well, here i am 9 days after surgery and i have to tell you, i'm doing pretty well. the day before i was scheduled to go in my doctor called and told me that he was adding a septoplasty to my list of procedures. i knew that my nose was a little wonky because the first time i went in he did a nasal endoscopy and the scope wouldn't fit down my left nostril at all. so anyway, i started getting super nervous about that for some reason, even though everything i read said it wouldn't be that bad.
the first couple of days immediately following the surgery weren't too bad because the anesthesia was still wearing off. i ate some pudding and applesauce those days but i think that's about it. mostly i just slept and tried to drink as much juice and gatorade as possible. i won't lie to y'all and tell you that it all felt awesome, because it certainly didn't, but it was nothing like i was expecting.
i had my first post-op appointment on thursday and my doctor said that everything is healing very well. then he vacuumed out my nose for an hour. i'm not kidding. it was pretty awful. in fact, it was by far the worst thing about this entire experience. it didn't hurt, perse, but the pressure of having a really long metal tube shoved into your face is super uncomfortable. i think it presses on some weird nerves too because i almost passed out about 3 times. when i had that first endoscopy done i almost passed out while he was trying to look down the left nostril. i was super embarrassed but he said it wasn't that uncommon. then when it happened during the vacuum session he said that it happens all the time, which was a relief. i still felt bad because it kept happening and every time it did he would have to stop for 5-10 minutes while i laid there and try to get it together. it felt pretty damn great afterwards though, to have all of that stuff sucked out. i could breathe!
my doctor told me that during the surgery when he got into my sinuses that he could not believe how inflamed they were. and this was just a normal day, i hadn't been sick or anything leading up to the surgery. he actually used the word "impressive" to describe the amount of swelling happening in there. it was even more swelling than my ct scan had revealed a couple of weeks prior. anyway, i'm just glad to have that shit taken care of! i'm not out of the woods yet, i have a lot of upkeep to do in terms of rinses and irrigation but it's a small price to pay to possibly never have sinuses that scary looking again!
in terms of the tonsillectomy, i was under the impression that it was going to be the worst part but i don't think it was. i guess the recovery is longer but i also was led to believe that the pain was going to basically be unbearable. sure, it's been rough here and there but it really hasn't been much worse than a really bad sore throat, of which i have had PLENTY. i'm well on my way to a normal diet again and even ate fajitas (slowly) tonight! on friday, after resisting for an entire week, i busted out a flashlight and looked at the back of my throat. hoooooly shit, y'all. what has been seen can never been unseen. i'm sure if you're really gross and want to know, you can google imagine search that shit but wow, it was gross. i just couldn't resist any longer, i HAD to know what i looked like in there. i'm excited to check again in a week or two to see my throat without my huge (and i'm talking HUGE) tonsils in the way.
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