The World According to Angie

Sinus Infection + Bronchitis

It's been a while since I've logged a post under this particular category, and for that, I should be grateful.  Instead, I sit here with a nose that's red and raw, a chest that's aching and tight, and a head that feels like someone's blowing up a balloon inside my skull.  And I'm just flat-out cranky.

This time of year, we wind up with crazy weather here in Dallas.  It's cold one morning, warm enough for shorts the next afternoon.  All that back-and-forth tends to wreak havoc with my sinuses.  Sometime early last week, I started with the pain-and-pressure cycle that's usually the harbinger of a sinus infection.

Determined not to allow it to foil my Thanksgiving travel plans, I broke out the non-iodized salt and my baby bulb syringe, and started twice a day irrigation.  I keep having people ask me if I've heard of a Neti Pot.  It's so cute ... they put something on the Oprah Winfrey show, and all the sudden, everybody's an expert. 

Seriously, though, my primary care physician hooked me up with this little device back in 2001, before my first sinus surgery.  And it works great if your sinus passages are open enough to allow the salt water through.

Me?  I need the pressure a baby bulb syringe gives me to blast the water up my nose.  And, this time, out my eye.  <cringe>  Yeah, the pressure and blockage is so bad this time, I'm having salt water leak out one of the sinus-to-ocular passages when I do it.  Nice, huh?

I thought I was going to beat the whole infection thing.  I did fine for the trip down there, and I was okay Thanksgiving morning.  But when dinnertime rolled around and I only half-filled my plate and then only ate part of what was there, and had no interest in dessert, I knew something was wrong.  (Jim asks me if I'm hungry, and my answer is usually, I'm a Flinn, and I'm awake.  What do you think?)

Friday morning, we managed only two stores for Christmas shopping before I was too exhausted to go on.  Chills, fatigue, low-grade fever, and body aches.  No, not the flu ... a full-blown sinus infection.  Thank God for a family friend who is an MD; he called in a prescription for 500mg of Azithromyacin a day for 5 days.  And in 12 hours, I felt so much better.

But 24 hours later, I was sicker.  So today, I stayed home from work and called my Otolaryngologyst.  I hadn't seen Dr. Dansby in a while, but his office staff knows me, and they were awesome as usual, working me in for a morning appointment.

After my exam, Dr. D proclaimed my sinuses as "trying to heal" but this has turned into a secondary infection: bronchitis.  "The good news," he told me, "is that this is the last place this infection can go."  Seeing as how I've done the rounds of sinus infection to ear infection to throat infection to bronchitis before, I actually found that humorous.

Ten days of Avelox, he says. Plus rest.  And Mucinex DM.  I'm already tired of coughing.  Oh, and keep up the irrigation, and the water coming out my eye isn't completely abnormal, so don't worry about it.  Just don't push so hard.

They always tell me that.

So unless I'm feeling a million times better tomorrow, I'm going to take a second sick day and stay in bed.  I've got too much going on in December for this stupid thing to hang around any longer than it absolutely has to.

Here's hoping your December is off to a healthier start than mine.  Now I'm going to take my cranky butt back to bed.

Miscellaneous Personal Updates

Happy Tuesday, my friends.  Obviously, the blogging bug hit tonight.  Or I'm avoiding the pile of laundry in the other room.  Maybe it's a bit of both ... whatever the case, I'm making up for lost time these past few weeks.  I figure my final post for the evening is just going to be a series of miscellaneous updates all mis-mashed together, for whoever is out there, and reading, and actually cares.  Here goes...

I'm back at work this week.  Part-time, anyway, but 8-12 at the office is way better than all day in my pj's.  (Remind me I said that three months from now, okay?)  My MD is going to re-assess on Friday how I'm doing, and decide if I'm ready for full-time next week ... but the last two days have been slow, easy, and pretty good.  It was reassuring to see my office was still there, if you know what I mean.  Three weeks is a long time...

