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The operation is fairly typical. No food/drink before hand, take some painkillers before you go down to be operated on. A couple of injections and you wake up feeling really groggy from which you slowly recover. I woke up at around 1pm.

At 2 pm I was drinking. It felt like I had tonsilitis.
At 3 pm I got out of bed to go to the loo. Mainly because I get bored easily and wanted to get out of bed. A nurse checked I was ok to do so and not wobbly.
I then spent most of the afternoon in and out of bed. Probably best to stay in bed, but meh, I get bored.
At 5pm it was time for tea. I was under the knife when the order forms came round, so I got nothing I liked. I had to eat fairly normal food. In the old days it was ice cream, then more recently it was toast (to remove the scab), but now it seems to be normal food. I sent my girlfriend for a wopper and fries, which I ate about 3/4 of before it got too painful.
Overnight I had really bad sleep apnea as my wounds were very flappy (I had tonsils removed due to sleep apnea). I had nurses checking regularly for blood oxygen (i had an alarm for that), pulse etc. In the end I was put on 02 and was much better.
Ate breakfast and got discharged with 2 types of painkillers, which I took whether I needed them or not, as one of them is very slow acting - voltradol IIRC.
Was warned about day 5. The pain got steadily worse until day 5 which was an evil combination of wisdom tooth pain, sore throat and ear ache. I didn't each much.
Then day 6 was better, and so was each day after that.
Day 14 I was just about ready to go back to work, which is much what they predict.
I'm now a different person. I don't know why you are having yours out, but my sleep apnea was cured entirely and I feel amazing.

In summary. Yes it will hurt. No it won't hurt like hell. Day 5 won't be much fun, but overall it's really really worth it.

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What's so special about the 5th day?

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No idea. No one said why it would hurt more on that day, but it did. The most likely explaination is that it is when some of the more stubborn scabs come off leaving fresh and raw tonsil beds. I guess that the scabs have no feeling compared to the bruised throat.

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Tonsillectomy in adults is perhaps more painful than in children, though everyone's experience is different. Post-operative recovery may take 10-20 days, during which narcotic analgesics are typically prescribed. A diet of soft food (e.g. pudding, eggs, soft noodles, soup, etc.) is recommended to minimize pain and the risk of bleeding; the duration of diet restriction varies from patient to patient and may last from several days to two weeks or more. Proper hydration is also very important during this time, since dehydration can increase throat pain, leading to a vicious cycle of poor fluid intake. At some point, most commonly 7-11 days after the surgery (but occasionally as long as two weeks after), bleeding may occur when scabs begin sloughing off from the surgical sites. The overall risk of bleeding is approximately 1-2% higher in adults. Approximately 10% of adult patients develop significant bleeding at this time. The bleeding may quickly stop naturally, or via mild intervention (e.g. gargling cold water). Otherwise, a surgeon must repair the bleeding immediately by cauterization, which presents all the risks associated with emergency surgery (most having to do with the administration of anesthesia on a patient whose stomach is not empty). There are several different procedures available to remove tonsils, each with different advantages and disadvantages. In children and teenagers it may be the case that there is a noticeable change in voice after the operation.