No more narcotics!!!

Yeyyyyyyyyy!!!!  I actually stopped taking them when my husband witnessed how miserable they were making me, and told me I should try to only take tylenol.  I ran out of the liquid stuff this morning and can swallow the pills, so it looks like I'm done with the liquid medication too.  I'm praying that this is it, and that I am FINALLY recovering.
I'm still not eating much but I ate some tortellini and I'm eating some soft cookies.

I am seriously considering trying the new weight watchers.  I'm not really interested in meetings and weekly torture sessions, I mean weigh-ins.  I however am very interested in getting my portion control back in check, getting the gym (when I'm allowed) and cooking healthy food for both my husband and I. I love baking, sometimes too much, and want to focus on healthy eating, not sugary starchy things.

My grandmother visited today! She was visiting her inlaws about 90 miles away and drove down to visit me for a couple of hours. I hadn't seen her in awhile, so I was really excited to see her.  We sat and talked about life, family, how much I look like my cousin's daughter at her age, and baking.  She's been building a house for years with her husband, and we used Google map so that we could see her land and where they are building.

Thats about it for now...my throat hurts and I talked and did more today than I have since I had the surgery. I think crashing on the couch would be a lovely idea now. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz........

Jinx?

I finally feel like I am on the road to recovery! I am worried that I will say this however, then something will happen and I'll feel awful again. Day 5 was by far the most pain and it has gone downhill from there.  Today I've taken the narcotic painkiller once in a small dose, and then just the tylenol.  I wanted to see how much of the pain killing effect the tylenol had. So far, it is more effective than the narcotic!
It hurts when I talk, but sigh, I can't stop.  I try writing stuff down but I suck at that.
My stomach has been dicey, and I'm not sure why, although I have been eating almost nothing. I haven't been hungry at all lately, and I don't even care about food.  When I had my tonsils out all I could think about was food, and how much I wanted it!  Nope, not anymore!

Weight starting around surgery 277ish (gained 6lbs before surgery)
Current 268

hiccup hiccup gulp gulp

How often do you get the hiccups?  Are they little girlie hiccups, or loud gasping gulping hiccups?  Mine are the loud type. Loud and painful, plus I get the hiccups all the time. No, seriously; all of the time.  There have been times that I have gotten the hiccups 5-10 times a day. Is that normal? I don't think so. 
I generally get the hiccups more often than normal, so it didn't surprise me when after having tonsil surgery started getting them again except this time I started getting these weird gulping throat constricting things that made me cry out in pain.  It turns out that my medicine is causing it!  This is why I need to read the drug interaction papers that come with my medicine, because people don't normally think of hiccups as a side effect of pain medication!!

On the topic of medicine, my doctors office called in a prescription for my pain meds, but neglected to write it in such a way that the medcine had tylenol in it.  When I called to inquire (I attempted to have my friend call, but they were giving her the run around) the pharrmacist treated me like I was a moron.  I wanted to know if the medicine had tylenol in it, as my past medicine did so I was obviously not allowed to take additional tylenol.  Not a terribly difficult question to answer, but after a couple of minutes they gave me a straight answer.  
Now I'm conflicted over whether to call my doctors office and have them write the script for the exact same medicine I had before or not since...it causes hiccups.  The new stuff they gave me however means taking twice as much medication and it tastes AWFUL.  Not only does it taste awful, it makes me really dizzy/woozy and I ended up in bed, and makes my stomach super upset.  The other medicine didn't bother my stomach at all, but this stuff makes me want to throw up.  


After looking at this list, I think I'm calling the doctor in the morning.  My stomach wants me to. 


The scabs are sort of starting to come off. I'm not going to torture anyone with a picture of what I describe as a 'mucus covered stalagtite.'  My uvula is huge, and I can start to see new skin developing on the left side.

What do people think if cable? I thought that I desperately needed it, and couldn't wait to get it again when we moved.  Now that I have it, I'm not really impressed.  It is like there are 500 shows that have just been cycled around over and over again for a decade.  While I miss the interface, I can get almost everything I want on hulu, or online.  I think when I get a new computer I will want to ditch the cable.  What do you think?  My experience seems to make it even more obvious that the face of television viewing is changing.  

dyfunctional families, fluffy kitties, narcotics and Christmas

Rather than regale you of stories about how I didn't know I could feel this much pain, how about I talk about fluffy kitties, or my grandmother's impending visit?
Wait--narcotic time...
Okay, no wonder my throat felt so awful, it was time for my drugs.  While I am sipping my narcotic cocktail I shall continue to update.

