You owe me a night of sleep back!
I had surgery on Wednesday. Septoplasty/turbinoplasty to fix a deviated septum and trim the turbinates that were "hypertrophied" to compensate. This caused me difficulty in breathing so I finally decided to have the procedure done.
Procedure was practically a non-event, I was nervous for practically no reason as it went off without a hitch. The staff at the surgery center was fantastic. The anesthesiologist even held my had during the surgery as I was aware when I floated up out of the twilight sedation they had me under. I was talking to him and squeezing his hand as I heard the surgeon place the chisel and instruct the nurse to hit it several times.
So I left the facility with this packing in my nose (think small tampons) to absorb the the 'stuff' that was sure to be leaking. The pressure was something like having a bad congestion headache. Enough to be annoying, but not terribly painful. Additionally, I was quite obviously unable breathe through my nose. Oonagh was told by the Doctor to make the early appointment for the next day to have the packing removed.
OK, the rest of my day was quite miserable as I tried to snooze off the aftereffects of the sedation and ignore the crappy overwhelming feeling of the packing. So, I go to bed early to try and fast forward to tomorrow morning as I couldn't wait to have them removed.
WORST NIGHT EVER! Have you ever spent almost ten hours just staring at the clock waiting for daylight to break while being tired as hell and almost completely unable to fall asleep? Well I do now. I tried but I could not sleep. The combination of a physically blocked nose, a dry mouth, and pressure across the bridge of my nose just made sleeping impossible. I laid still and tried to sleep, but as I dozed, I heard myself start to choke from the dry mouth and I immediately woke up to the pain. I looked at the clock many times and saw the minutes creeping by. I tried sleeping upstairs, downstairs, head propped up, reclining...nothing worked. I felt like I was being tortured and there was nothing I could to to speed up the time.
When morning finally arrived and I made it to the Doctor's office, after I was led into the room I started tearing up I was so emotional about having the packs removed. He told me that some of his younger colleagues leave the pack in for up to 5 days
Anyway, I took a couple of breaths through my newly cleared nose and then as the day progressed, the swelling set in and I am now blocked up again, though this time it doesn't feel so terrible. I was able to get a decent night's sleep last night and am now preparing myself for a few more days of being blocked up before I can breathe the air through my newly routed out nose.
I hope this passes quickly.
