Surgery again

[Pizza]

Well, not a lot better. I"ve managed to ween myself from the Oxycodone. Pain is tolerable without it now. But I am not sleeping well (hoping that getting off the drugs will help with that). I'm still on liquid foods, six days after surgery. I see the doc tomorrow and plan on trying to return to work Monday.

 

[reba]

dont push to hard

 

[Mike S]

Well, the pain is backing off. And I started my step-down dose of Oxycodone-Acetamenaphine this morning. Of course, I'm not out of the woods yet - did you know that eating a "Twinkie" is very painful in my current state? It certainly surprised me - the essentially liquid diet continues.

Pizza, I've been following your progress online here and on FB. I pray the pain quickly fades now, and that the surgery is a success. I've considered surgery myself. I use a CPAP, and it works pretty well most of the time, but I HATE using it.

 

[Pizza]

I hope this works in the long run. Long term success with this surgery is not a lot better than long term CPAP use. Early in the week, the CPAP indicated I was breathing very well - but the last two days, not so much. Of course, with the soreness and pain, one cannot evaluate anything for at least another week.

But, even my family doctor encouraged me to have this done - based on what he saw in my throat. I see both him and the ENT tomorrow.

 

[Mike]

I"ve managed to ween myself from the Oxycodone.

Bravo! I've had two knee surgeries with that stuff or Vicoden for only a week or two following, and it's amazing how quickly your body becomes dependent on it. Weening from that makes your whole nervous system whig out. And that feeling doesn't just go away after a day. Good job with that.

I can't imagine still being on liquids, planning on returning to work in 4 days. God bless your healing.

 

[jasonc]

Bravo! I've had two knee surgeries with that stuff or Vicoden for only a week or two following, and it's amazing how quickly your body becomes dependent on it. Weening from that makes your whole nervous system whig out. And that feeling doesn't just go away after a day. Good job with that.

I can't imagine still being on liquids, planning on returning to work in 4 days. God bless your healing.

If you only asked I could have installed those joints too.1 Ton king pins.

 

[Pizza]

I got off the oxy cause I think it was messing with my sleep. I will mention that to the doctor tomorrow.

It's been a week now, solid food is still out of the question. I just had soup with potatoe and steak chunks, had to rinse with salt water just to ease the pain. This is the slowest recovery from surgery ever.

 

[daninthelionsden]

I got off the oxy cause I think it was messing with my sleep. I will mention that to the doctor tomorrow.

It's been a week now, solid food is still out of the question. I just had soup with potatoe and steak chunks, had to rinse with salt water just to ease the pain. This is the slowest recovery from surgery ever.

I had surgery similar to yours back in the early 90s. I had my tonsils removed and had my throat roto-rooted so I could breath better. I was in my early to mid 30s. It was a rough recovery and my doctor warned me that type of surgery only gets rougher with age. I feel for you and I'll pray 4 U.

 

[Pizza]

I had surgery similar to yours back in the early 90s. I had my tonsils removed and had my throat roto-rooted so I could breath better. I was in my early to mid 30s. It was a rough recovery and my doctor warned me that type of surgery only gets rougher with age. I feel for you and I'll pray 4 U.

Wow, I thought this was "old person's surgery". I am very interested in getting you to answer a question. See, surveys show that over 60% (I think it was 65%) of those who have this surgery state that they'd never allow it again. Not that you'd ever have it done twice, the implication was that it was not effective enough AND it was difficult to recover and that they'd do something else to deal with their problem.

Looking back now, what is your view?

Personally, my CPAP's numbers imply to me that I won't need a CPAP anymore (I still use it because the humidity it provides makes healing go faster, or at least it SHOULD). If this really helps, then it was worth it.

What has been your experience?

 

[jasonc]

Wow, I thought this was "old person's surgery". I am very interested in getting you to answer a question. See, surveys show that over 60% (I think it was 65%) of those who have this surgery state that they'd never allow it again. Not that you'd ever have it done twice, the implication was that it was not effective enough AND it was difficult to recover and that they'd do something else to deal with their problem.

Looking back now, what is your view?

Personally, my CPAP's numbers imply to me that I won't need a CPAP anymore (I still use it because the humidity it provides makes healing go faster, or at least it SHOULD). If this really helps, then it was worth it.

What has been your experience?

Jaci,aged 3 had this surgery .it was risky and they had no choice.

 

[daninthelionsden]

I was having repeated tonselitus....ugh...can't spell it.....anyway...I had it done for that. The doctor threw in the rest through creative insurance billing. I failed the sleep test....couldn't sleep. Insurance refused anything to relieve apnea. Doctor helped me anyway. Would I do it again at this age.....man that's a tough question. Probably not...due to high bp.

 

[Papa Zoom]

I had endoscopic sinus surgery and had to sleep sitting up for about a week. It was painful and mostly uncomfortable. I hated the pain meds. They gave me a funny feeling. Worse was the fact I couldn't breathe and felt a bit panicky over that. It helped immensely after that. I also underwent immune therapy (shots) for a few years and I've had great success in having far fewer cases of sinus infections and night time breathing improvement. Glad it's behind me. Worth it though. Be well! It does sound like you've gone through a more painful recovery. I feel for you on that one. No fun.

 

[Pizza]

Well, saw the doc today. He predicts I will be way better by Monday and that the next three days will be my turning point.

I hope so, I miss real food so much - I'm sick of every liquid food that I have in the house. And I'm sick of the pain.

 

[Deborah13]

I praise God that you had healthcare coverage to pay for what you needed, otherwise you would have just had to live with it.
Get well and enjoy life.

