A couple of weeks ago we had an afternoon lecture/demonstration with an ENT (Ear, Nose, & Throat) surgeon. I walked in late and they were doing laryngoscopes (looking at the voice box through the nose) and I asked him how bad my deviated septum was. He asked me to plug my right nostril and try to breath in through my left nostril. Nothing. No air movement at all. He took a look at my nose and about 30-45 seconds later he was on his phone with his nurse setting me up for surgery.
As an aside, I haven't been able to breathe right out of my left nostril for probably 15-20 years. Likely this is from some bonehead move when I was in high school or college. Now, this is nothing that I would pay out-of-pocket for, but if my insurance will cover it and we've already met our deductible and a surgeon is offering it to me...I'm gonna take it.
There are some interesting things about being a doctor and seeing what happens on the other end of surgery. We don't really get called until the patient in on the OR table and getting ready so when the surgeon comes in the room they are ready to cut. That means that I got to the hospital 2 hours early, proceeded to tell each nurse that came in the room that I was a doctor so they could skip all the inane questions (I didn't really say that last part, but wanted to). That means that I got to sit in a very small and flimsy hospital gown nearly naked for 2 hours and read my book that I had the foresight to bring.
We then went down to the OR and I remember moving to the operating table (and probably mooning a couple people in the process), lying down, feeling something cold go in my IV, look back at the anesthesiologist who told me it was Versed and then...nothing. I honestly don't remember a thing. Very weird. Who knows what gibberish I might have been spouting off. That happens to be one of the properties of Versed...amnesia, not spouting off.
The post-op for me was actually pretty uneventful. I was wondering what it would be like to take narcotics, but I didn't really need any, so I didn't get to find out. Alas. For just a septoplasty the recovery entails some pink/red nasal drainage like you have a runny nose and a sensation of TONS of sinus pressure from these small plastic splints they had shoved up my nose. A part of me (a small part of me) wishes that it would have been more involved so I could get a real sense of what surgery is like for my patients, but I'll take the glimpse that I got and be glad for the easier breathing.
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2 comments:
This post made me laugh. I take it your nose doesn't look any different, right? Well, now you have a little sense of what it's like to give birth, in your hospital gown, mooning the anesthesiologist- except you aren't having mind numbing contractions at the same time. :)
Yeah, and no matter who hard you try to cover yourself it ends up just exposing another part of you. I settled for my nice hairy man thighs and was done with it.
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