Let me start out by stating that I'm still medicated at this point so I'm sure there will a number of incoherent ramblings on here, but then again I'm sure no one will ever see this post or read it so who gives a crap. My original intention was to write about every bad movie and television show that I've watched while I've been holed up at my parents house recovering but I think I can be of better service to those that are about to embark on this procedure. I will still comment on said movies and television shows but I'll work that in throughout my daily updates.

I might as well get to it. I'm going to break down my tonsillectomy and the recovery process that I'm currently enduring. I'm 33 and I've had a number of surgeries that I would consider high on the pain threshold meter - abdominal surgery and dental implants. Let me just say that the tonsillectomy procedure didn't disappoint. Fuck, it exceeded it.

My surgery was on 1/9/09, this is day eight of my recovery.

Day 1 (Surgery Day): Although I had somewhat of an idea of what I was getting myself into I didn't really put in perspective what the procedure actually is. Think about it for a second - the Doctor removes tissue from your throat during an long hour procedure. That is an hours worth of scraping/cutting/stitching of your throat. My surgery was at seven and I woke up around eleven - thank God for morphine. Let me just throw this out there for some of you people that think the medical staff is there to serve you, they are and they aren't. The nicer you are to them the nicer they are going to be to you - go figure. While I was sitting in pre-opt some D.B. guy went on and on about how he got the shit beat out of him by the cops and that he hadn't recovered. He preceded the story by telling the nurse that he hates Doctors and thinks they rip everyone off. Need I say more.

Where was I? I woke up at eleven and the pain wasn't terrible, keep in mind they just pumped God knows what into my body during the surgery, and the nurse got me some ice-cubes and some water. Now I didn't know it at the time but the ice-cubes probably saved me from slitting my wrists during the next several days. I can't stress this enough - drink as much as you possibly can and drink some more. For those that drink alcohol - think about the worst hangover you've ever had and then multiply that by a Factor of 10. I'm not kidding around here people. You do not want to get dehydrated.

I also want to point out that several members of my family work in healthcare and they had already set up everything before I got home. I'm going to create a list at the end of things that I ate and drank.

Like I said before the pain was tolerable at this point and I certainly could've walked out of the hospital but they had to humiliate me just like everyone else and I had to roll shotgun in a wheelchair. My Dad picked me up and off I went. Four hours in the hospital total.

I got home and took some pain meds and slept until I woke up in ecruciating pain, about five hours later. The point of my blog is help people create their own criteria and monitor their own pain tolerance level. If you need to take your meds 30 minutes before your next scheduled time take them.

Day 2 (1/10/09): I was on enough drugs during the day that I able to enjoy both football playoff games in little discomfort. For those of you that go ahead with the procedure be acutely aware of the fact that the drugs admistered during the surgery probably stay in you system for at least 48 hours and therefore you don't have a real sense of what the pain is going to be like.

I ate ice cream and pudding the entire day and that was about it. Drink as much you possibly can.

Day 3 (1/11/09): When I stress staying hydraded this is the reason why. I didn't get as much fluid intake during the day as I should have and I had a splitting headache for hours. The kind of headache where I had to switch my pain meds.


Day 4 (1/12/09): I'm going to keep this short and simple. This was without a doubt the worst day of my "LIFE." For those of you that don't know, Narcotics act as Opioid analgesics (NARCOTICS) cause constipation in most people. After four days of that shit I took milk of magnesia and spent two hours on the toilet. This led to the worst deyhdration I've ever had.

Day 5 (1/13/09): I spent the majority of the day sweating profusely on account of my dehydration. Thought about slitting my wrists but figured I would fuck it up and have to recover from that.


Day 6 (1/14/09): So I had a miserable night so I decided to mix it up and have two spoonfuls of codeine and eighty sixed the vicodine for the time being. I wound up sleeping for the next eight hours and pissed off everyone in my family - not the best combo but at least I got some sleep.

Day 7 (1/15/09): For the record it helps to have people in your life that care about you b/c this would be a bitch to try and get through on your own. The only caveat that I can add here is don't have too many chiefs.

Day 8 (1/16/09): I couldn't sleep at all last night so I watched Keeping the Faith from 2-4 in the morning. Now there are some parts in the movie where you laugh but why anyone thinks that Jenna Elfman is hot is beyond me. And what is up with the name Elfman - nice manager Jenna. On my Factor scale out of five - I give this movie a 3 - don't forget I'm on serious pain meds - codeine/vicodine. It could be a five or a one - I'm just saying.

I changed up my dose at seven and was able to sleep until eleven. It is three thirty and this is by the far the best day I've had. My appetite has returned. By the way you will never look at mashed potatoes and eggs the same way. Thank God that I'm a Mick and enjoy mashed potatoes - actually I enjoy anything that I put butter on. By the way Transformers on High Def is insane. Turtoro was miscast - that is all I'm going to say about that.

Just when I thought I turned the corner I started bleeding profusely about ten minutes ago.

Just finished watching Jumper. How this got made is baffling to me. Once again the dynamic duo of Cristensen and Jackson deliver two of the worst movie performances in movie history. If you don't know what the other one is then you aren't a movie aficionado and I'm of no use to you.

This is how bad the recovery is - I just rented Wanted with my parents. Wait until they get their cable bill - not going to be pretty. Don't fret - I have the Lake Show on Tivo.

I was just working some fools in spades until yahoo bumbed me offline.

Updates to come.