ENT Recovery - Day 6 (Post op Appointment)

Today was the big day! Post Op appointment where I say goodbye to my nasal splints. My appointment was at 9:30am. My husband drove me to and from my appointment which I'm glad we did. I was a little nervous so I took a half dose of my pain medication about an hour before the appointment. My splints came out very easily but it definitely wasn't pain free. It wasn't unbearable but it wasn't a "piece of cake" either. I probably could have done without the pain meds but it might have made the experience worse if I hadn't.

What surprised me the most were the nasal splints. HOLY SHIT. They were huge! I couldn't believe that those things had been inside my nose for the past 6 days. No wonder I was uncomfortable. They were about 3 inches long and made of a clear plastic-y substance. They were slightly rounded. Getting them removed felt awful and wonderful at the same time. My nose has been dripping but not really bleeding which is good.

My surgeon cleaned my nose with some weird vacuum thing and that probably felt worse than the splints coming out. Once everything was done and my nostrils were cleaned up, breathing was great! I still feel kind of woozy and my nose is still very tender. I'll be out of work until Monday, May 9th.

Post op instructions from today include:

• May return to work without restrictions on Monday, May 9th. (Not too sure about this but we will see. My job is pretty flexible. If someone helps me with certain tasks, I think I'll be ok.)
• No working out for another 1-2 weeks. Once I do start to work out again, start small.
• No ibuprofen for 1 more week. Start with a low dose at first, if bleeding starts, stop using immediately.
• Slightly elevated sleep for another 1-2 weeks. One extra pillow should do it.
• May gently blow nose but nothing too forceful.
• If I need to sneeze, sneeze with mouth open. Don't hold anything back.
• There are still stitches inside my nostrils. Do not pull at them, they should dissolve on their own (haha, yea right. If they are anything like oral dissolving stitches, I'll believe it when I see it.). If they become too long, you may trim them down. 
• Saline spray 2 squirts in each nostril followed by vaseline around nostrils 3 times a day for 2-3 weeks.
• Finish any remaining antibiotics

It's been a few hours since my post-op appointment and I can already tell that my eyes are much better. My eyes watered like crazy during my appointment, but since then have calmed down significantly. I'm excited to see how I feel in a few days, I'm hoping that swelling will go down and that breathing will get easier. 

I got another doctor's appointment tomorrow, this time with my PcP. Not sure how happy she'll be that my blood pressure was so high. I may need to switch to a different medication so I guess we'll see about that tomorrow! 

And it goes on....

I finally had another post-op appointment with Dr. Keith on Tuesday. The appointment was pretty standard, we talked for a bit, he measured my range of motion and took a peak inside my mouth to look at my teeth and jaws. He was very happy with my progress and said that my range of motion is back to normal levels! He laughed when I told him I ate steak for the first time at my mother's birthday dinner at the end of January.

I did point out that my nose was still bothering me. Since my surgery, I can really only breath out of one side and my sense of smell is pretty bad. If you look at me straight on, my nose looks normal. But if you look at me from an angle, it's very obvious that one nostril is larger than the other. Dr Keith said that he wanted me to see an ENT specialist since he's an oral surgeon, not a nose guy, haha. He gave me a reference for an ENT specialist affiliated at Newton-Wellesley hospital and I called him and made an appointment. I might have a slight complex because this doctor has almost the exact same name as my oral surgeon. Oral Surgeon - Dr. David A. Keith. ENT Doctor - Dr. David A. Kieff. Too funny and only a little bit confusing, hahahaha.

I had my appointment with Dr. Kieff yesterday because they had a cancellation and were able to fit me in. I was honestly expecting to have to wait for awhile so getting such a quick appointment was a nice surprise. Dr Kieff was really nice and easy to talk to. I went in and had to have a full ENT appointment so I'm not sure what that's going to cost me. They examined my ears and cleaned them out since I had a lot of wax build up. It felt very strange but after it was done, I felt like a new person. He put lidocaine up my nose and then put a camera down there. The news? I have a deviated septum on my right side. What's interesting is that it looks so natural. You would think that it would look messed up since it's technically due to the jaw surgery I had in October but he said it's because Dr. Keith did such a great job that it looks as good as it does. It's weird saying that a deviated septum looks good but I guess what he meant was that if Dr. Keith didn't do such a good job, it would be a lot worse.

Now, here's the thing that really bummed me out. The only fix for a deviated septum is another surgery. I'm totally sick and tired and having to put my life on hold because I need to have surgery. This would put me at 4 surgeries due to my jaw. Luckily for me, this is actually a seriously minor procedure. The surgery is only about an hour long and recovery is about a week. I would have to be put under anesthesia but I would go home the same day and (hopefully) be back at work a week later.

I guess I have a decision to make. The office books out for surgery about 6 weeks in advance. If I were to go in today and make the earliest appointment, that would put me at the first week of April. Unfortunately, my hospital is getting a new computer system on April 2nd. Because the system is so different than our previous system, my department has doubled up on coverage for those weeks. Basically, it means that no one can take any time off because there's no one to cover. I'm going to be working a ton of over time during those first couple weeks as well. So, April is definitely a no-go for me, surgery-wise. So, the earliest I'm looking at for surgery would be May.

We have things that we had planned to do (begin renovating our house, for one). We are also going on vacation at the end of March which will use up a fair amount of my vacation time. Since this isn't an emergency and it doesn't bother me too much, I could wait until I'm ready. There is a certain appeal with getting it over and done with quickly but at the same time, I really just want some down time not having to prep for surgery. Plus, it'll allow me to build up some more vacation time through work if I wait. I definitely have a lot of thinking to do, that's for sure. I have a follow-up appointment on March 1st so I have about 10 days to really decide what I want to do.

I also have another appointment with Dr. Klein on Wednesday so I'll have another post next week after that appointment.