Sinus Surgery - A Week Later (Day 7)

I still need to fill in the gaps with blog posts about the day of surgery and immediately after, it's been quite a ride since last week (and I originally thought my anxiety over the surgery was nuts!) The surgery went pretty well last Tuesday and the doc has said that he hopes to have addressed the "mechanical" breathing problems I've been facing, but the key caveat is that everything needs to heal properly and that's why I've visited his office 4 times in the last week post-operation.

I just had to sneak in a post here because today's ENT visit was near horrific, but had some aspect of extasy whereby I left the exam room bleeding like crazy, but oddly very excited about how I handled myself. If that makes sense...

So the scheduling nurse had already set up this standard week after surgery appointment and my dad drove me as he has throughout this process. We arrive for a 1:15 appointment and as always I'm seen 30-45 minutes late (sometimes it's a longer day). The doctor squirted a set of nasal numbing agent and decongestant and left me alone for what seemed like an eternity (about 15 minutes). He returned and asked me to hold the instrument you see above, a 5 inch long needle looking sheath that has a tine camera on the end which feeds to a TV in a corner of the exam room. I was asked to put my knees together, and that means pain is on the way. He stuck the rigid needle up my right nostril and poked around checking out the passageways between the nose and ethmoid sinus, but not actually through the tiny openings that reach the sinus (that's for next week).

It was super painful! He then moved to the left nostril and by that point I was all tearing up, but definitely keeping my cool. After the left nostril we chatted about my progress, he said he'd corrected a slight lateralization of the left inferior turbinate and I was otherwise healing well. He prescribed me an OTC Sinus Rinse and sent me on my way. I proceeded have a crazy nose bleed and met my dad outside - he'd always joined me in the exam room, but this time I wanted him to wait outside because I thought it was going to be a bit more excruciating. And it was!

I really felt like I handled the pain well and was somehow really excited after. Or maybe it was the hydrocodone kicking in! Those opiate pain killers are dangerous!