I'm Contest Mastering the D50 International Speech Contest next weekend.  Is that cool or what?!?!  After having to pull from the Evaluation contest at the Division level, which I was totally bummed about, I figured my chance to stand on the District stage this year was entirely shot.  Not so, apparently ... Les Guse, our LGET, gave me a call and asked if I was willing (and able) to step in and be Contest Master at Saturday night's speech contest.  I cannot begin to describe my excitement.  Now I'm wracking my brains, trying to think of all the past contests I've seen, and what the CMs did well - and what they didn't do well - so I can do a good job for both the contestants and for the audience.  The biggest thing I know is to remember that IT'S NOT ABOUT ME.  (C'mon, you know contest masters like that ... be honest!  Where they think the whole show is about them ... right?)  If I do my job well, I'm just there to warm 'em up and keep things running smoothly.  And I will NOT play "stump the chump" during contestant interviews.  I promise.

I got suckered into serving as an officer again next year.  I really shouldn't put it that way, but if the members of my home club read this, they'll just laugh, and nod their heads knowingly.  I'm handing over reins as VP-Ed (thank God! that job is the toughest, requiring unflagging work on a weekly basis, and it's the single most important role to keeping a club running smoothly, and IT'S WAY TOO MUCH RESPONSIBILITY FOR ME TO HAVE ANY LONGER) and I'm taking on VP-Membership instead.  It's something I've never done before, and we didn't have anyone volunteer for the spot.  And our current President, who is picking up those VP-Ed reins, asked me really nicely.  VP-Ed ... or VP-Membership.  For a club that has added something like 10+ new members this year.  So ... looks like I get to give it a try.  Oh well, there's always something new to be learned, right?  Even for PDGs.  Or, should I say, especially for PDGs.

I have a new addiction, and it costs $2.50 a box.  But it's totally worth it.  If you have allergies, sinus problems, a head cold, bronchitis, or heck - if you just like to blow your nose and get a little bit of a head rush, you MUST go to the store NOW and buy yourself a box of Puffs Plus with Vicks.  I'm serious - some genius figured out a way to not only put lotion in the tissue, but to also put Vicks Vaporub.  And it is AWESOME.  So you blow your nose, and it's all nice and soft and doesn't scratch your poor face ... and then you breathe in ... and whoooo - head rush!  And it's like you can TOTALLY breathe.  Jim and I are fighting over the box I bought.  Ssshh... don't tell him about the secret stash I have in my studio.

There's lots more to tell in the next few days, including cool stuff coming up this weekend, more photos to share (I'm going to have to buy another external hard drive at the rate I'm shooting RAW files!), and probably some wedding stuff too.  But I've deluged you with enough rambling nonsense for tonight.  Oh, but one more thing...

Vote for David Cook.  Tonight's first song might not have been his best performance, but it was still good, and the second outright rocked.  And while Archuletta is cute, and young, and all "Baby Elmo", I dig me the rocker.  So vote for David Cook.  And if you have no idea what I'm talking about, be proud: you have withstood the siren call of this season's American Idol.  I certainly haven't.  Sheesh...

Feeling like myself, a little

Thank the good Lord for antibiotics ... 48 hours later, I'm starting to feel like a small semblance of myself.  I actually managed a shower for the first time in two days (oh, my, nothing ever feels so good as taking a shower when you've been sick, does it?), I did dishes and a couple loads of laundry ... in other words, I felt well enough to be out of bed for a bit and puttered around my apartment instead of just lying there and watching DVDs.  Which isn't all that bad in and of itself, but it starts to get old after a while, y'know?

I ran out of steam mid-afternoon, and laid down for a nap ... woke up about an hour and a half ago with a niggling headache that's getting steadily worse.  I had hoped to get cracking in my studio, but playtime might just have to wait until tomorrow.  Don't want to push it too much.

Saw Jim briefly today, when he swung by my apartment to drop off something for me, with Veronica and Eddie in tow.  My sweet furry baby came running right up to me, and practically jumped into my arms ... I think he's been missing me.  I know I've been missing him.  Oh, and Jim, too ... but I know he's doing important stuff right now - like, spending time with his kids - so I can do without him for a few days.  I know New Year's Eve will be here soon enough.

Anyway, I guess that's enough for a check-in for tonight.  I'm alive and if not precisely well just yet, I'm on my way to getting better.  I'm looking forward to a good night's sleep tonight, and starting off tomorrow all fresh and well-rested for some good play-time with my new toys in my studio.

