humor about it and wasn't pitching a fit, so I think they appreciated that.
I got into the OR, they put a bunch of probes on me, and then I basically passed out. I woke up in one of those recovery rooms where there are a bunch of people, all separated by curtains. They were talking to me and I tried out my voice and it worked! I was surprised because I had no idea what to expect. They asked if I wanted apple or cranberry juice or ginger ale and I went for the cranberry. My parents came in and my pre-op nurse came with a cute little orderly to escort me to my room. He was a pretty good driver, we only slammed into something once. We got to my room and I was delighted to see that I had a roomie (groan) and she was a geriatric. Even better.
**Warning, if you have a weak stomach or are otherwise grossed out by small things like vomit or poop, do NOT read the rest of this entry. Just thought I'd warn you - but just so you know, the best parts are to come, so you really don't want to miss out**
No sooner did I get all settled in my room when I swear to god I hear Shrek in the hallway. I'm like mom, seriously, what is Shrek doing at the hospital. (Anesthesia hadn't worn off yet apparently...) and my nurse technician, James, walks in and its this 50 something grey haired guy with tats up his arms and a fucking SCOTTISH ACCENT. I just about lost my mind. He was so great. Moving on. So we were sitting there and I was being checked like every 15 minutes on my blood pressure and blood oxygen and all that business. Mom and dad were STARVING, I could tell, but they were being good since they knew I was just about ready to eat one of those supersized breakfasts at Dennys. (By this time, it was 6:00 and I had gone....almost 24 full hours without FOOD.) So I'm telling them to please go get something to eat, because I'm feeling bad and they're like, are you sure, are you sure. And I'm like GO! Then all of a sudden I got really hot and my mouth started watering. I look at mom and I go - oh my god, I'm going to throw up. Mom gets up real quick to get the nurse (there was NOTHING near me to throw up in) and by the time she got to the door, I was already spewing ALL OVER MYSELF. It was SO fucking disgusting. I threw up two huge gallons and then a little spittle at the end. Mom was like DON'T LOOK! DON'T LOOK! I think dad wanted to pass out.
Long story short, they brought in some nurses to look at my puke (danger of blood in puke) and they were FREAKING out until mom told them I had had cranberry juice in post-op. They were like, oh thank god. Hahahahah. So before they could get organized, the puke had seeped into my gown & pants & bed, and I was like, eh, cute. So my lovely Scottish NT came in to clean me up. He helped me into a chair and got me a new gown, I cleaned myself up and he re-did my bed and I got all hooked up again and settled. It was a lovely occasion. I was feeling bad for the old lady on the other side of the curtain, but that feeling badly went away later in the evening...don't worry...you'll find out. So a few minutes after I got settled, I started tasting blood. I looked at mom again and was like, um I can taste blood (which they had told me watch out for). No sooner did I say that, my mom got the nurse, she summonsed another nurse, and then two more came in, including the charge nurse, to check my throat. They said it looked fine and to let them know if it continued. It didn't, so I'm assuming it was the irritation from the puking. Yum.
So shortly after this, my savior, Rory Burpee shows up to visit me. My parents got to go eat and I visited with Rory while slowly making my way through a chocolate milkshake. It was glorious. So we chat it up, mom and dad come back, she leaves and I decide that I need to go to the bathroom. By this time, James was off duty (sadness) and Melissa was my new NT. She helped the old lady go to the bathroom and then came back and unhooked me and took me (I had to carry my IV pole and all that shit) So if you haven't seen a hospital bathroom in a patient room - heres how it goes - there is a toilet, a shower, a handicapped toilet (one of those portable ones with the arm rests on it) and a sink. Plus I'm supposed to get myself and an IV pole in there. Super. So Melissa and I are arranging ourselves so that she can step out and I can go pee when I step back into something on the floor. Any guesses? Oh yes. It was POOP. ON THE FLOOR. OF MY BATHROOM. OLD. LADY. TURD. I was like "ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. there is poop on the floor." Just like that - no joke. Thats how I said it. The NT was like oh my god. I asked her nicely to clean it off of my foot and she did so. I wanted to punch Ethel (the geriatric in my room) in the gut when I walked by, but she was sleeping and my NT was watching. So that was friggen disgusting.