 

[daninthelionsden]

Well, saw the doc today. He predicts I will be way better by Monday and that the next three days will be my turning point.

I hope so, I miss real food so much - I'm sick of every liquid food that I have in the house. And I'm sick of the pain.

My son has to take everything he eats and places it all in a blender. He blends in all to a liquefied form until it is the form of tomato bisque soup. I weep inside every time he tries to prepare something to eat. He said trying to keep eating is like being a fighter pinned to the ropes. He's just trying to hold on. I told him he should make a video of all he has to go through just to eat. I can feel your pain about the liquid diet because I see my son go through it every day.

 

[Pizza]

I can tell that the swelling is easing up a bit. I was able to eat two sausage biscuits today. First real, solid, typical food that I've had since March 9th. I have REALLY needed to GET OUT and MOVE AROUND.

So..................

The weather was wonderful today, it got to 71F in North Georgia and I went and got the car, put the top down, and drove around to do some errands and then headed to a six lane highway not far from here that is not traveled much on weekend. THis allowed me to to my "brake pad set" - ten hard brakings from 60 to 10mph. (This distributes compounds from the pads onto the rotors and sets up the pads and rotors to work together well - the brakes get really hot but that heat is needed to perform the required action.) I then drove for about 15 miles to cool things down before coming to a real stop anywhere - this to avoid distorting the rotors.

I've been home since, relaxing and I've only taken two pain pills today, one when I got up and one about an hour ago. I still can't drink Coke or anything like that, but I ate two more mini biscuits and had my fiber and nutritional supplement 'shake' and am no longer starving. I think I've consumed perhaps as much as 1200 calories today - the most since the 9th.

My weight is down a bit over 10 pounds.

 

[Pizza]

I praise God that you had healthcare coverage to pay for what you needed, otherwise you would have just had to live with it.
Get well and enjoy life.

I've not had to worry about health care coverage, ever. My line of work does not pay super well, but I've never been unemployed since I was 19. (I turn 57 next week.) I"ve always had good coverage, tho I've NEVER had the coverage I have with JVCKenwood. Ours is a group of what has to be no less than 500 people, I really don't know how many are in our group. Our HR people as well as corporate leaders seem to place a high priority on good health care coverage. They provide no coverage for dependents, but because the group is so large, an employee can buy coverage for the family for several thousands of dollars a year. Sounds like a lot of money, and it is, but again, what it covers is really surprising. This surgery will most likely cost me less than $200.

My nose surgery in December set me back $93.15 - in fact, the hospital owes me $125 because Cigna paid more than even they said they would!

Of course, apparently, this is not expensive surgery. I already know the surgeon billed the insurance just under $6000 and by contract they will pay him around $3100 - I won't owe anything as per the contract. As for the hospital and labs, etc. I expect those co-pays to be, like I said, under $200 in total.

Of course, Cigna gets over $8000 a year to insure me, about $600 of that I pay and the company pays the rest.

THIS is what you get when you perform a job that no one is going to school for, and no one is OFFERING school for. I made piddly wages for almost ten years when I was young - today, I out earn some of my friends with advanced degrees. And again, I could change jobs any time I wish to - and I've done just that, ever since the early 1990s. But in the 1980s I really thought of myself as a loser: I'd go home from work and spend many nights on "homework", learning as much as a kid in high school, spending some of my saturdays in the office teaching myself various things about my own job - unpaid. Friends were living the high life with their higher paying jobs and degrees, their big trucks, boats, etc. - they lived it up on the weekends.

Today, I enjoy going to work, still learning every day - I still earn less than many of them, but I also think I'm happier than many of them. I have two friends worried that, in their 50's, they may be unemployed soon. I have no such fears - so maybe the path the Lord led me down was way wiser than I thought.

And I did it with no college expense OR debt.

 

[reba]

So hows the recovery going?

 

[Mike]

Now it's just a slow crawl to full recovery. At least I'm given the okay to bend my arm at the elbow as long as I don't move my shoulder away from my torso. This allows me to type with all 10 fingers again. My gain is your loss. LOL

Really great are the pain meds. When I had my knee opened up a few decades ago, there was mainly Vicodin and Tylenol 3 or 4. Both were horrible to wean off of. I was issued some sort of Norco this time. It's great for the pain and totally nonaddictive. If I went past a certain time of the day without the others, my whole nervous system would get jiggy. I've gone days without Norco and had no effect.

 

[dianegcook]

I can tell that the swelling is easing up a bit. I was able to eat two sausage biscuits today. First real, solid, typical food that I've had since March 9th. I have REALLY needed to GET OUT and MOVE AROUND.

So..................

The weather was wonderful today, it got to 71F in North Georgia and I went and got the car, put the top down, and drove around to do some errands and then headed to a six lane highway not far from here that is not traveled much on weekend. THis allowed me to to my "brake pad set" - ten hard brakings from 60 to 10mph. (This distributes compounds from the pads onto the rotors and sets up the pads and rotors to work together well - the brakes get really hot but that heat is needed to perform the required action.) I then drove for about 15 miles to cool things down before coming to a real stop anywhere - this to avoid distorting the rotors.

I've been home since, relaxing and I've only taken two pain pills today, one when I got up and one about an hour ago. I still can't drink Coke or anything like that, but I ate two more mini biscuits and had my fiber and nutritional supplement 'shake' and am no longer starving. I think I've consumed perhaps as much as 1200 calories today - the most since the 9th.

My weight is down a bit over 10 pounds.

Glad you are doing better Pizza