A contest..I'm game

Linda is having a contest. The prize is a unique coffee mug designed by her daughter. I have been coveting these mugs ever since she posted about them but I can't spend money right now..moving ya know.
"When Have You Felt Like Death Eating a Cracker?" contest!
That shouldn't be hard to think of a day I felt like death eating a cracker before the thyroid surgery. I felt like that from 2002 to July 2006. But the day after surgery has to be the worse.
I should warn you..this can be pretty yuckky for men, but if we have to watch all those "Dick Hard" Commercials I think you can put up with it.
I don't like hospitals.
I don't like surgery.
Well who does but, I am pretty anal about it. I chose to do 2 rounds of irradiated iodine treatments rather than surgery. I couldn't cook, touch anyone, touch anything anyone else might touch, couldn't even kiss the dog, Cheyenne had to be penned up for 5 days.
Didn't work and just made the Graves disease longer and surgery more difficult.
After the actual surgery, I woke up in the hospital and felt like I had been strangled. I couldn't talk. My vocal chords had been scratched with the breathing tube. The oxygen they made me wear was drying out my nose so it hurt to breathe through my nose and mouth. Not breathing wasn't an option.
The nurses insisted on helping me to the bathroom. Every time after that I had to leave my water for them to see because they had to note it on my chart..eww.
To make matters worse I had my monthly friend visiting and they made me use the antiquated hospital type supplies. I'm surprised they didn't make me use moss and rags for goodness sake.
What really got me about the whole experience is they had a new meal ordering system they were so proud of. Instead of filling out the little slip, you called your order down to the kitchen "just like room service". The nurse kept coming into the room and gushing about the new system, saying I should call right away. I tried to hand signal her there was a problem but she just kept chatting and floated out the room. I actually missed a meal until Mom showed up and figured out why I wasn't eating. I was starving..I couldn't talk to order my meal and the nurse wouldn't stop talking long enough for me to whisper it to her.
Since then I try not to be sick. I have been trying to lose weight and exercising which isn't easy because now I'm fighting the thyroid replacement medication. I just feel I have spent enough of my time feeling like death eating a cracker..now I'm gonna be happy and healthy even if it kills me.