My post-Christmas bonus (apparently)

WARNING: (oh, it's always a good sign when I begin a post with its own warning) This blog posting is full of feeling-sorry-for-myself.  I know it's one big ol' pity-party, but I'm feeling a smidge entitled tonight.  So I'll try to keep it short, and you'll try to avoid posting comments about how "Grinchy" I sound, and we'll all have Peace on Earth, blah blah ... phooey.

I thought I was doing pretty good with the whole recovering-from-surgery thing.  Not great, but pretty good.  I finished the 20 day course of antibiotics just as the worst of the side effects were kicking in.  (I don't know if this happens to anyone else, but when I'm on Biaxin too long, I wind up with horrendous lower back pain.  It's happened 3x now.)  I took my last Vicodin on the 23rd (and let me tell you, painkiller withdrawal on Christmas Eve - not such the fun thing for you or your family, but we survived to tell the tale, and this is why I didn't want to be on the stuff for nearly two weeks straight and why I kept trying to get off it early, it wasn't just me being stubborn, thankyouverymuch...)  I was doing the saltwater sinus irrigation religiously, flushing 'em out with a baby bulb syringe twice a day, and let me tell you that while that is perhaps the grossest part of recovery from ESS, it's also the most amazing-feeling.  And only people who have had ESS will understand (right, Audrey?) - it's like scratching an itch you can't reach any other way, and then going "Omigosh, did that come out of my head???"

Anyway.  I thought I was doing pretty good.  My energy levels were still pretty crappy, and I was crashing each day around or shortly after lunch, taking a couple hours of nap, and then getting up for the evening ... but all in all, I thought I was doing well.

Until late in the day on Christmas Day, when the aches and chills started, and the sore throat got really bad.  And I realized the lymph nodes in my neck were rock hard.  And I asked Jim for a flashlight.  And realized that there were these pretty little white spots on my tonsils.

So this morning, after a farewell breakfast with my parents, who hit the road for San Antonio (as previously planned), and Jim, who went to pick up his kids from his ex-wife for his half of Christmas with them ... well, I was back in Dr. Dansby's office at 11am.

Good news is that my sinuses are clear.  Thank God.  The left one is still pretty swollen and "is obviously still healing" - "may need another week" - "so rest and take it easy and keep irrigating it, okay?" - but I now have a secondary post-surgery infection in my throat.  He didn't say it was strep ... didn't even bother culturing it ... but I suspect that's what it is, given the fact that this morning, the white spots had spread and merged and it looked more like my tonsils were flocked with snow for the holidays.  That, and the fact that I used to get strep throat three times a year as a child.

(Why do I still have my tonsils, then?  Well, that would be a question to ask the military doctors.)

So now, I'm home, tucked into my apartment, with 10 more days of a DIFFERENT antibiotic (AAARGH!) and instructions to rest, drink plenty of liquids, lots of soup, and take it easy.

How in the heck did this happen?  I thought I was resting, but apparently not enough.  I must have picked this up during that second week post-surgery and pre-Christmas, when I was out and about doing last-minute shopping, or when we were in the movies on Christmas Eve.  It's the only thing I can think of, because nobody else that came into the house has been sick.  And now I'm just hoping I didn't share this with any of them...

I guess my biggest complaints tonight are:

1.  I'm so tired of being tired.  I know that sounds ridiculous, and self-serving, and all that, but I feel like I've been doing nothing but sleeping the last two weeks.  I'm ready to start feeling better, and by all rights, I should be back to something resembling normal.  But because I was stupid, I'm sick, and that's pushed me backwards on the recovery path.

2.  I feel like I'm going to waste what little time I have left before I have to go back to work.  I'm home, with my studio, and there's PROJECTS I want to work on ... but I feel so darn tired (see #1) and so cruddy, I don't feel like doing anything but lying in bed.  And I feel like I'm wasting the three vacation days I took this week so I could have the full block of time off between Christmas and New Years.  Oh, and speaking of which...

