An update for the helpful friends from this board:
My pain has been minimal/none in teh past 4 days, with very little blood. I had a bit of pain on Sunday but it went away with 1 Tylenol, so it wasn't too bad. Today and yesterday were great, I can sit normally and hardly feel any pain. I believe I had hemorrhoids falling in the past few days, so maybe this is related to the sudden reduction of pain.
However, I still see a bit of blood on the toilet paper and an occasional thin streak of blood on the stools. BMs still hurt some, but not a lot, and after the BM I feel little pain. Does this mean that the fissure is getting better?
One of my frustrations right now is the lack of understanding of how this problem progresses - maybe there is no "standard" way, but I wonder what way less blood and a few good days means.