Adventures in the Emergency Room

Last night I was feeling pretty weak and miserable so I tried to fill my poor empty stomach with water.  I hadn’t been able to eat anything except a little bit of yogurt at noon with my antibiotics because my tongue and throat were so swollen and raw, even with the painkillers I took.  But, as you probably know (and as I knew darn well), suddenly filling an empty stomach is not a good idea.

To make a long story short, I threw up all the water and yogurt I had managed to shove down my throat.  Normally this would not be something that would be particularly relevant here on my blog but when you have a tonsillectomy it’s a really big deal and a really bad thing.  You see, my tonsil beds have scabbed over nicely and the scabs are supposed to fall off around day 7-10 post-surgery.  It was day 5 on Friday so when I threw up and ripped the scabs off the right side of my throat I started bleeding.  As bleeding in your throat is never a good thing, I had to call my mum and get her to drive me to the emergency room 45 minutes away at 1:00am.  Needless to say, neither of us were particularly pleased with the situation.

By the time we got to the ER and the doctor finally saw me, the bleeding had already stopped.  It helped that I sucked on ice and had an ice pack around my throat on the whole drive down but my mum and I were still worried I might have to take the ambulance to the nearest OR to get the tonsil bed re-cauterized (ugh).  Thankfully I didn’t have to take any drastic action and the doctor said the flesh underneath looked a little raw but quite well healed.

I had a lovely sleep and woke up at around 11:00am today, which has been the best sleep I’ve had since my surgery.  In the night the scab on the left side of my throat had fallen off as well so I’m pretty much scab-less.  It’s Day 6 now, a little early for that but apparently I have superhuman healing abilities because I’m now able to talk and actually eat some solid food.  This is very good because I feel like a walking skeleton, having lost 12lbs in six days on a fairly small frame.  I may look like the Hollywood ideal right now but I’m sick of feeling my ribs poke into my skin when I turn.  It was so nice to have a little pasta, olive oil and cheese tonight for supper.  I’m really craving heavy greasy foods like poutine, cheeseburgers and other junk but I’m definitely going to take it easy on my poor stomach for now.

So, to sum up: I had what was supposed to be a setback but has actually been a great improvement in my condition.  I expect to be up and moving around tomorrow but still taking things easy.  Things are really looking up right now!

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