Nose surgery sucks!
The beginning of this tale starts about 7 years back. I was playing a match of Rugby for the Penn State Abington team as the scrum half, for those who don't know rugby it's a close to a quarterback as you can get in American football. Anyway, I was at the bottom of a scrum and was fortunate enough to take a boot to the nose. When this happened I instantly saw stars. I stood up and felt my nose for blood. There wasn't a drop. A little confused and still dizzy, I continued to play for about three minutes before the Ref halted the game and suggested I go see my coach. When I approach the side line my coach's face concerns me. His jaw was dropped and he had this look of major concern. "Holy Fuck!" he says. Not aware of the actual damage, I can only assume that my nose is bleeding or I am getting a black eye. My coach quickly asks how I feel, and I reply simply, "Fine. A little dazzed, why?"
"J.J. your nose is smashed crocked to the right." he replies quickly.
Not aware of what I was about to do I place my hands on either side of my nose, and bend it back to the left. If the impact of the boot didn't hurt, this action surely did. After a second my coach asks if I want out of the game. Seeing that I just straightened my nose, and I am not bleeding I decide to stay in the game. Foolish, yes maybe, but in rugby you are only allowed a small number of subs per match, and this was early in the match. I didn't want to go out and chance us being short later in the match. Besides I was the only scrum half at the time for this team.
So fast forward a few years, and it becomes apparent to me that I severely deviated my septum from this incident, and because of it I started to have breathing issues through my nose, and extremely loud snoring. So finally I decided to have the surgery to fix it.
I was at the hospital at 7:30 am on Friday. Excited to finally be able to breath right I had no concerns or fears of the upcoming surgery. The nurses give me a few instructions to help me with the transition of waking after the surgery. They warn me that I will not be able to breath through my nose at all, and that I will want water for my throat since it will be dry from having a trachea tube for the surgery.
When I come to, I am aware of the lack of breathing through my nose and stay calm. I ask for some water for it felt like someone took a toilet bowl brush and shoved it in and out of my throat while I was in the OR. My first attempt to swallow water was an utter failure. It's hard to explain but you nasal passages are very important to swallowing easily. The lack of airflow creates a negative pressure in your head as you close your mouth to swallow. So needless to say, I just about spit up all over myself. I figure out quickly that keeping your mouth open a little helps. So I quietly lay on my bed, and wait for my sister to come and get me so I may go home and recover.
On the way home my sister takes me to fill my prescription of pain killers. With shit stuffed up my nose I approach the drop off portion of the desk for the pharmacist. I hand the pharmacist my prescription and she tells me that she can't fill it. The doctor forgot to place my name at the top of the prescription sheet. Poorly I decided that I didn't want to bother my sister with her driving me around for pain pills when I thought I could just tough it out.
Fast forward two days. I now feel like my head is going to explode. It is hard to explain the amount of pressure that has built up in my sinuses the past few days. There are times when my eyes water, and because the packing in my nose won't allow any fluids to drain I just cry. Although there are times the pain gets so bad I want to cry it is not crying I am trying to do. The sinus pressure is worse then any headache I have ever felt. The effect it is having on my entire head is bewildering. There are moments when I feel as if my teeth are going to shoot from my jaw. My temples throb with the beat of my heart, and every time I swallow it sends a shock wave through my sinuses. The worst experience is when I sneeze. For those who have known me long enough, my sneezes are of epic proportion. When I was in school I was kicked out of rooms for teachers felt I was embellishing on my sneezes. So now every time I sneeze I need to force my self to keep my mouth open, but regardless it feels like a bomb inside my sinuses is exploding. I have eaten over a gallon of ice cream in the past two days trying to sooth my throat. The only funny thing that I can possibly describe with what I am going through is due to my congestion, and soar throat I now sound like Kasey Kasem about to give out the top 40 countdown for the week. Nothing I can do seems to help, the only relief I have is when they pull the packing out tomorrow afternoon.
I am told that the process of taking the packing out is also painful, but I would rather have a few seconds of extreme pain then continue this barrage of constant pressure.
There are two things I will suggest to anyone who gets septoplastic done. Get the damn painkillers... and don't schedule the surgery over the weekend. If I would have scheduled the surgery over the week I would have had the packing out by now. But since I scheduled the surgery over the weekend I need to wait till Monday to get the packing out. UGH!