Basically, my recovery can be summerized as 'ouch, ouch, ouch' and 'don't these drugs come in a stronger dose!?'  The first couple of days weren't too bad, but it went downhill from there, ironically at about the same time that my husband stopped giving me the full dosage of my pain meds.  We weren't sure that we wouldn't run out before we could get more, and didn't want to max the dose out.  My ears have been hurting pretty badly from the weird traveling pain. Who knew that your ears, sinuses, tonsils and teeth were all at the same level and could ALL hurt at the same time!

I think that I am starting to lose the scabs. I am going to let this process happen however it wants, and do nothing to facilitate it! I was reading about people eating toast to make the scabs come off, and I wanted to smack them.  Seriously, people?  Isn't that FIRST thing the surgeon told us NOT to do? It is this interesting burning sort of pain that goes from a 3-4 to 9 when I swallow. That is just swallowing spit, now if I try to EAT anything it is off the charts.  I made myself eat pasta last night, and my stomach was ok with it, but I paid for it with a lot of pain. Even my jaw hurt.

One of the interesting side effects of these drugs are weird dreams that just don't stop, that I remember.  I also had an Andy Warhol moment where I could see our black cat changing colors. He made a vibrant blue, and a rather pretty pink.  It was odd. Kids--stay off the drugs!

Now on to life that isn't painful. Omg my cat is so adorable! This isn't a shocker for anyone that knows my kitten, that he is the cutest thing on God's green earth, but he has really outshone himself during my sickness.  He comes up and lays with me for hours, even letting me pet him while he's sleeping, or he'll actually sleep on me.  He usually doesn't want to do anything that can involve someone moving while he is sleeping.  He gets into the tub and gets soaking wet too, so all of the sudden I have a very happy, wet, purring cat rubbing all over me. hilarious.

Moving on...my grandmother is coming to visit.  She's driving down here from where she's visiting in-laws in Pennsylvania.  My gma and mother have a strained (to say the least) relationship, and I've always felt stuck in the middle.  My gma may have not been a good mom, but when she had to step up and take care of us when my mom couldn't, she didn't do a bad job. We were loved, fed, and raised around our other cousins.  Perhaps this is why I have such a love of communal living now, since I was raised with my cousins and always felt like some part of me was taken away when we moved away from them.This said, I disagree with a lot of things that she's done, but I would like her to be a part of my life, and a part of the lives of our future kids.  A totally respects how my mom feels, b/c he feels the same about my mom, but I would at least like for him to meet her.

This will be the first 'grandparent' that he will have met actually. He hasn't met much of my extended family at all. Wait, I don't think he has met ANY of my extended family at all.  We had a rather whirlwind relationship, and marriage, moving, jobs and moving again have kept him from being able to travel with me up north to visit.  Hopefully now that we are in a more central location I can get him to visit with me more often. I quite enjoy the company of much of my family, and would like to show off my fabulous husband.

I'm not stressed about gma visiting, but I am annoyed that I am still too ill to clean and organize my house better, and since we just moved into, much of it is still in boxes.  I started making to-do lists last night while in bed.  Thinking about what needs to be done however is a lot easier than getting up and doing it, especially when post-operative pain, strict rules against 'working' and narcotics are in effect.  For the record--I bring up the narcotics because even when I had surgery or injury in the past I never took them for more than 48 hrs. I hated how they made me feel loopy, tired and grouchy.  This time I haven't had any other choice since even with them the pain can be almost unbearable.  You literally are just waiting it out.

How was your Christmas? Did you share it with fluffy kitties, dysfunctional families, or narcotics? Please share!

Updates...continued

I am laying in bed, on Christmas with a cat sprawled across my chest, a laptop on my lap and some gum in my mouth.  I can't really complain! Newton is the snuggliest kitty and makes being bed ridden so much more pleasurable.
My mouth hurts--especially the roof of the mouth, which must have been traumatized in some way during the surgery.  My throat, aside from feeling like there is something in it, doesn't hurt except when I swallow and then it REALLY hurts.  My ears are starting to hurt too, so I'm chewing gum which seems to help.
Getting through the night is difficult, as I have to get up to use the toilet, or take medicine, or drink water as soon as I actually get to sleep.
I feel bad for my husband because he is trying to get work done, but I need stuff from him. Yesterday I was in pain and needed snuggles and he was totally there to take a nap with me.  He has been awesome keeping track of when I can take my meds because based on pain, I need them basically hourly.  I'm worried that is is going to get even MORE painful.
When you are told to stick to liquids, it isn't because you can't swallow solids, it is because they come back UP, after getting stuck in your throat.  Just an FYI if you think that eating bread on day 2 is a good idea--it wasn't! I'm just sticking to apple juice slushies and jello. I haven't really been getting hungry, and have some pre-surgery weight to lose, because I actually let myself eat things like red meat and cookies so I'm not going to wither away and die lol.
Now I am going to continue to catch up on hulu with snuggles from the kitty.
Merry Christmas.  What are you doing this year?

sleep is the enemy? Who is sleeping??

