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So the week was hard.  I came home from the hospital in some discomfort, but not anything unbearable. Just the knowledge that something had really been trashed in the back of my mouth. (It took me a couple of days before I even wanted to get a flashlight and look back there.)  I settled in to bed and tried to just sleep through the discomfort.

As the anesthetic from the hospital wore off, the pain started to get a little more intense.  Kathleen went out right away to get my prescriptions, but it took a couple of hours since there were four to fill and the pharmacy is about 20 minutes away.  I was getting pretty uncomfortable by the time she got back with the pills.

I was given four (eventually five) prescriptions:

• Demerol, for pain.  This turned out to be a little bit weaker than I needed, and may have been the reason I didn’t get as much to eat and drink early.  It just didn’t seem to do much for the pain.
• An anti-nausea medication, to take with the Demerol. I was scared to death of vomiting with all the damage in the back of my throat. Luckily, this was not a problem.
• Prednisone, for inflammation.  This actually really seemed to help. I iced my throat too, which eased my discomfort somewhat.
• Keflex, to prevent infection. I’m still taking this.
• Lortab – when the Demerol started to run low, I called in for another painkiller prescription.  I thought they’d give me more Demerol, but they went with Lortab instead.  This turned out to be a good thing; the Lortab worked much better at taking the edge off the pain so I could eat.

As of today, I’ve lost about fourteen pounds. It’s kind of a combination of nothing being appetizing, and everything being really painful to swallow.  I had the weight to lose, really; I’ve been getting kind of fat in my old age.  This took me from 190 to about 174, which is better for my size (I’m 5’9”, with a kind of skinny frame anyway).  That’s not the healthiest way to lose weight, but hey, I’ll take it.

The foods that worked for me were tuna sandwiches, gummy worms (you can get sugar-free energy chew here), applesauce, and otterpops.  Last night, I begged Kathleen to run to Taco Bell and get me a Baja Gordita (also a Baja Chalupa, as backup).  It stung a little bit going down, but it was so nice to eat something tasty.

So the past nine days are kind of a mélange of grumpiness, hunger, pain, and boredom.  However, I find myself breathing through my nose more comfortably already (the doctor went ahead and took my adenoids as well).  If I have any improvement in the number of throat infections this next year, I’ll call it a win.  I had eight throat infections over the last twelve months.

That’s the summary for now.  I’ll post more when I have my post-op appointment with the otolaryngologist.