Sunday, May 18, 2008

Third Time's a Charm

Well, I had a 3rd surgery on my nose. For the first one, 8 years ago, they used my own cartilage, and over the last few years it disintegrated and fell apart. In August, they fixed it, and used something called MedPor which is kind of like casting material. They didn't do anything to my right side then, because it was fine.

For some reason, the right side collapsed over the last 6 months. Probably because the other side and the tip were so strong from the fake stuff, that it sort of "overpowered" the right side. So, this time they put a sort of "stint" in the right side to keep it from collapsing every time I breathe in. I really didn't want to do much, but I couldn't breathe at all from that side and he was concerned about the lack of oxygen that I was getting and how that would affect me long term.

So, we did it. He is a craniofacial reconstruction specialist who has been doing this for about 30 years. Last time I didn't have any bruising, and they broke a lot of bones and I had splints and everything! This time there is not really any bruising, but I do still have some swelling. I only need 1/2 a pain pill about every 12 hours now, and it has only been 2 days. I am doing pretty good, but look ridiculous since I have the cast on. It comes off next Wednesday.

I have some great pics and a video to post of N. pitching, but I will have to wait. I can't find the camera right now--that's the weird thing about Percoset for me. It doesn't make me sleepy, just basically slow and unaware of much. Very strange for other people, I'm sure, since I appear to be awake, but really have no idea what is happening. . .

I took this photo with my phone on the way home from the surgery.

2 comments:

Niki said...

You really don't look bad at all considering what's been done to your nose.

When I had surgery done years ago I only had swelling myself. No bruising whatsoever and my ENT was surprised by how much worse things were. When asked, he said it's all in how a surgeon handles the tissues and bruising doesn't have to be the norm.

Roxxi said...

Feel better soon!:0)