A child of God educating other children.

I am putting myself through a lot of pain in order to prepare for Student Teaching in January. I got my flu shot a couple weeks ago (no side-effects luckily) and I just got my tonsils out on Tuesday. The only thing I asked for Christmas was a tonsillectomy, and I got it! I'll be thankful for it once my recovery is over, but right now, it hurts. Twenty-two is pretty old to be getting tonsils out, but with me getting sick often, and my tonsils are usually the first thing that start hurting, and when they hurt all of me hurts, it is mandatory that I get them out before I devote myself to be around 20+ kids five days a week.

I believe I have the best doctor ever for my tonsillectomy. She is young and sweet. When I went in to let her see if I really did need my tonsils out or not she warned me of all the not-so-fun recovery I'd be going through. But when it came time for her to look at my tonsils, with a tongue depressor in one hand and the light/scope in the other she told me to open wide and didn't use any tools and said, "When do you want them out?!" Then Tuesday night after the surgery she called to check up on me. I was very surprised that a doctor would do that. I would recommend her to anyone.

I had to be at the Surgery Center at 8:45, they took me back to prepare me for surgery at about 9, and Dr. Lower came back with the biggest warmest smile when I was on my bed. I really don't think I could have asked for a better doctor. She made me very comfortable, she didn't joke about it, but was sympathetic about my nervousness. The biggest part I hated was getting the IV stuck in my arm. That thing hurt. All that I remember of the rest of it was getting the anesthesia put in my IV, then rolled back to the surgery room, moved over to the surgery table, and then waking up in the first recovery room.

I was told that the procedure only took twenty minutes, so I must of have been knocked out for a while with that anesthesia. And now I'm in the recovery stage. The first night was the worst, I was doing pretty good with what I was drinking until I ate a popsicle, and everything I had that day came up with it. So Wednesday I was very careful with what I ate, but over the whole day I was able to drink almost a whole Slimfast shake, half a cup of icecream, and half a cup of cream of chicken, and then my regular ice chips for me to eat.

My pain medicine is disgusting. I hate taking it, I don't know if it actually helps, or just makes me drowsy so I'll sleep for a while because of all the nasty alcohol that is in it. It's gross! I have some other medicine I take once a day that tastes like bubblegum, that is pretty good. Then they gave me some numbing suckers to numb the pain away. Those are pretty good, I just have to be careful to not touch it to my tongue 'cause the first day I had a numb tongue for a good while.

I can't cough or clear my throat. It hurts more than anything to laugh. It hurts to smile, talk and swallow. I still talk and swallow, sometimes smile. I usually get laughed at when I talk. My family is getting pretty good at understanding what I say. If someone doesn't catch what I said then usually someone else does, or I depend on the white-erase board my sister gave me. I think every time I have talked to Tim he has laughed at the way I talk too. I'm getting use to it, I think it is pretty funny as well, I just can't laugh about it.

So far I am feeling the best today, just super tired. The doctor said that even though I will feel like staying in bed and sleeping all day I need to make myself at least sit on the couch and do something for the majority of the day. I'll probably make myself stay up 'til 2 or 4, then take a nap before Tim comes and visits for the weekend. I warned him that I am not much fun right now. I can barely talk, and laughing is out of the question because it hurts way too much. He is a great friend for not minding. I guess we'll just be watching movies and playing video games, anything that doesn't require much talking. Wow sounds like fun! I love to talk, so this is pretty hard.

Posted in: on Friday, December 16, 2005 at at 8:34 AM