Saturday - Day 4

So last night I started out downstairs in the chair. I was waking up every 45 minutes to an hour either going to the bathroom, cleaning out my nose, changing bandages, getting pain meds. It seemed like the night would never end. About 5am, I went upstairs to bed and ended up sleeping on one of those back support pillows. I have feared falling asleep and laying down. This helped to keep me propped up all night. I slept much better in my own bed.

My nose is still pretty clogged, although last night I got the first sense of breathe through my nose. I still have thin blood coming out one nostril and a thin mucus coming out the other. I found that drinking water caused my nose to bubble a bit, gross I know! But it cleared up the pathway a bit. I'm dying to blow my nose but I know I can't yet. I do have a better sense of taste now. It's not completely back, but it's a start.

My teeth are starting to hurt quite a bit. They started hurting a little last night but that has intesified today. My head has also been pounding off and on. My skin has been really dry and itchy. I'm not sure why. I took a shower today and that took all the energy out of me. I kept the water warm but got out and felt like I could pass out. I laid down on the bed and fell asleep for a while. So much for any plans of going out at all. I'll be lucky if I get out of the house in the next week.

I have a follow up with the ENT on Wednesday (a week from the surgery). I'm looking forward to getting all this stuff cleaned out of my nose. I can feel gunk in one nostril and it's huge and disgusting. I'm not sure if it's blood, skin, scabbing or what. I've chosen to leave that alone and let the professional handle it.

Day 3 (Friday)

I can really feel the swelling in my nose now. It hurts to wear glasses for too long because of the pressure it applies. I'm not bleeding nearly as much. I have light red blood coming out of the left nostril and a clearish yellow liquid coming out of the right nostril. I struggled to sleep last night, waking up every couple hours. I've been taking more of the pain pills but still not as many as I could. About one every 4-5 hours although I could take up to 2 every 4 hours. Sounds really intesify things and my head can be pounding at times. I've found myself to be really grouchy, maybe due to a lack of sleep. I still can't breathe out of my nose. I keep wiping the bottom off with a clean or wet tissue. Every now and then, I will get larger clumps of dark blood. My uvula is still huge and gets very dry and irritated when I sleep. I've tried sleeping with a wet cloth over my mouth. It's hot in Texas, so it's either sweat like crazy without the AC or dry out my throat and keep the AC on. I may plug in my humidifer.

Tonight, I am still in the same chair!

The Next Day (Thursday)

I am going through more tissue today than I have in years. I've been changing out the bandage covering my nose every few hours. Over night, I lost all of my ability to breathe out of my nose. Along with that I can't taste or smell anything. Although I'm not struggling to eat anything, I don't have much of an appetite. What seems to be worse is my throat. My uvula, the flap of skin in the back of the mouth, is extremely large and looks to be coated in a gray substance. I looked it up online and this seems to be a pretty normal reaction to the breathing tube. It hurts like hell though to swallow. What makes things more difficult is the fact that the uvula is so long that it touches my tongue. This makes me want to gag, even when just drinking water.

I've been sleeping in this chair on and off all day. I've found that sleeping to one side is easier because it keeps the uvula out of the middle of my throat. I've been drinking lots of water to try and calm it down and get it back to it's normal size. The internet says that Ibuprofen would help the uvula but I can't take any because it's a blood thinner.

I've also pretty much lost my voice. It's not all gone but it hurts to talk and doesn't seem worth it. I feel pretty demanding because it's such a pain to get in and out of this chair. I was able to take a nice warm bath, which felt good. Applying an ice pack to the nose caused a bit of pain because getting it to fit right without too much pressure is difficult.

I slept in the same chair again and woke up to throw up very dried blood. It seems that the amount of blood I am having out my nose and down my throat is decreasing.

Day of Surgery

I had functional endoscopic sinus surgery on June 10, 2009. They called the day before to tell me that my surgery would be at 1pm. I thought that was a little late since I wasn't supposed to eat after midnight. They ended up calling me on the 10th to see if I could come in earlier for the surgery. My fiance drove me up there. After signing a couple papers, they took me to the back where I changed into a gown. I was able to keep panties and socks on... that's it. They put an IV into my lower left arm and started filling me with fluids. The anesthiologist came in and explained that I would have a tube placed down my throat during the surgery to help me breathe. He said that my throat may hurt the next day from the tube. I was wheeled back to a room that looked like it came out of a movie. There was a very thin lifted bed in the middle of the room. There were tons of machines around that I didn't even get a good look at. In no time, the anesthesiologist put something in the IV to knock me out.

I remember waking up thinking that my throat was really sore. The nurse said I didn't look too good, so she tried to give me some pain meds through the IV. For some reason, the IV was blocked and she couldn't get the meds in. She gave me a pill to take instead, but when that didn't kick in fast enough, she re-ran the IV and pushed in the meds. The meds kicked in real fast.

I was wheeled out to the car where I went home and crashed in a lounge chair. I was instructed to stay up at an angle as much as possible. I had a little bit of jello but it really tasted too bland and hurt my throat. I was bleeding like crazy, and struggled to cough up all the blood that was going down my throat. Late at night, I woke up and got nauseated very quickly. I went to the bathroom and vomitted a large amount of blood. I felt much better and was able to go back to sleep. I slept pretty well that night.