Crazy Christmas Eve...

Today was day seven post-tonsillectomy. Because I had been doing so well and I was getting more than a little stir crazy, I was a bit less careful this morning when getting out of the shower. And so it shouldn't have been a surprise when I leaned my head over to towel dry my hair that my mouth filled with blood.

I broke the scab that was covering my right tonsil... well, the space where my tonsil used to be.

It was kind of a scary way to start Christmas Eve. I spit the blood into the bathroom sick, but my mouth quickly filled again. I walked out to the kitchen, grabbing my ice-water on the way to start my ice-water gargle as per our prior instructions from the doctor. I spit the next mouth full of blood into the kitchen sink. Ick.

I got Derek's attention and began my gargle. Only, every time I leaned my head back to gargle, I felt the blood draining down the back of my throat. My wonderful imagination shot between images of me throwing up all the blood I swallowed (because you do that with blood. ew. and ouuuuuch. and dang that would probably break open the scabs more and cause more bleeding...) and choking to death on my own blood.

Don't you loooove my imagination?

I altered tactics and started swishing the ice-water before spitting it into the sink. That helped a bit, but each spit was still pretty bloody. I grabbed an ice-pack out of the freezer and slapped that against my neck for good measure.

Meanwhile, Derek had been trying to get in touch with the doctor and been providing me with a continuous supply of ice-water. He got through to a someone who said they would page the doctor. We waited for the call back.

Thankfully, as I continued with the ice-water, the bleeding began to slow and by the time the doctor called back it had actually stopped on its own. I was gratefully surprised because the doctor had warned me if bleeding occurred, they may have to go in surgically to re-cauterize the wound.

The doctor gave us instructions for the rest of the day. All liquid diet, no laying down, no moving around, and of course lots and lots of ice-water. We followed it pretty strictly, with no problem. I did spent most of the morning with bloody tasting burps.

Fun eh?

It actually turned into a pretty awesome Christmas Eve, despite the rough start. Derek and I played a game, opened our presents, and watched Elf. And the Christmas episodes of South Park. We've been watching waaay to much South Park, haha.

That's all for now. I will be much more careful until the tonsils are fully healed!