Nasal Surgery Recovery - Day 1

The last few years I had really been struggling with breathing through my nose.  I knew I had a deviated septum and when to see the ENT doctor he told me that it was 95% to 100% blocked.  He also said the membranes that surround my nasal passage (called turbinate's) were very swollen.

Thus, yesterday I had surgery to straighten my deviated septum and to reduce the turbinate swelling.  He also removed some polyps and drained my sinuses.  It was under general anesthesia and the procedure itself lasted a half hour but I was out for about an hour and half.

When I first woke up my first thought was "WOW -- I can breath through my nose!"  My second thought was "Where the [H-E-DOUBLE-TOOTHPICKS] am I?   I was having a real nice dream and it was so tranquil and then all the sudden I woke up and there was nurse over me who said Hello Steve."  At that time I did no know what was going on.  I did not recall that I had gone into surgery in the first place and I could not remember anything.  Then all the sudden I got a vision in my mind of the anesthesiologist putting the anesthesia in my IV which even till this point was that last thing I remember.  At that point I realized that I had just came out of surgery but it took about thirty seconds for this realization.  The recovery room was not private so there were beds with patients wheeling by and nurses and doctors scurrying back and forth, and a lot of different noises coming from all over the place.  They brought in my wife and apparently I kept saying to her, "I'm so disoriented". She says I looked like I saw a ghost.

So the first 24 hours the pain has not been to bad.  As matter of fact, this morning I did not take the prescription pain killer, instead I took two Tylenol and I feel pretty good.

I hardly had any strength to anything yesterday but today I feel a little better.  The fact that I am sitting here at the computer is a good sign that I am getting my strength back because the computer is up stairs.

My nose is real sensitive and it is leaking a lot of blood.  Yesterday I was leaking blood out of my eye socket but that appears to have stopped.

My wife has been a real trooper taking care of me.  She has been feeding me and making the gauss to put under my nose and making sure I am taking my medicine.  She has been a real jewel in this ordeal.