I’m doing better. Misery is down to about 3 on my scale right now. I forgot thought that someone already developed a misery scale though, so I’m about 0.3 on the streisand scale. It’s been slightly rising because I’m begining to become sleep deprived. I get sleep in 2-3 hours increments ever several hours (as noted by the hour of this post). It’s also not the most comfortable sleep as I have to sleep sitting up so in the end it’s mostly drug induced sleep, which is certianly better then no sleep.
I got curious as to where the packing was, and what was actually done in the surgery. I don’t think I mentioned this, but before my last memory of the oxgyen mask, I asked the nurses if it was going to be recorded. In luei of recording my surgery, I have found a youtube video of a FESS (which is not for the faint of heart). From which I learned that the packing that is causing me so much misery, isn’t prefered by some doctors. They apparently have “Dissolvable Sinus Dressings”, which can just be suctioned out after a week and doesn’t cause as much discomfort as the packings. I should have asked about this before the operation of course, but you live and learn. Incidentally I haven’t figured out where exactly the packing is, although I think it’s up behind my tear ducts, or at least putting pressure on them.
I also found out the reason they don’t cauterize the tissue. Apparently it’s so close to the brain and eye socket that they don’t want to risk complecations to either. Knowing that, I’m a bit more willing to deal with the blood now considering the risk otherwise. I am curious though if, like the dissolvable dressings, they couldn’t use something to help improve the clotting in the sinus. Perhaps it is to close to the brain to risk clotting factor, but I do know of a nosebleed bandage which has quickclot in it. (They developed QuikClot for the military, and it obviously turned out to have a great deal of other applications.) I’ll have to ask my doc what he thinks of it.
What’s next? Tuesday I get the packing out, assuming I can wrangle my doc into setting up the appointment. Interestingly, I’m not sure if I’d choose a professor as a doc again. It’s not so much that I don’t think he’s good–I do, he knows his stuff–but I’m a very curious patient who likes to know the why more then then how or what. Now you’d think that a professor would be better at it, but he really just doesn’t have the time to devote to his patients. It’s a big struggle to ask him questions and get follow up. This could of course just be him, but I can’t tell.
Anyway, hopefully I get the packing out tuesday, and the bleeding mostly stops before then. It’d be nice if I could go back to using my normal sinus rinse rather then the expensive sterile saline aerosol cans. In between the recovery, I think I’m going to do a garage sale as piece-mealing stuff on craigslist isn’t working to well. It’s really to bad they don’t want me picking up more then a phonebook as it’s just giving me a good excuse to be ridiculously lazy. Good news on the room front, as a friend of one of my current roommates looks like he’s going to take over my spot, so that takes a big load off. Oh and I have to get my airline ticket to Buj or Kigali. I still haven’t decided on which, but I should soon. I plan on being on the road around May 1st if all goes well with the recovery. I’m glad I didn’t try and leave on tax day, as I was originally thinking. I doubt I would have been recovered.
Thanks everyone who’s sent recovery wishes. Being a bit bored out of my mind laying around has made everyone’s contact extremely enjoyable. Thanks again to Alex, who made getting home possible.
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