They say sleep is the enemy after a tonsillectomy since you never want to let your throat dry out. What isn't mentioned is that you can't sleep even if you want because you're up every 45 minutes peeing out all those fluids you drank and eating more jello to stave off hunger pains at 4am. Oh yeah, I also love sucking on hard candy since things that aren't sweet at all, for some reason, taste dirty. Werthers toffees are my favorite by far since I never allow myself candy this is a rare treat.
A made me scrambled eggs this morning that were heavenly.  The problem is getting them down. It isn't hard to chew--but when you get to the actual swallowing part, thats where things get dicey.  It's hard getting used to the feeling of crap constantly in your throat and sometimes food feels like it gets stuck. Talking last night and eating some naan was probably a mistake for that reason. I'm going to try mashed potatoes tonight, but that might not work...generally my pain has increased to a 3 constantly to a 1 constantly, but a 6-7 when swallowing.  The other weird thing is it feels like when I swallow, stuff isn't actually going down! I'm left with half of it still in my mouth, so on top of everything else I have to relearn to swallow.  


More later--battery is dying.

Surgery Update--days 1 and 2

I seriously freaked out about this surgery for nothing.  See, when I had sinus surgery two years ago I had a nurse that was ready to kick me out as soon as I came out from under the general anesthetic.  The thing was, I was in horrible pain, still really confused, incredibly nauseous, and they had given me percoset for the pain after I got out of the OR.  It wasn't a happy combination and the whole experience left a bad taste in my mouth.  That said, this surgery has been a relative walk in the park in comparison.
I woke up with a sore throat, and stuff in my chest. I couldn't see well enough, or talk to find a nurse, so I just started waving my hand in the air--that did the job!  I coughed up some mucus (so gross) but that relieved the weezey feeling in my chest, and then I passed out again while listening to the little girl next to me watch Dora.  I couldn't focus my eyes and the nurse explained to me that was because of the general anesthetic wearing off.

The nurses were fantastic, kind and I got to talk to everyone before hand. I had my own personal nurse after I came to, and both my husband and my friend were allowed to sit with me, in my own quiet room. The nurse talked to me, explained to me what was going on etc. I remember asking her if her 'job was to talk to stoned people all day,' to which she laughed and said it was.  I also commented, after I stood up at how short she was, which I slightly regret, but I was under the impression that she was my height, not a good 8 inches shorter. I was stoned, and surprised.   I don't really remember the ride home, so maybe I slept then. Actually now that I think about it, all I remember is some traffic, and arriving home.  Bringing a pillow was an excellent idea.
Only one thing happened that annoyed me through this entire experience.  They wouldn't, weren't allowed actually to give me a small shot of lidocaine in my hand before inserting the IV.  They claimed I could wait until I got into the OR, and have them do it (which I will do next time!!), or suck it up and let them do it.  IF I were hydrated, it wouldn't have been too bad, but I have crappy veins on the best of days, and it was pretty damn painful. When she took it out though, it was the TAPE that hurt more than anything else. Other than that, I have no complaints.
My friend, MJ has her tonsils out at the same place, by the same doctor and said she was miserable about them trying to get her to eat a popsicle before she was allowed to go home.  I wanted that popsicle like I was dying in the desert and it was the only water for miles. After I started to eat it though, I remember that I HATE the sickeningly sweet taste of popsicles and asked for apple juice instead.  Has anyone else noticed that hospitals have the best ice EVER? It is easy to chew, melts quickly and tastes good.  We have crushed ice here, but it tastes a little dirty, even with a clean filter. It is really annoying.  Apple juice with hospital ice is the best tasting substance in the world.
The first day all I had was jello, and I was eating it every time I woke up (every 90 minute or less) to drink through the night.  I went through, I believe 4 IV bags, and a ton of water before I had to go to the bathroom and then all of the sudden I had to pee every 10 minutes.  I have some happy kidneys!  The jello boosted my fluid intake, and helped a lot.  The wetter I keep my throat,  the easier it is to swallow, even when my meds have worn off.
Today I started sucking on candy (like Werther's toffees) and ate some lipton's soup with noodles. That was delicious!  My throat seems to like warm and cold. I have some frozen peas pressed up against my neck, but I'm not sure they are doing anything except helping make my neck less sore.  I am having gatorade watered down, apple juice with ice and water.  I'd rather suck on ice than drink water though.
I can 'talk,' but it does sort of hurt. It would hurt a lot if I were to try right now while the medicine is pretty much worn off (7 minutes till my next dose).
I made a mistake this morning of going downstairs since I was nice and drugged up.  I somehow got the hiccups on my way down though and choked on water attempting to get rid of them.
Other than that...I'm good!  Let see if the pain gets a lot worse in the next couple of days. I don't have ear pain yet, but apparently that is next.
I blame all bad grammar on my drugged state, and not my inability to proofread my own work!