The beginning of this tale starts about 7 years back. I was playing a match of Rugby for the Penn State Abington team as the scrum half, for those who don't know rugby it's a close to a quarterback as you can get in American football. Anyway, I was at the bottom of a scrum and was fortunate enough to take a boot to the nose. When this happened I instantly saw stars. I stood up and felt my nose for blood. There wasn't a drop. A little confused and still dizzy, I continued to play for about three minutes before the Ref halted the game and suggested I go see my coach. When I approach the side line my coach's face concerns me. His jaw was dropped and he had this look of major concern. "Holy Fuck!" he says. Not aware of the actual damage, I can only assume that my nose is bleeding or I am getting a black eye. My coach quickly asks how I feel, and I reply simply, "Fine. A little dazzed, why?"
"J.J. your nose is smashed crocked to the right." he replies quickly.
Not aware of what I was about to do I place my hands on either side of my nose, and bend it back to the left. If the impact of the boot didn't hurt, this action surely did. After a second my coach asks if I want out of the game. Seeing that I just straightened my nose, and I am not bleeding I decide to stay in the game. Foolish, yes maybe, but in rugby you are only allowed a small number of subs per match, and this was early in the match. I didn't want to go out and chance us being short later in the match. Besides I was the only scrum half at the time for this team.
So fast forward a few years, and it becomes apparent to me that I severely deviated my septum from this incident, and because of it I started to have breathing issues through my nose, and extremely loud snoring. So finally I decided to have the surgery to fix it.
I was at the hospital at 7:30 am on Friday. Excited to finally be able to breath right I had no concerns or fears of the upcoming surgery. The nurses give me a few instructions to help me with the transition of waking after the surgery. They warn me that I will not be able to breath through my nose at all, and that I will want water for my throat since it will be dry from having a trachea tube for the surgery.
When I come to, I am aware of the lack of breathing through my nose and stay calm. I ask for some water for it felt like someone took a toilet bowl brush and shoved it in and out of my throat while I was in the OR. My first attempt to swallow water was an utter failure. It's hard to explain but you nasal passages are very important to swallowing easily. The lack of airflow creates a negative pressure in your head as you close your mouth to swallow. So needless to say, I just about spit up all over myself. I figure out quickly that keeping your mouth open a little helps. So I quietly lay on my bed, and wait for my sister to come and get me so I may go home and recover.
On the way home my sister takes me to fill my prescription of pain killers. With shit stuffed up my nose I approach the drop off portion of the desk for the pharmacist. I hand the pharmacist my prescription and she tells me that she can't fill it. The doctor forgot to place my name at the top of the prescription sheet. Poorly I decided that I didn't want to bother my sister with her driving me around for pain pills when I thought I could just tough it out.
Fast forward two days. I now feel like my head is going to explode. It is hard to explain the amount of pressure that has built up in my sinuses the past few days. There are times when my eyes water, and because the packing in my nose won't allow any fluids to drain I just cry. Although there are times the pain gets so bad I want to cry it is not crying I am trying to do. The sinus pressure is worse then any headache I have ever felt. The effect it is having on my entire head is bewildering. There are moments when I feel as if my teeth are going to shoot from my jaw. My temples throb with the beat of my heart, and every time I swallow it sends a shock wave through my sinuses. The worst experience is when I sneeze. For those who have known me long enough, my sneezes are of epic proportion. When I was in school I was kicked out of rooms for teachers felt I was embellishing on my sneezes. So now every time I sneeze I need to force my self to keep my mouth open, but regardless it feels like a bomb inside my sinuses is exploding. I have eaten over a gallon of ice cream in the past two days trying to sooth my throat. The only funny thing that I can possibly describe with what I am going through is due to my congestion, and soar throat I now sound like Kasey Kasem about to give out the top 40 countdown for the week. Nothing I can do seems to help, the only relief I have is when they pull the packing out tomorrow afternoon.
I am told that the process of taking the packing out is also painful, but I would rather have a few seconds of extreme pain then continue this barrage of constant pressure.
There are two things I will suggest to anyone who gets septoplastic done. Get the damn painkillers... and don't schedule the surgery over the weekend. If I would have scheduled the surgery over the week I would have had the packing out by now. But since I scheduled the surgery over the weekend I need to wait till Monday to get the packing out. UGH!
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Love you dude <3