Great news!   (but I'm beginning to wonder if Frosty was hit by a birch or a piece of Ash with Louisville written on it...) 

Great news!   (but I'm beginning to wonder if Frosty was hit by a birch or a piece of Ash with Louisville written on it...) 

There've been time I've wondered that very thing myself.

Frosty The Lucky.

Pain

I dreamed of a museum recording the last days of working sail, where the carved boards with the ships’ names and home ports formed a tight mosaic on the wall. As sail gave way to steam and steam to oil and diesel, the manufacturers’ plaques from furnaces and boilers were added to the wall, each a memorial to a well-tended machine.

I woke coughing, choking on strangling, fiery phlegm.

I dozed again, and dreamed of coal fires, of anthracite and clinker, of bituminous coal melting into bricks of coke, sharp-edged and smelling of sulphur. 

I sat at the edge of the bed and waited for the pain to pass. Two hours since the last dose; four more until the next. The doctor said "one to two pills as needed for pain"; at this rate, I’m going to need a refill soon.

I dreamed of a tight mosaic and a history of love and skill and dedication, all fusing together into a seamless rock of black fire.

Got to love the Pills, they do everything according to the MD but they forget to  tell about the Dreams/nightmares, the head aches when you try to stop  them plus irregularity and I'm being polite on that subject.  Personally I sleep in a recliner for 3-4 weeks after an operation otherwise congestion build up gets me coughing up a storm doing damage instead of healing. 

Good luck with the recovery one day at a time. 

You have a couple bottles of Colace don't you? The pain meds don't do diddly for headaches and steer clear of Tylenol. Tylenol does BAD things to your kidneys if used in excess or long periods, especially if after a drunk. Use aspirin or Ibuprophin Advil sparingly for the head.

The dreams can be all over the charts and inspired by what you watch on TV. They had to cut me off from "Deadliest Catch" completely, I was dreaming of being eaten alive by crabs. I don't remember the dreams but everybody within a few rooms of mine do.

Some of my dreams were great though. I don't remember them other than being really GOOD.

Frosty The Lucky.

 

These dreams are actually pretty normal for me; I have a very active dream-life. Just thought it made a good prose poem. Like the coking imagery?

I can't take any aspirin or ibuprofin, as they're both blood thinners and could cause bleeding in my throat. The Vicodin has some acetaminophen, but less than a regular Tylenol, and I'm not drinking anything stronger than apple juice anyway (although Man, could I use a scotch).

Two fingers of a good single malt should carterize your wounds...

But honestly I would use it to chase a good vindaloo...

WHAT you aren't going to take medical advice from some unseen old fart on the internet instead of your doctors?!?  Wassamattayou?

I'd be willing to bet a nice tall single malt and water wouldn't be too hard on the wounds and might up the bar on the pain killers to cover headaches. Of course I'm just an unseen old fart on the internet.

Frosty The Lucky.

I resemble that remark!

We have so much in common.

Frosty The Lucky.

Update, one week post-surgery: still feeling very weak, but the throat is in much better shape than just a couple of days ago. Swallowing is a total crapshoot, with possible results of "No problem!", "That was weird...", "Ow?", "Oooh...", and "AAAAAHHH!!!!"

Still can't contemplate anything much more solid than scrambled eggs; sick to death of custard.

Tapering down the Vicodin, since the pain isn't as bad as it was. Let's see how this goes. Feel like I'm turning a corner, but it's a long, slow corner. 

Thats why you creez it and call it "ice creem" ;-) glad your on the mend

Disappeared AGAIN ARGHHH!!!

Make savory custard. Run tasty things through the blender and add them to basic custard, eggs and a little milk. For instance, brown some ham, deglaze the pan by sweating a little onion, liquify it in a blender. Whisk a LITTLE ground sage, salt and pepper in the egg before you add the milk, then add the blendered stuff. Pop it in the oven, when it skins over sprinkle a little sharp cheddar on it and finish cooking.

As long as you don't get carried away with pepper, herbs and spices it'll go down easy and best of all it isn't desert.

Frosty The Lucky.

Edited October 22, 201510 yr by Frosty

Update, two weeks and a day post-surgery. Saw the doctor today and am cleared to resume normal activity. When I asked, he also cleared me for abnormal activity. So, back to work on Monday.

Still on the weak side, but back to normal food, so hoping to get strength back soon. The biggest remaining problem (apart from the remnants of a full-body rash from a Vicodin allergy and some minor residual throat pain, mainly when I swallow, yawn, or sneeze) is that removal of the tonsils appears to have messed with my ninth cranial nerve, which governs taste -- in other words, most of what I eat tastes like cardboard. The doctor thinks/hopes taste should come back in time. For now, I'll just have to be tasteless.

Thank you all for your prayers and good wishes. The good news is, they can only take the stuff out once!

Oh, and the three volume set of Mark Aspery finally arrived via ILL today, so I'll be cramming that between now and Monday.

Great to hear you progress and back to work Monday will help your strength some as well.  Doctor thinks/hopes OK been up that road.  Good luck Monday. 

Nerve stuff can take a couple of years to recover so don't despair for a long long while! 

Well, medical leave is up, and I'm back to work tomorrow. Throat feeling much better, but it'll be a month or so before I'll be completely healed and can have another sleep test to find the best setting for my CPAP. I'm hoping to talk to my neurologist tomorrow to see if we can put in a "good enough for now" setting.

Still feeling weak-ish and tired, but improving. Did a little shop work this afternoon (hacksawing a railroad spike to length for a split cross, regrinding a star drill into a single-point tool, and touching up the house number in the boulder out front), and ended up with a killer backache. Going to be a long road back.

Thank you all for your prayers and good wishes!

Edited November 2, 201510 yr by JHCC

You're strength will come back but don't push it too hard.

All the best to you brother.

Frosty The Lucky.

Recovery is soo much  longer than they tell you!  6 weeks means 6 months most people with substantial operations expect a yr. to  be 100%  Take your time don't lay around just be cautious about pushing too hard.  Your body had a major shock takes time for it to heal, be nice to it as it has the final say. 

Glad that you're on the mend! , I think recovery time tends to be age related = the older you are the more time you need, hang on that seems to apply to more than just recovery time

The older I get, the better I was.