3.  I'm worried about being better for New Year's Eve.  We've got plans to celebrate with a double-date that night, Jim and I with Audrey and Chris Reed.  Audrey made reservations for us at a Brazilian steakhouse in Dallas that I've never been to, but she swears is "better than Fogo" - a place called Rafain.  They're not cheap, but for a special event, it's worth the splurge ... but only if I'm feeling better.  And Lord knows I don't want to get any of them sick.

I suppose to balance this out, I should also list a couple things I'm grateful for.  This might be a little more difficult...

1.  I'm grateful I made it through the bulk of Christmas before I started feeling bad.  I had a great time with Jim, and my parents, and Eddie, and on Christmas Eve, Audrey and Chris ... and thankfully, I didn't start feeling the worst of this until the night of Christmas Day.  So I'm grateful for that.

2.  I'm grateful Jim doesn't have to put up with me now.  The timing on this is good... he's got his kids now.  If he didn't have them for the next few days, he'd want to take care of me, and to be honest, he's been doing that for the last two weeks.  He's absolutely amazing, and awesome, and tireless at it ... but I'm sure that act is starting to get old.  At least this is going to give him a break from it for a while.  And it's not like I'm still on any heavy-duty sedating drugs and need to be closely monitored.  I'm just on antibiotics, for goodness sake.  So while I'd love to have someone here to cook for me, and tuck me in to bed, and bring me hot tea and tell me they love me ... it's probably a good thing Jim's getting a break from sick-and-cranky Angie.

3.  Maybe I'll get some good reading done.  In-between naps, of course.  I've got a stash of books that I bought to read during my surgery recovery that I didn't much touch, because I was either sleeping or getting ready for Christmas (which I now realize was pushing myself too hard... moron) so now maybe even if I'm not up to playing in my studio, I can at least do some reading.

Okay, so there ... I managed an equal number of gratitudes to my complaints.  I should get extra credit for that.  (Can you tell I'm extra-cranky tonight?)

And to close this blog posting ... I sometimes get asked - "Why on earth do you blog about stuff like your migraines, or your sinus surgery?"  Couple reasons ... my blog is here to keep friends and family posted on what's going on with me.  That's what happened to be going on with me at various points throughout this year.  But more importantly, TypePad seems to be doing a good job of indexing my blog with the major search engines.  Case in point: within minutes of posting my movie review of National Treasure this week, I had two Google search engine hits on it.

When I faced Endoscopic Sinus Surgery for the first time, I hit the web to do research - to try and arm myself with information about what to expect.  All I could find were sites from medical schools or surgeons or WebMD.  What I really wanted was information from the patient's perspective on what recovery was like.  That's sort of what my blog has done.

I've gotten random emails from people thanking me for sharing my battle with migraine headaches, and saying that they're going to ask their doctor about Topomax.  And I figure for every person who sends me an email, there are five who read my blog and didn't.

But the best case in point came in the form of an email I received from a young woman on the 19th of December.  "I stumbled on your blog," she said, "while searching the net for people who've just had sinus surgery, in a fit of guilty self pity after I only got about 2 hours of work done from home today."  Turns out she just had her second round of ESS on the 7th of December, and our medical histories read scary-similar.  First surgery worked ... for a while.  Then rounds of sinusitis-fever-bronchitis back to sinusitis, rounds of antibiotics.  She said, "Makes me feel half miserable then half like a lazy bum," and I totally knew what she meant.

During her surgery, her surgeon found something similar to what mine did - her ethmoids were infected - so the surgery was more invasive, meaning a longer recovery period.  She wrote, "it helps to know that someone else is going through what I am.  Sitting at home recovering, I was starting to get down about how long it was taking, but your post reminded me that not everyone can bounce back in 4 days!"

So, to those of you who ask why I blog about this kind of stuff: there is your answer.

And now, I'm going to take my cranky butt back to bed.  Well, maybe to the kitchen first, to heat up a bowl of soup ... and then to bed.  If anyone has emailed me, I hope you'll understand if it takes a few days for me to respond.  In the meanwhile, I hope you're all enjoying your Christmas presents, and that you're putting off the housecleaning just a little while longer.  It'll keep.  Rest and relax.  The New Year will be here before we know it.  And 2008 is soon enough to clean house.

