Tonsillectomy confirmed

At my recent pre-assessment appointment I was told to wait a week and telephone a number they gave me if I hadn't heard anything.

On Monday I played some phone-tag, and managed to speak to the person I needed to early in the afternoon. They told me that they were waiting on some paperwork, which they would chase up and phone me back on Tuesday.

Tuesday morning came and they called me back.

"How about the 2nd July?"

I agreed. I've been working towards this since mid-late 2012, and I'd much rather get the op over and done with.

It sounds like I have a lot of pain and discomfort to look forward to.

Morning Surgery

I've been assigned morning surgery so the first thing I have to look forward to is the pre-op fasting. No solids or milky drinks after 3am. Water is OK until 6am, and I must have a glass of water at 6am. Absolutely nothing at all after 6am.

Preparation

I've been moderately busy recently laying the groundwork for the operation and time off. I've made sure that my employer has known about the reason, the appointements, and post-op downtime as early as possible - I didn't want it to come to them as a nasty surprise.

An adult tonsillectomy is more serious than for children, so the first thing I had to do was arrange for two weeks off work.

"Pain can be severe and last about 2 weeks. Pain can get worse before it gets better (between day 4-7) and you may find you have severe earache."

I also had to arrange for a baby-sitter to get me home from the hospital and keep an eye on me for the first 24 hours (this is one of the many reason's I'm lucky to have an amazing woman in my life right now).

I've started planning what food I can stockpile at home so that I can eat and drink without going too far for the first few days.

I've even sorted out 'silly things' like VPN access to work in case I get to the point where I feel well enough to do a small amount of work, but don't feel up to the trip in to work.

Next steps

All that's really left for me to do is to make my room as nice as possible over the weekend, make sure I'm good to go, and then have the op.

It'll be my first time under general anaesthetic, so I'm curious and nervous combined. I think anyone going in for surgery without some nerves probably doesn't truly appreciate what's about to happen.

I'll try to write a post-op update, but that might have to wait a few days :)