So here is my day by day experience with Dr. Parker
Day 1-I was out of it and miserable. I took my pain medication ever 4 hours religiously. After the procedure they asked if I wanted a dose of pain medication and I said yes. That was a good idea. At home im taking liquid codine and Tylenol. I had the surgery at 10am and I had my first meal at 4pm after my first dose of codine and Tylenol at home. My first meal was vanilla pudding mixed with water. That day I also had brocalie puréed soup which was a broth I found in the organic section of stop and shop. That night I tried to mix the soup with mashed potatoes but they were too chunky. At night I slept about an hour at a time. Good thing I had my kindle.
Day 2 was ok. I slept an hour at a time during the day. I ate Popsicles broken into a bowl and slightly melty. Drinking is hard because it's hard and painful to swollow. But it's important to drink. I had yogurt mixed with Popsicles and more brocalie soup.
Day 3- I slept for 3 hours at a time for 10 hours. Sleeping is so painful because your throught gets dry. My throat has been coated in white gunk and my ulva is still huge. Eating and drinking continues to be hard and painful. I'm trying to drink a lot because it's better for you. I had ice-cream, avocado pudding (avocado mixed with banana, honey and almond milk) and butternut squash soup. I still can't eat anything that's not a broth and I prefer all Foods even soup cold. For the last two days I've been drinking honey water and Gatorade. I heard honey helps with the pain so a drink some every day. I also took 2 one hour naps. I also had energy for a shower.
Day 4- I went to bed at 11pm and got up at 2am for medicine. 4am to suck ice chips. 730am for more Tylenol and codine. 10am to suck ice chips again. I won't eat until noon after my next dose pain pills. Waking up is so painful but the lidocaine spray helps and the ice chips help. I'll post more once I have been through a few more days. Also I'm still not talking. I just write everything down. The pain right now feels like an annoying painful sore throat. It's pretty annoying and painful and one time when I missed a dose of the pain meds the pain was so bad I felt I would go mad if it kept on. The pain went from my throat to my ear. Luckily I took the codine and Tylenol mix and then was better. I'm starving today and fantasizing about eating meat but I know I'll only be able to have liquid food since it still
Hurts to swollow. So far, I have lost 5 pounds...
I'm a 32 year old woman. I made sure someone could be with me for the first week and administer my meds and take care of me. I'm so glad I did. It's pretty miserable but I don't feel completely out of it. I think it would be much, much, much worse if I had the surgery through a different method. I'm able to watch tv and read and day dream so I'm doing pretty good. I also have a fair amount of energy and don't feel mentally drained. Hopefully, if only gets better from here.
Here is more about my experience from the 32 year old woman. It is now one week since the surgery and I feel much, much, much better! I've been doing light house work and have been able to leave the house for some errands. I wake up about 3 times a night with my throat on fire. I've found sucking strong cough drops while I sleep really helps with this. I also tend to suck ice chips when I wake up and mostly through the day. We make these by freezing a small layer of water on a cake pan and breaking it up with a knife since we don't have an ice maker on our fridge. I am only taking half of the codeine and Tylenol mix now. I still find eating very difficult and painful! I'm still on a liquid diet of instant potatoes and liquid soup. I'm still eating vanilla ice cream. I'm very hungry but I know it won't be long now till I'll be completely off the pain medication and able to eat more foods! I bought some baby food chicken sausages so that is my goal in the next few days. I would say this isn't nearly as bad as what it could have been! Dr. Parker and his crew were really amazing!