Wednesday July 8, 2009 – Day of Surgery

My mom and I arrived at the Surgery Center at 7:35am. My surgery is scheduled for 8:45am. I check in at the reception desk, and sign the usual paperwork. A wristband is slapped on my right wrist, and I sit down and read a few pages of a book until we are called back. I’d say we waited only 5-10 minutes. The nurse takes me back and sends me to the bathroom to pee in a cup and change my clothes. Thankfully, I am allowed to keep my pajama bottoms on underneath the obligatory open-backed hospital gown. At least the gown isn’t paper… Real fabric, and a sturdy thread-count to boot. Also, I get some nice tan socks with rubber bits on the bottom for traction. The rubber is even in the shape of a smiley face! How cheerful! When I am finished in the bathroom, I go to my bed where my mom is waiting. My last name is taped to the bottom of the bed, so no chance of losing me. I sit on the bed at the nurse’s bidding, and she takes my temperature with a funny little disposable plastic strip. She has me take two Tylenol and a Phenergan (anti-nausea med) with a sip of water. My blood pressure is taken, and now its time for the thing that makes me nervous – the IV. I’m not scared of needles, or even blood or pain, but the last time I had to have an IV, it was a traumatizing experience because they couldn’t find a vein to get it in! Lots of poking and pain and bruises everywhere. I am really hoping at this point that I will not have a repeat performance. Granted, last time I was dehydrated from a God-awful bowel prep (but that is another story entirely!), and I am praying that this time will be different. I tell the nurse about my previous experience, and says she has had trouble getting IVs herself, but assures me that she won’t have a problem. (Like I’ve never heard that particular line before!) She ties off the tourniquet, and has me hang my arm down and pump my fist… “Wow, you don’t have any veins showing, do you? I’d better get the smaller catheter.” She comments as she examines my arm, and I groan inwardly. Great, just what I need to hear right now! “Well, there IS one here, which is usually our ‘desperate’ site… Let me see your other arm.” She commands, and I show her my right arm. “…Nope, lets just stick with this arm.” So she numbs the ‘desperate’ vein (on the inside of my left wrist) and puts the IV in. It goes in blessedly quickly and painlessly. I breathe a big sigh of relief, and tell her she did a good job. She chuckles and says “I told you it wouldn’t be a problem.” Well, at this point the potential worst is over with, so I am feeling better. The Anesthesiologist comes in then, and explains what he is going to do. He looks in my throat and exclaims “Oh yeah! You’ll be happy to get those out!” (Yeah, ya think?) I sign another form, and then my surgeon, Dr. Spiess, comes in and shakes my hand. He asks me if I’m ready and I say “Oh yeah!” so he says he’ll see me soon. The nurse comes back and says Dr. Spiess had a cancellation this morning, so I’ll be going into surgery 20 minutes earlier than scheduled. That makes me happy. I’m ready to get this over with. I’ve already said my goodbyes to the huge hunks of tissue in the back of my throat. I will not miss them. The nurse injects my “cocktail” of drugs to make me relax and says I may start to feel dizzy. I can feel burning as the drugs enter my veins, and I do feel dizzy almost right away. I lay my head back and then…. I wake up in recovery.

I don’t remember being wheeled into the Operating Room at all. Not even moving down the hall, which is interesting, because for my past surgery (laparascopy of the abdomen for endometriosis) I remember very clearly being wheeling into the OR and moved onto the table before the anesthesia was given. I expected to wake up with bad sharp pain in my throat, but I was very pleasantly surprised to only have a mild sore throat. I had more of a sensation of thickness in my throat than pain. The nurse tells me the surgery went great. I believe she asked me how my pain was (I was still a little out of it!) and I’m pretty sure I told her a 3. (They make you rate your pain from 0-10, ten being the worst) She smiles approvingly and hands me a little cup with orange liquid in it. Lortab, she tells me, or liquid Vicodan. I take it, and am happy that it does not hurt much to swallow. She then hands me a Styrofoam cup with ice water and tell me to drink. (It is extremely important to drink water with this surgery. You MUST stay hydrated, or the pain and risk of complications is worse.) I drink the water and start crunching on the ice chips and it does feel good on my throat. She asks me if I feel nauseated, and I tell her no. Thankfully, my body seems to handle anesthesia very well. I’ve never had any negative reactions at all. She says I am doing excellent and after a few minutes, she tells me to stand up and go to a recliner chair nearby. I stand up just fine, and she makes sure I’m steady before helping me to the recliner. I still feel good. When I’m settled in the chair, she reclines it and wheels me around the corner behind some curtains, where she hangs up my IV and then my mom comes in and smiles at me. She tells me the surgery was VERY fast, only about 20 minutes, and that it is now 9:30am. So most of the time was spent coming out of the anesthesia, apparently. She asks me how I am feeling and I smile and say I feel much better than I thought I would. I am talking easily, which I am pleased with, and the nurse gives me more water and ice, since I finished off the first cup already. I continue powering through the ice water, and I am feeling more alert, especially when my mom gives me my glasses back, so I can see finally. The nurse gives us my discharge papers and instructions, and has my mom sign them. She tells me to not use straws (the suction can dislodge the scabs and cause bleeding), not to blow my nose for a week, try not to cough (same reason, only from the pressure) and I am free to eat anything but chips and pretzels (sharp edges are a no-no). She also gives my mom the Rx for my pain med, Hycet (liquid hydrocodone and acetaminophen). The doctors and nurses told me several times each to make sure to take my pain med on time, every 4 hours in the beginning, and don’t let it get out of control. (I take that very seriously, as I have experienced out of control pain, and let me tell you, it is NOT fun! Take your medicine!) My mom tells me that the surgeon said everything went perfectly and smooth, and there was virtually no bleeding. (Yay!) Apparently he said that my tonsils were very icky. (Not sure if that is the exact medical terminology Dr. Spiess used, but it is definitely true nonetheless!) They definitely needed yanked. The nurse came in again and told me it was time to try walking around, so she helped me up and we walked to the bathroom around the corner. (The first of the kajillion times I’ve gone today, and no end in sight. I might as well be writing this from my bathroom right now! Speaking of… be right back.)

