I can't wait to breathe again!

A couple of months ago I had posted about my on-going sinus problems. Well, in an attempt to alleviate some (hopefully all) of those problems, I had septoplasty surgery on Monday. Can I just say, the paperwork that they gave me beforehand about the recovery period was SO not true?!?!?!? It made it sound like recovery would be a piece of cake. HA!

First of all, I didn't know until I already had the "relaxer" medication (the precursor to gen. anesthesia) that I was going to be intubated. Now, I guess that makes sense, but I hadn't thought about it beforehand. From watching "ER" and "House" and the like, I knew that intubation is not the most pleasant thing, but WOW! does it make your throat hurt! Something I do not want to repeat again!

Second, this was my third time with anesthesia, but I don't remember it taking so long for me to recover from it before. My surgery was shortly before 10, but I didn't make it home until after 2 because I couldn't keep my eyes open. And the nausea! Aack! When I first woke up, the first thing I wanted to do was scream and rip everything off of me - good thing I was still pretty sedated!

But the worst part of this recovery? The congestion! Oh, all I want to do is BLOW MY NOSE!!!!! The congestion set in during the night on Monday, and I woke up at 3am feeling like I was choking. My mouth is so unbelievably dry and my tongue has cracked and my throat is still sore and NOTHING (humidifier, saline nose irrigation, etc.) has helped. It makes me not want to sleep because that is when it is the worst. I can't breathe through my nose, so I fall asleep with my mouth WIDE open and the saliva glands cannot keep up. I finally stopped taping gauze under my nose this afternoon (to catch the constant dripping) because the tape has dried out patches of my skin and even ripped some of my face. Now, I constantly feel like I am going to sneeze (which I have to make sure I do with my mouth open!).

Did I mention how I pushed a bit too hard on my nose yesterday morning while trying to clean my face? It took EVERYTHING I had in my power to not pass out as my parasympathetic nervous system took over my body! WOW!

My upper jaw, especially my front teeth still hurt. In fact, I might have to have my future RDH sister take a look at some of my teeth because there are some weird white spots on the corners of them. Hopefully I haven't damaged my teeth in this process.

Monday morning I go in to have the nose splints removed. I can only imagine how painful that is going to be and I have a seriously low tolerance for pain. And then Tuesday I am planning on returning to work because EVERYTHING I have read has said that you can return to work in 5 to 7 days! If that is the case, I better be feeling a LOT better here VERY soon!!! Yet, I still won't be able to do anything "strenous" for another week, and not 100% for like a month. What does that mean??? (because nothing has been the way they said yet!)

One amusing moment: as I am in the surgery center waiting my turn, I notice all of these little kids prepped and ready to go who were there with their mothers. I wanted Mike there, of course, but I practically begged my mom to come, too! So, even at 30, I still wanted my mom with me for my surgery!! Thanks, Mom, for sticking around another day!!!!

Thank you for letting me vent. If you can't do it on your own blog, where can you?? :)

Oh, and happy new year!!!!

1/7/09 EDIT: I removed the link to the YouTube septoplasty video. My sister was braver than I and actually watched the whole thing - and found out it was mislabeled! Oh well, this is the first time YouTube let me down! :) Thanks, Brittany!