Zach: I hope it's all worth it.

Hey. It's been a while since I posted...I know....sorry. Things have just been soo busy. I got all my finals done and am very glad to be finished with them!

As you know, I had nasal/sinus surgery in July. This was to help me breathe better and hopefully stop my monsterous snoring. Well, I can breathe a lot better, but I still snore like a freight train. I got an injection in the roof of my mouth after that to tighten the tissue and hopefully stop the snoring. That didn't work either. My doctor said that I needed more injection treatments for it to be effective. I talked to him again on December 6th. He said the best option would be to get my tonsils out. There was just one problem with that...I will no longer be covered by my parents' insurance come January because I will no longer be a full time student (I'm taking it easy next semester and working a lot to save for the wedding). In fact, I might not be covered now because I withdrew from a class because I had bitten off more than I could chew this semester and it dropped me 1 credit hour below full time. Anyway, my doctor says he'll check with my insurance company to see if they'll cover my tonsillectomy. A week goes by...no word from him. I called him again on December 13th and the person who was supposed to have already called and checked said, "What were we checking for again?" (massive roll of the eyes) Meanwhile this week, Dec 13-17 is finals week so I'm really busy. The doctor's office finally calls back on Wed, Dec 15 and says, "Will Saturday work for you?" Yes, Saturday, Dec 18, three days away. We said yes, of course. I had to rush around and finish all of my finals and projects, finish all of my Christmas shopping, get all of my affairs in order, and get a medical leave of absence from work in three days. I WAS BUSY! I went in at 6 am on Saturday and I find out that he wants to also take out any remaining adnoid tissue and he also wanted to remove some soft palate tissue. After all of this, either my snoring will be cured, or I'm incurable. I wake up feeling probably the best I've ever felt after just having surgery, but I still had to stay in the hospital for 4 hours. I threw up once in the hospital which they said was normal. Then they sent me home with some nausea medicine and some liquid vikaden. That's when it started. I vomited about 7 more times after getting home and couldn't keep any fluids down...finally that night the vomiting stopped. I looked at my throat in the mirror and to my shock, my uvula (the hangy down thing in the back of your throat) was gone! The first night wasn't that bad, but it got worse the next day. The liquid vikaden? vykadin? whatever...that REALLY strong pain killer didn't seem to affect my pain at all....the pain was terrible! Plus, the vykaden was giving me TERRIBLE heartburn. It felt like I was drinking Draino. I maxed out the doses on both Malox and Pepcid AC and it didn't even phase the heartburn. I couldn't sleep because the pain and the heartburn was so bad. This was on Sunday so the doctor's office was closed. We called on Monday and they gave me a stronger drug that is a narcotic. That helped a lot! It didn't burn and it nearly stopped my pain. With the new drug, my pain was around 2 on a scale from 1 to 10 as opposed to 5 with the vykadin. Now it's Tuesday, it still hurts like crazy to talk so I can't call and talk to my honey. One more problem has come up. I was starting to get a sore throat right before my surgery...well guess what? It's now back with a vengence. I think I'm clearing my throat of phlegm in my sleep because I've been waking up with terrible throat pain. My swelling has increased and my throat is getting redder. I'm also getting a lot of phlegm. So we called the doctor today and we have an appointment at 3:15 today to see him about it. Wish me luck! PLEASE!

Later
ZaCH