Okay, feeling better. While I was in the bathroom at the surgery center, I took the opportunity to look at my throat for the first time. Couldn’t see real up close, but I could definitely see white patches on each side. I was told that is the normal color of scabs in the throat, they look white because they are wet, and should remain as wet as possible. I guess I was taking longer than I should have, because the nurse opened the door and peeked in while I was drying off my hands. The nurses constantly checked on me and held my arm as I walked like they thought I might fall down. I guess some people do. I felt quite good, just a bit light-headed from the pain medicine. By the time I walked back to my recliner, and the nurse asked me to rate my pain again, it was only a 1. I was very pleased with how I felt. I was anticipating feeling horrible, but I didn’t even feel that bad. I know, I know, the horribleness is coming. I am expecting that it will hit me in another day or two, but for now I am enjoying feeling good. I guess I am doing better than expected, because the nurses said more than once that I was doing “excellent”. I know I was doing better than the poor kid next to me in recovery; she started throwing up right away. I think she had a tonsillectomy as well. I wince just thinking about throwing up with my throat in this condition. Traumatizing. Poor kid. Well, she eventually stopped, and they sent her home a few minutes before me. When the nurse was satisfied that I was keeping down my ice and water, she took out my IV, and asked me if I wanted to see the anesthesiologist before I left. I said no. She then said I was cleared for discharge and left me to get dressed. She told my mom where to pick me up, and told me to sit back down to wait for her. She was determined not to let me stand or walk on my own…It was cute. :) So I obediently sat back down and waited for her to come get me to walk me to the car. She made sure I was settled in the passenger seat, and we said our thank yous and goodbyes. Then it was off to the pharmacy for my meds. I had my dose of liquid Vicodan at 9:10am (they wrote it on my discharge papers) and I was due for first dose of Hycet at 1:10pm. It was now 10:35am.

I was feeling good so I told my mom we could go to the store first, instead of dropping me off at home. I was glad I was feeling so good, because we ended up having to go to two stores, and still came home empty handed. Apparently, Hycet is not a very popular drug, so some pharmacies don’t even carry it. We had a list of pharmacies that keep it in stock, but even the Walgreens and CVS didn’t have the full quantity for me. My Rx said 600 mL, but Walgreens only had 60 mL, and CVS only 70 mL. That wouldn’t even be enough for one full day! I am supposed to take 15 mL (1 Tablespoon) every 4 hours. So we went home frustrated, and my mom called around and found that Kroger pharmacy had the full quantity, so she went back out to get it for me. Not to scare anyone, but it is an expensive drug. For me, at least. Rx meds go toward my deductible, so I have to pay the full price until my deductible is met. 600 mL of Hycet cost me $148.14. Ouch. But I’d prefer the pain in my wallet over the pain in my throat. So I sucked it up and paid it. I did receive a $20 rebate form from the Surgery Center for it. That should have tipped me off to how expensive it is. Oh well. When I got home, my dad and then my sister called. They were both surprised when I answered the phone and was able to talk to them. I keep continually drinking ice water at home, and my mom made me 2 runny eggs, which went down fine. Then I had a vanilla yogurt, which felt fine also. My throat started hurting more as the morning wore on, until it was a steady sore throat. Still not very bad though. I looked closer at my throat in my mirror at home, and I am surprised by how deep the holes are. It looks like the sides of my throat have been carved out with a melon baller. In a sense, I guess that’s exactly what happened. I asked my Dad to take a picture of my throat, which you can see here:

I took my first dose of Hycet at 1:10pm, (it is pink, which surprises me, because the doc said not to eat anything pink/red/purple because it looks like blood.) It burned a little going down, but not enough to even wince at. My throat started feeling better quickly. Interestingly, when I eat, my tongue feels a bit numb. Not excessively so, just enough to notice a strange sensation. A few hours later, I felt hungry again, so I ate 2 more eggs and a bowl of cream of wheat. By this time my throat is hurting again, worse than before. It feels like when I had tonsillitis, in that it only really hurts when I swallow or talk, but the pain is not as severe as tonsillitis…yet. I am now eating a mango ice pop and, of course, drinking ice water. My ears feel ever so slightly sore. It is getting a bit harder to talk, I prefer to stay quiet for the most part, but I can talk if I want. The bad pain will come, I know, I can feel it, but for now I really can’t complain.