Summer Surgery

It's hard to have a chronic illness and feel sick most of the time. 

The last month I have felt especially sick. I had strep throat but with meds recovered okay, but I've been dragging my feet. I ended up in the ICU and then surgery. They found from a CT scan that I had a Peritonsillar Abscess or a complication of tonsillitis in which the infection spreads behind the tonsils and it created an abscess with 2 TBs of infection. My white blood count was almost at 20 the day of surgery. Having a Peritonsillar Abscess is very rare, fewer than 200,000 cases per year in the US. In order to get to the abscess, they had to take my tonsils out and drained the abscess. 

Here's a journal entry of my experience in the hospital:

I had surgery today. I was very emotional going into surgery but everything went well. They had to give me 4 different IVs and this made me on edge. My blood and veins were not corporating and I hate getting IVs. When they put meds into them they would  burn like having hot metal pouring in my viens, and I would try to scream but without a voice  it was counterproductive. 

Finally the anesthesiologist pulled out all my dumb IVs and even though his hurt the most going in I didn't feel any pain whtsoever after it was in and he pumped a lot of meds into me. Wish he had been there day one at the ER. 

I originally went to the ER Sunday because my throat was closing off and I literally had three to four people working on me at once. I had a tube in my mouth  pumping steroids to stop it from closing off, multiple shots being given in my right arm, and an IV being placed in my left arm. The adrenaline shot made me shake and they had to hold me down for the rest of the procedures and of course I was crying and couldn't stop the tears. I was given morphine and steroids through my IV and after an hour of meds being pumped into me like what you would expect from a tv episode, the doctors  were shocked and didn't know why I wasn't showing any signs of improvement. So they admitted me into the ICU and monitored everything for another two days. The next day after my CT scan and the contrast going into my faulty IV #2 was horrendous, they found that I had a large abscess behind my throat called A Peritonsillar Abscess, which is a complication of tonsillitis in which the infection spreads behind the tonsils. This is actually very rare, fewer than 200,000 US cases per year. Anyway, the only way they could drain it was to take out my tonsils which they did today and it was good that they did because they ended up draining over 2TBs of infection which is a lot and it explains how I could feel the lump that I thought might be cancer from the outside. Thank heavens it was not cancer. 

So now I'm doing much better. No more poison being injected into my body from the abscess and yes inflammation from my Crohn's Disease and having strep throat last month both led to the painful weekend. 

Everyone has been so kind to me, and recovery is hard and very very painful but Stan hasn't left my side since the ER and has made sure that I'm getting all my meds even all night long. I appreciate all the help, the jamba juice, and ER visits all lifted my spirits. I have the best family and friends.