Some of you guys might’ve seen me posting hospital pictures on my instagram and twitter accounts lately. Just to give you guys an update as to what’s going on, I had a tonsillectomy, turbinate reduction, & adenoid reduction on May 5th in Oxford, MS.
As for the why & the why now - this was a procedure I had talked about having for a long time. I’ve always struggled with sinus infections & sleep apnea, and this was the only long break we had left in the NASCAR Truck Series schedule until the end of the year. The full recovery period on this type of procedure is usually 2 to 3 weeks.
The procedure went well, but they had to put a stint in my nose because of just how much they took out of my nose – apparently my breathing passageway was somewhere around 70% blocked. My doctor told me I had the biggest adenoids & tonsils he had ever seen, so I guess I get the trophy on that one as well.
The first week of this recovery has sucked, and it got a lot worse a couple nights ago when the wound in my throat opened up while I was sleeping. At 5 am, my parents and I had to go on a mad dash to the hospital while we tried to stop the bleeding. There was A LOT of blood. It freaked me out a bit. I had to stay in the hospital overnight last night for monitoring but they felt like my throat clotted up well enough to send me home today.
There’s still a chance the wound could open up again – about 25% he told me – so I’m staying close to the hospital in case I run into any more complications. I’m scheduled for a checkup & to have the stint removed from my nose on Wednesday morning, so that should be a big checkpoint in the recovery process.
Thanks to everyone who’s reached out to check on me and wish me well in my recovery. As always, you guys are awesome.
I’ll keep you posted if anything changes, but as of now I’m 100% sure I’ll be ready to go at Kansas.
See you soon,
Tommy Joe