I was my surgeon's first patient of the day, so I had to be at the hospital at 5:30 a.m. for 7:30 surgery. After getting ready and getting showed to my pre-op gurnery, a couple of nurses introduced themselves and I started signing the paperwork. The surgeon came over around 7:10, followed by the anesthesiologist and the rest of her team. Even in the somewhat dark room, the anesthesiologist could see how big my tonsils were, even though they weren't inflamed. After that, they started the sleepy drug into my IV, which, exactly as they said it would, felt like I'd had a couple of drinks. They began wheeling me towards surgery, and it's as if the room was not meant for wheeling those beds through; I remember annoying asking who designed the space, which one of the nurses wheeling me explained to the other was a natural though for me since I'm an engineer (she got my whole life story while putting the IV in).
I woke up in the PACU, and after a few minutes of boredom I turned around and saw a clock. It was 8:38, so I don't think I'd been asleep for more than half an hour. After a few more minutes, I saw the anesthesiologist, and I giddily waived to her because I wanted to talk to someone. No problems, she said, and she was surprised at how awake I was. I just had some ear pain, what I'd get with tonsillitis--or similar to a mild ear infection. I described it to a nurse as a 3 on a 10 scale. I had to wait in the PACU a while longer than I needed, because they had to wait for a recovery room to open up. In recovery, I was greeted to a cup of water with crushed ice, which I gladly sipped, and some applesauce. The smell of applesauce has made me nauseous for as long as I can remember, so they took it away. They offered Italian ice, but they only had citrusy/acidic flavors (I tried asking for chocolate or coconut), and ginger ale, neither of which I could have. Clearly they didn't know my surgeon's suggestion of no bubbles. Interestingly, avoiding citrus and bubbles are not on the official discharge instructions, though that would probably be helpful. In any case, I stuck with ice water. There was some pain swallowing, but I got used to it after a few sips. I've had far worse pain swallowing, though. When I was 19 I had some kind of blisters on the roof of my mouth, and when they popped, I couldn't drink anything--not water, not chocolate milk--and I lost 13 pounds in barely a week. That was the worst throat pain I've had, totally unrelated to tonsils or this surgery. So, while I didn't have the same pain after surgery that many people do, I've had similar pain before, and I remember what it's like to not even be able to sip water.
The nurses said I'd stay in recovery for probably a half hour to 2 hours, depending on how I felt, so I got my phone and my book out of my bags of belongings, which were there waiting for me. Of course, I spent the whole time on my phone. So much for the book. But I couldn't watch TV; the sound hurt my ears, which were already hurting.
By a little after 10, I was OK to leave, so I texted my friend to pick me up, and we were gone by 11. I was prescribed an antibiotic as well as 1-2 5mg oxycodone every 4 hours as needed for pain and told to I could add Tylenol as needed. Still at a 3/10, the pain was an annoyance but nothing horrendous. I decided to wait and see whether I really needed pain meds, and around 9:30 p.m. I took 2 Tylenol so I could sleep a little better. As of Sunday evening, I still haven't needed any oxycodone. I took a 2nd dose of Tylenol on Thursday night and a 3rd dose late Friday morning, but that's it so far. I should also note that this was with the classic electrocautery method which is supposed to be more painful than the coblation method (which my surgeon chooses not to do, due to higher risk of post-operative bleeding).
As far as eating and drinking on Wednesday, I had to get used to things. I tried some Gatorade but found that it made my saliva very thick, I think because it's pretty sweet, so I was slow to drink it. After adding plenty of ice to thin it down, it was much easier to drink, especially alternating with ice water. For dinner I made a banana smoothie (1 banana, 1 C almond milk, ~2 tsp maple syrup, and ice). In all, I got through about half of a 20oz bottle of Gatorade and about a quarter of the smoothie that day.
I set an alarm for every 2 hours that night to take a sip of water and to sense if I needed any pain meds. Interestingly, since the moment I woke up from surgery, I was able to breathe through my nose without issue, even though I'm usually a heavy mouth breather. At first, I'd wake up after 15-20 minutes of sleeping, I think at the moment my mouth opened and I started breathing in. It's as if mouth breathing felt bad--or maybe my brain knew how detrimental it would be and I woke up. After a couple of rounds of that, I went to sleep until my alarm went off. Each time I woke up, my throat felt well-lubricated. I seemed to be able to manage to breath exclusively through my nose. Maybe I got lucky with this, but my mouth hasn't dried out at all. One thing I will say is that I have not spit or drooled once; I always make sure to force a swallow, even when it's uncomfortable. On surgery day, I got used to the mild pain of swallowing, which I think has helped me keep my throat lubricated while I'm asleep and just in general. When my alarm woke me at 3:30, 6 hours after I took the Tylenol, the pain was almost non-existent, so I went back to sleep without another dose.
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