Oh, and speaking of which, I thought of two more gratitudes:

4.  I'm grateful we did Christmas at Jim's house.  Not only is it homey and cheerful and there's plenty of room, and a great big kitchen, and it's got the chocolate couch ... but I got to leave the mess there.  Not that there was much of a mess, but...

5.  I'm grateful for my housecleaning service.  They came while I was at Jim's recovering from surgery ... so my apartment is sparkling clean.

Ah... we have to be grateful for the little things, right?  Right.

Status Report: Post-Op Checkup

For those of you who have been jonesing for some reading material, I've been on a bit of a roll tonight.  You'll find a whopping four new posts here on "The World According to Angie" ... and only one of them is going to be an update on how I'm doing, post-surgery.  The other three are - well, one of them had me laughing out loud as I wrote it, one of them is a sort of a "D'oh!" story, and the last one is a movie review, my not-so-humble opinion of a flick we saw this weekend.  So, as the saying goes ... I'm baaack!

But because I know there are some of you out there who are concerned, and are wanting updates on how I'm doing, and because today was my post-op checkup with my surgeon, I'll give you that update.  And then you can get on to the good stuff.

In my last post, I said I was working my way off the painkillers because I thought it was time to do so.  Well ... let me clarify that a bit more.  With my two previous experiences with ESS, I was weaning off the painkillers around day 5 or so.  So, I figured I should do the same this time.  Plus, I only had a prescription for 30 of the pills, and that supply was rapidly dwindling.

So, I took the last Vicodin Saturday night.  Sunday, I was popping extra-strength Tylenol like they were candy.  And I thought I was doing pretty okay.  The pain was around a 4, sort of a pressure in my face and a burning in my nose, but nothing I couldn't handle.

Well, this morning, I woke up, and I thought my face was going to cave in.  There was this horrible pain deep inside my head that I couldn't identify, and every breath I took in and out of my nose burned.  I'll be the first to admit that I have a super-low threshold for pain, and I don't believe in being a martyr.  So I asked Jim to bring me a glass of milk and a Vicodin.  An hour later, I was able to get out of bed.

And that was what was on my mind when I walked into Dr. Dansby's office today.  I felt guilty for the fact that I was still on the painkillers - which sounds sort of stupid, I know, but it's how I felt - and when I explained it to the nurse, she shook her head and said, "Why did you try getting off of them this weekend?  Many of our patients take them for as much as two or three weeks after surgery."

Blink.  Blink-blink.  Well ... um ... 'cause I didn't need them that long the last two times?  And Dr. Dansby told me that this surgery was going to be not as extensive as the previous ones, and that I would heal quicker and bounce back faster?

Well, at this point, Dr. Dansby comes in, and shares a little piece of information with me that would have been really freaking handy to have oh, I don't know ... a week ago?  It turns out that when they were inside my head on Tuesday, they discovered a couple of things.  To understand this, I need to give you a little lesson in sinus anatomy.

This is what the inside of your head looks like.  The CT scan from however many weeks back showed that I had problems in my left maxillary sinus cavity.  That's the big one beneath your cheek.  The problem was that the opening between that and my nostril was sealed shut... despite the previous surgery - which was designed to widen the opening and improve drainage - and Dr. Dansby didn't know why.

So discovery number one: the reason it was blocked was scar tissue.  That's right ... just the healing from the surgery, and probably scar tissue built up from all these dumb sinus infections ... that was what had blocked it shut.  So he drilled the passage super-big and super-wide, bigger than he had originally intended, so that even as it heals, the scar tissue won't cause problems and seal it shut again.

Now, I knew this.  He told us all about this at the hospital, and said that I'd likely hurt because the drilling was extensive.  What he didn't tell us at the hospital - what he told me today - was discovery number two.

Apparently, while they were inside my head, looking around (which just sounds kind of funny to me) they also discovered a problem in my ethmoid sinus cavity.  He said it was both blocked and infected ... so they cleaned it out and widened it so it will be able to drain.

Ding-ding-ding!  The ethmoid sinuses are deeper inside the head - you can't tell it from the diagram here, but they actually sit further back, almost behind the eyes.  And the original plan for my surgery didn't involve messing with the ethmoid ... but since he did, it's no longer the "less-invasive" procedure I should bounce back from quickly.