depression

Right now I am sitting on my new ikea couch with my kitty on my shoulder. He apparently loves this position since the couch behind him supports him, but he is still close to me.  My cat has always loved sleeping across my ample chest and would get annoyed that he couldn't sleep across my husband's without slipping down. I think that he likes feeling me breathe actually. Having him with me makes me feel so warm and cuddly.  

Its been a hard road this last week to find warm and cuddly.  For the first time in three years I tried to go off of my medicine and see if I could cope. I couldn't. I was okay for about a week but a bit grouchy and irritable and for some reason really judgemental of my husband.  Last night it came to a boiling point. I was just so incredibly miserable and after my husband and I got into it just one time too many, he asked me to get my medicine.  

Today, while I was exhausted this morning as a side effect from the meds, I felt so much better. I don't feel like everything is magnetized 1 million fold in an attempt to drive me crazy, I slept well last night instead of waking up constantly, and I don't feel super anxious about my impending surgery. 

Surgery in two days...jello and pudding have been bought!  I hope to blog daily about my recovery.  

Yesterday was a rough day overall though.  I had a great time in the morning visiting my cousins but when we went to our house to finish packing up, after I discovered how much fun spackelling is, I slid down the hill and fell. On...my..back. Yeah, that back with the herniated discs that I go to the gym/chiro for? Fell all of my weight on it, feet just slipped out from under me and down I went. My new boots had nooooo traction in the snow at all apparently.  I just started crying, afraid of any potential damage.  I'm sore today, but surviving.  My friend and I made carrot juice out of ten pounds of carrots, and I was ok to stand through that.  

more later...it is hard to type with a Newton on me.

moving, snowing and surgery oh my!

We are moved! Sorry I haven't updated lately, I was having internet issues and then I just got lazy. It seems like there are always a million things to do, and a million things that don't get done.  It is a little exhausting to keep up with.  My new house is awesome, and I really do love it.  I really miss WV though.
Last week I found out that I am going to have my tonsils taken out. I figured that would be the outcome to my long awaited ENT appointment, but that didn't make the idea of having surgery any less daunting.  I came home from the appointment and just cried and cried. I miss everything from not having planes flying over head, to no traffic to my cousins, to having a garage.  I miss all my kids, my friends and generally, my life.  It feels like I'm on vacation here, and I'm not sure where to go.  I have decided to just prepare and get through this surgery and then start figuring out what to do after that.  I have made a list of foods that I can have, what I'll need and found people to sit with me.
More later...time to sleep!

Changes...

Have you ever realized how much you love something right before it is taken away?  For example, right before you go to get your hair cut, you start wondering if you really should get it cut. Something similiar is happening to me, and I am feeling pretty guilty.  Over the last month I have become much closer to a neighbor of mine. I feel awful that this person has lived so close to me for the last year and because I wasn't comfortable walking over and knocking on her door, we didn't really hang out until now.  While I have quite a few friends that I have become much closer to over facebook and IM, I don't have many really close female friends and I hate leaving any of them.
So...these are my resolutions--a toast of sorts to a hopefully much fuller future.
This is to stepping out of the box.  This is to expanding those circles of friendship. This is to spending enough time around people to make informed decisions.  May we all be blerssed with amazing friends, and learn to love more and judge less.

The changes continue:
The house is pretty much completely packed, and we are the proud new owners of a Honda CRV and have a new house.  It's been a big week, and with the moving truck coming in 2 days, it doesn't look like it will get less hectic.  Tomorrow is my absolute last day with the girl I watch. It is going to kill a piece of me to leave her.  I can't be a nanny anymore. I love them too much.  It is officially time to have my own.  Hopefully it happens soon.  I am as ready as I will ever be!

How do you prevent yourself from feeling that guilt of not having done enough and lost opportunities?  Do you take a c'est la vie attitude towards life, or lay in bed at night and wonder 'what if?'