So its about 8:45 and mom and dad decide that they're going to go home and let me get some rest. HAHAHAHAHAH. Right. Because Ethel decides that she is going to have loud conversations whenever a nurse comes in to check her, (mostly about what its doing outside, is it raining? is it snowing? hows the temperature? - at 2 a.m. mind you) and she also moans in her sleep. Then Captain Fucker down the hall decides he is going to throw up for 10 minutes at a time, 3 different times in the night. It was real real neat. So needless to say, I didn't get any sleep. I watched Nick at Nite, did some Sudoku, read Stephen King, listened to my iPod and watched the clock tick by.
Sometime around 2 a.m. my IV pump and the geriatrics next to me start beeping - we both were on our call buttons because they were annoying as shit, but no one came. Errrrr. So we listened to those for about 10 minutes until someone showed up. My blood oxygen level was also getting low at times (mostly because my throat was filling up with mucus) and it would beep if it got 90 or below. Neat. So again, did not sleep. I'm starting to think that it was a good thing that my surgery was later in the day, because it meant less time in that room. I basically knew ahead of time that I'd be staying overnight since I have sleep apnea and they wanted me to stay the first night just to monitor my blood oxygen levels. Mmmmmmmm.
So the next morning, my breakfast arrives at 8:45. They gave me 2 cups of tea, custard, a bunch of sugar packets, and a piece of dry toast. Ummmmmmmmmm. Just had my TONSILS out, morons. As if I dry piece of toast is going to feel very good going down. I was like um, is this a joke? Fortunately my parents showed up about that time and I found out that moaning Ethel didn't want her scrambled eggs (they gave that bitch scrambled eggs and a muffin) so she gave them to me. One good thing that crazy lady did for me.
I found out also that morning, what exactly my doctor had said about the surgery. He said that it had went well and that he didn't need to take out my adnoids because they were really small. But, if you're aware at all, about how I've been picking nasty shit out of my tonsils for months now? Pieces of food and other shit that gets stuck back there? Well, get ready for this one. Dr. Giebfried said that as soon as he sliced into my tonsils, they started oozing of that shit. NO KIDDING. They were FULL of that nasty stuff. He was like oh wow, I guess it really was time for them to come out. He said that I will feel so much better once I've healed and all the swelling goes down. That I would feel completely different after all of the recovery is over. I thought that was the greatest part. I guess that whenever I had shit that I could see in the back of my throat to pick out, it was when my tonsils were getting so full to the point that they were pushing some of it out of the caverns in my tonsils. Haha I'm totally trying to gross people out here, and I'm sure that its working.
So mom and dad basically sat there with me for 2 hours while I munched on dry toast (making it soggy enough with my spit so that I could swallow it) and Ethel's eggs. Dad went and got me some jello thank god. Mom ended up hunting someone down since no one had come to check on my in 3 hours (it was about 11 and my new nurse had come in at 8:00 to give me more meds - James was back too - yayyy!!) They came in, took out the IV, had me sign paperwork and I got dressed and got the hell out of there via wheelchair and again, a cute orderly. I think its a requirement to work at EMMC to be cute if you're an orderly.
So I got home by noon time, took a nap, visited with Shane and Christina and had dinner - mac and cheese surprisingly enough! I am so thankful to be eating solid foods! Then we watched a movie and I spiked a fever (I think the highest was 101.7) and mom tried to call the doctor but no one called her back. I ended up going to bed around 11 with a fever of about 100 and slept almost through the whole night - only getting up once to go to the bathroom and not taking any meds. When I got up this morning, my pain level was high, but I decided to stop taking percoset and just take tylenol because the other stuff was messing me up big time. So basically I've been sitting around all day and will continue to do the same until I'm fully recovered. I'm totally drained and get tired easily. My throat consistently hurts, but its not unbearable and I can swallow soft food fine. My aunt Jackie and Rory's mom both came by today to see me which was nice.
Well thats all for now. Money and flowers would be greatly appreciated. Hahahahah. KIDDING. My goal is to be able to eat crunchy things by Thursday - Crosby's is opening and I'm determined to get onion rings on opening day. :) Hope all of you who have April break have a great one - I'll be sitting on my ass for all of mine, so feel free to give me a shout.