Got my tonsils out today.
As with most of my life, I appear to be running about 20 years behind the rest of the population on this. For things like learning to knit or joining a martial arts class, that’s not necessarily bad. But for getting your tonsils out, apparently, the experience is much more painful as an adult than as a child.
So let’s cover the basic questions first:
Yes I can eat ice cream all week if I want to, though they actually recommended shakes and smoothies over dairy products because of mucous production.
Yes I get two weeks off. Yesterday this sounded like a great opportunity to get some small things done around the house, but today post-surgery I’m convinced I’ll be asleep for the whole time. I’ve now been awake for almost a half hour and it’s closing in on the longest I’ve been awake since they took the loppers to the inside of my throat.
Right now it feels like the worst sore throat or case of strep or whatever that I’ve ever had, and that’s with the pain drugs having worn off. If I could stay awake when the drugs were in effect, I’d probably feel ok when not swallowing.
I have zero appetite.
I also have a whole new appreciation for my iPhone and my iPad. Since I can use them from the sofa comfortably (unlike my desktop or even my 17″ laptop) they’re my main source of communication when my throat hurts too much to talk. I cant imagine how isolated or frustrated I’d feel without them.
I still swear Steve Jobs designed the iPad when he realized how much using a computer in a hospital bed sucks. No one else believes me, but I say it’s no coincidence the guy stuck in a small sterile room for weeks at a time devised a one-button computer with good-sized keys and the ability to complete the day-to-day tasks that keep us as part of the human race. His liver cancer was the greater hands-on study of technology in a medical setting that an innovator could ask for.
Having an extremely limited ability to communicate by sound has also given me a new desire: to find a charity (or charities) that provide children with language issues iPads so they can interact with their world.
If you know of any, can you drop them in the comments?
I’m falling asleep writing this, so you’ll hear from me again later.
First congratulations you are in the minor leagues of the UPPP Procedure. Been there ain’t no fun, remember with a UPPP they start you out with no food for 14 days and don’t get off the dope. I did BOY was that a dumb mistake!
Here is a thought, lonely as it might be. With your background in sign, and kids with hearing and speech problems and your sisters background in charity work why don’t you get together and create that electronic solution you dreamed of (even if it was drug induced) to help kids with language problems, and to supply them with hardware, so they can come out of their cave of silence?
Hope you feel better.
I actually can’t think of anyone who has had their tonsils out while I knew them — you might be the first one. It seemed to be a stock plot device on TV for a while. So I don’t think you’re behind the population, just having something done that they didn’t. Sorry to hear you’re having pain & anorexia (medically speaking – look it up!).
I think you’re absolutely right about Steve Jobs’s hospital time and the iPad – I remembering imagining that when the iPad first came out. Have we talked about this before? (For the record, he had pancreatic cancer, and a liver transplant, but as far as I know there are no reports of him having liver cancer)
Here’s a charity you might want to consider: http://www.stellamarie.com/index.php/2010/12/10/free-ipads-for-asd-kids-through-hollyrod-foundation-1
Be well — Patrick
I know there is a new app for the iphone/ipad that let’s kids with communication disorders communicate. Shannon and I were talking about it the other day. It was actually pretty cool but we found the same challenge – how to get the hardware.
And just rest and take your meds the whole time. When they fixed my nose, I took my vicodin as directed and never felt a thing. Of course, I didn’t really get off the couch or even sit up very much.
I hope you feel better :-) *huggles*