| 2006/07/10 Airway Surgery at Stanford (Tonsils removal and more) | |
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2006-07-10 13:22
by Merlin
in Osa
After sleep studies and doctor/specialist appointments, it was finally time for Surgery at Stanford by a specialist in the area.
 Before the surgery on Wednesday, I wasn't allowed to eat anything that day, or drink much at all, with surgery that eventually happened around 17:00 made for a long day. It took about 60mn and another 30mn for me to wake up. In that time, the surgeon removed my tonsils (amydales) to help with my restricted airway at night, straightened the inside of my nose and removed some extra tissue that wasn't needed so that could breathe better through it. Recovery wasn't a piece of cake though. Once the anesthesia had worn out, I realized that my throat wasn't happy at all, to the point that I just wouldn't want to swallow my own saliva, so I started to spit it out. The pain meds I was given just didn't seem to do much good and I ended up sleeping a few hours with my mouth opened and tilted over a cup so that the saliva could drip out of my mouth. That way, I was able to sleep a few hours.
At that point, we went for the next level up: a 75mg shot of demorol. Boy, did that feel like horse tranquilizer: I couldn't stay awake and alert more than 20-30m at a time, and would do weird half awake dreams and stuff, but I have to give it credit that a few hours later, I was able to start swallowing some amounts of liquid. It was still painful, but at least it was doable (and that was the condition of my release and being take off IV: the ability to self-hydrate). After that, I got home on Thursday and basically took it easy while trying to drink a bit when I could. By Friday, I could drink mostly what I needed and eat a few bits 30mn after taking pain meds (giving them the time to kick in).
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