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!

Tonsillectomy Update

Surgery went well on Friday and I am getting plenty of rest now. Derek and Mom are taking good care of me. No crazy-susan stories that I am aware of. No ill effects from the drugs. Will update later with Christmas crafts, but right now I'm going back to sleep :)

Thanks everyone for the positive thoughts and prayers. Things have been going much better than I expected :)

Tonsillectomy

Derek and I are about to go to the hospital. We have to be there at 8:15, surgery is scheduled to start at 10:15, and we hope to be back home by 3:00. I'll post any funny susan-is-crazy-when-drugged-up stories if there are any :)

Christmas Crafts: Dough Ornaments

Between school, work, and health issues I've had a hard time getting into the Christmas spirit this year. We only just got our decorations up this past weekend, and even though Christmas is next week I haven't even started on my homemade gifts yet (except Ryan's - his I've been working on since this summer).

So, in an effort to jump start my holiday cheer, I'm going to post some of my favorite Christmas crafts from season's past.

Here is an adapted dough ornament recipe:

Dough Ornament Recipe
4 Cups all-purpose flour
1 Cup salt
1 1/2 Cups cold water
cookie cutters
Ribbons for hangers

In mixing bowl add flour and salt together. Slowly add water while stirring with a fork until soft dough forms. Turn out on lightly floured surface and knead until smooth, adding a small amount of water or flour, if needed. Roll dough on a floured surface to 1/4 inch thickness. Cut with cookie cutters. Place ornaments 1 inch apart on ungreased baking sheet. With a drinking straw, poke holes in the top for hanging. Bake in a preheated 300 degree oven for 30 to 45 minutes. Allow to cool completely. You can paint ornaments or leave as is.

The original can be found at: http://www.kids-cooking-activities.com/dough-ornament-recipes.html

You can make several little changes to 'spice' up the ornaments. For example, you can add cinnamon to the dough to make a scented ornament. While I haven't actually done this yet myself, I've been thinking it would be fun to make these ornaments with different spices and/or essential oils to use as air fresheners around the house.

Some of you may know that Derek has pretty extreme allergies, so we cannot use traditional air fresheners or anything with perfume in it (even your typical house-hold cleaners and detergents will aggravate his allergies). However, cooking spices and the scents caused by them do not bother his nose at all. I think this will be a fun way to add Christmas smells and other scents back into our home :)

Here are some pictures of different flour ornaments to get some creative ideas going. All of these photos are stolen from the internet (google image search).


You can see that you can do a pretty wide variety of things to make different ornaments. Hope y'all give it a try and enjoy!

Happy Hump Day

This morning was my pre-admission appointment for Friday's surgery. At this point, I've heard enough horror stories from Jim-bob and Betty-sue that I'm ready for a good old fashioned freak out session. Thankfully, they're gonna knock me out for the whole thing so I won't have the chance to wig-out during surgery (as I have done before...).

Interesting tidbit that I guess I should have expected:

I will have a breathing tube (be intubated? sp?) for the surgery. That will be a first for me

In other news, tomorrow is our work Christmas party - pretty much an all day eating-fest. I'm pretty happy about that. Going to bake some cookies for it tonight with Derek & Garrett.

Garrett is here for a short visit, then when he heads home to his folks' house my mama will be coming. She's going to help Derek help me post-surgery.

I think that's all the big news I have right now.