My Septoplasty

I feel like I’m about to write a Scrubs episode. Well, truth is I had a bit of an adventure a couple of weeks ago. For as long as I can remember, I’ve had nose problems. I won’t say they were very serious problems, I’ve never had seasonal allergies or painful sinusitis or nose infections. But my nose has always had…issues. Generally speaking, my nose gets stuffed up a lot and very often, particularly when I’m trying to sleep…even, annoyingly, when I’m dead tired and it is 4:30 a.m. but I can’t fall asleep because I can’t breathe. Lately it had gotten so bad that I could only ever sleep in one position all night long, otherwise my nose would stuff up and I’d have to breathe through my mouth. At least it hasn’t gotten to snoring.

But aside from that I always knew that my nose was a bit off. I’ll be revealing too much over here with this information, but the truth is I could feel that my nostrils were not at all even, and that one of them was nearly closed off entirely. Now that I’m no longer a starving grad student, I figured it was time to get this checked out and see if I could do something about it. And so I went to see the otolaryngologist, and let me tell you, this guy was good. Within five minutes he told me the simple solution was a septoplasty and within ten minutes I had scheduled a day for the surgery. Not bad. I really should have been a doctor.

For the weeks leading up to the surgery, I kept going back and forth on whether it was worth it and if I shouldn’t take more time to think things through. I consulted a very helpful friend who just graduated from med school this year (her response: it’s not open heart surgery, just get it done!). And I rationalized that I should get it done while I have good medical insurance. But I’ll admit I was a little terrified. I’ve never had surgery before.

As you can imagine, I was quite nervous during the days leading up to it. The day before the surgery I got a call from a nurse to give me some instructions and to set up the time of the surgery. I had already been told that I wouldn’t be able to eat or drink anything (not even water!) starting at midnight the night before, but I figured, ah no biggie, the surgery is probably scheduled for 10:00 a.m. or something, I can do that. The surgery was scheduled for 2:00 p.m.! Holy hell, I was not happy. See, I’m sure I’ve gone that long without eating before, whenever I’ve had a lot of work, or slept for twelve hours…hell, I’ve gone nearly 20 hours without being able to hold food down, much less look at it, after a bad hangover (not good times). But as soon as someone tells you have to do this on purpose, it becomes misery. I had a late night dinner and I tried to stay up as late as possible to sleep in the next day (did not work, asleep by 1:00 a.m., up by 8:00 a.m.). I forced myself to take a nap that morning and that got me through till around 11:30 and then I was off to the hospital.

There, I got checked in, put on scrubs (so comfy!), put on those little sock booties, and then talked to the nurse, and the anesthesiologist’s assistant (the actual anesthesiologist had gone missing for a bit, which my doc was not happy about cause the guy was holding up the surgery). I got an I.V. put in, for the first time ever, but thankfully I’m not afraid of needles. This whole time Rock is sitting with me and I’m being all nervous cause I’m worried about what it’ll feel like to fall asleep and then waking up. He tries to reassure me as best he can, bless his soul, but not much is helping. I get to consider my upcoming DOOM for about an hour until finally the doctor comes back and tells me to follow him to the OR. I think I must have made a pretty funny sight waddling down the hallway in my too-large-scrubs and hairnet. The OR was pretty neat looking and I’m kind of disappointed that I didn’t take a few seconds longer to just look around at all the cool stuff. I laid down on the bed and I can still hear my doctor complaining about the anesthesiologist being late and about why I wasn’t hooked up to the I.V. yet (I guess I was supposed to already have been knocked out at this point), and all this time I’m still really worried about what it will feel like to fall asleep. Well, Rock was right in the end, I was sweating the small stuff. The last thing I remember is the nurse coming over to take my glasses off my head, and me looking up at the huge lights…and that’s it. I had been on the bed maybe 20 seconds and that’s all I remember.

The next thing I remember is fighting to wake up and trying to open my eyes, and seeing everything looking very blurry. I also remember thinking “oh man, have they not done the surgery yet? What happened?” I don’t know, for some reason it felt like no time had passed at all. Soon after though I started to feel really nauseous, and I realized my mouth was horribly dry. I think a nurse was standing nearby because I remember telling someone that I was very nauseous and thirsty, but I also think I could have been talking to myself at that point. I also remember beeping going off and one of the nurses rushing up to me and straightening out my arm. I guess I had pinched the I.V. Eventually someone came over and offered me ice chips, bless them. Looking back on it, that was the weirdest part, was waking up. And for about three hours afterwards, I felt so groggy, I couldn’t believe it. The nurse helped to dress me and then Rock came back and we sat for awhile in recovery till I was ready to go, but the whole time I felt so groggy and blah and not there. I couldn’t really lift my head and I felt dizzy.

Eventually I got home and I got to rest. I have to say, Rock was amazing this entire time. First being helpful in the hospital and trying to get my mind off my nervousness, and then going out to get my pills and get dinner. And then patiently putting up with my whims (“I don’t think I want the sandwich for now, too hard to chew, can you heat me up some soup?” “This soup is not very good, can I have the sandwich back?”). All in all, the pain wasn’t that bad. It may have had something to do with the narcotics they prescribed for me, but I wasn’t in any bad pain other than a headache. My nose was bleeding a little bit and I had to wear a gauze strip taped to my face, but the bleeding went away the next day. Other than that, I just had to be careful not to touch my nose, even wrinkling my nose was painful, but it was fine if I just left it alone.

About five days later I went back to the doctor to get my packing removed. That was…not a fun experience. He had to cut up the stitches before pulling out the packing and it felt like first he was trying to pinch through to my brain and then it felt like he was pulling something out of my brain and when the packing finally came out I could feel the suction all the way in the back of my throat. I’m not ashamed to say I cried.

It’s been about a week and a half since then. My nose hurts just a little bit now if I touch it or wrinkle it, and I’m not ready to blow my nose still. I also still have a couple of stitches in there that have to dissolve at some point. As far as breathing, well I definitely think it helped, I can breathe much more easily out of the nostril that was nearly closed. Sleeping has gotten easier and I can even sleep on my other side now. I have to see the doc again in three weeks, and by that point I hope my nose is better than ever! Seems to be on the right path anyway.