Dr. Dansby said this is why I'm still in pain, and he's not surprised I had such a hard time that first night at home with the blood drainage and everything.  (I shudder even thinking about it.)  He said that's actually pretty common for these surgeries, so I'm very lucky it didn't happen to me with the first two rounds.

Anyway ... the good news is that I checked out today as healing up beautifully.  No signs of infection, no signs of inflammation, and everything is healing as it should.  He wants to see me again in another 2 weeks, and he wrote me another prescription for more Vicodin, with the admonition to take it for at least another week and to rest up, and take it easy.

He was concerned about me taking it easy, and asked when I had to return to work.  When I explained I had made arrangements to work from home this week, he was delighted.  Given the intensity of his reaction, I made a decision right there, on the spot: I had two unscheduled vacation days that I was going to roll over to next year ... instead, I've booked them for this Thursday and Friday.  So I actually only have to do the work-from-home thing for two days, and then I'm completely and totally done until January 2nd.

He also gave me the word I had been awaiting with much anticipation: I can now do salt water irrigations.  Oh, dear Lord ... when I got home, and broke out the baby bulb syringe, and filled that plastic tub with warm salt water ... let me tell you, it was practically a religious experience.  It was like scratching an itch I wasn't allowed to touch for the past week.

So, there you have it.  I'm basically Loopy!Angie, nice and doped up, feelin' no pain... and when I'm feelin' no pain, I'm actually a really good patient.  Jim worked from home today so he could be with me, and I think he's going to do it again for at least tomorrow, if not most of the rest of this week.  How very fortunate we both are to have flexible schedules and employers that allow us to telecommute when we need to...

Now, I figure four posts is my limit for the night - especially as long as these have been.  I've got more I want to blog about, but it'll hold until tomorrow.  After all, I still need to catch up on the Billy Joel concert and the whole Dealer Meeting video shoot thing ... it may be two weeks late, but the stories are still worth telling.

Until then...

Bye-bye, Hydrocodone...

I'm keeping tonight's post short 'cause there's really not a whole lot to say - other than my whining - and nobody wants to hear that, so ... I just won't.

I was diligent about taking the painkillers my MD prescribed for the first 72 hours.  We had some trouble once I got home with the whole "pain management" thing ... the prescription was mis-written, for just one pill every 6 hours.  Well, I took the one pill at the time the nurse said to, 4 hours after the shot they gave me leaving the hospital ... and a half hour later, I was still in a LOT of pain.  So my Mom called the surgeon's office, and talked to the nurse.  Turns out he mis-wrote the prescription ... should have been "1-2 pills every 6 hours."

Two pills did the trick.  I felt no pain, and I'm a pretty good patient when I'm feeling no pain.  But yesterday, I got the bright idea that it was time to wean off the Vicodin.  Instead of 2 pills, I just wanted one.  About an hour after the second dose of that, I was in so much pain, and was being so darn cranky, that my Mom popped another pill into me and made me lie down for a nap.

Today, we've made another attempt at weaning off the painkillers, and it's been much more successful.  I'm still fairly cranky, since I'm actually feeling what's going on inside my nose for the first time since surgery ... but the pain is a 4 on a scale of 1-10, which is manageable.  I've had just 1 of the pills for each dosing today, and I'm going to try and go 8 hours tonight between dosings, and get a solid night's sleep.  (Won't that be nice?  The first night since surgery that I won't wake up for pills ... and that poor Jim won't have to wake me.  Nice for both of us.)

But in the meanwhile, my face hurts.  My head hurts.  My nose feels hollow.  And as I'm talking with Jim and Veronica, I keep wrinkling my nose - I didn't realize how often I do that in normal conversation - and IT FREAKING HURTS.  I also was rubbing my nose in my sleep when I napped earlier... so I had to get up and put another one of those stupid gauze pads under my nose.  Not 'cause it's dripping, but because it kept me from rubbing it in my sleep.

Yeah, I sound cranky, don't I?  Poor Jim and Veronica.  Lucky Mom - she flew back to San Antonio this morning... with the promise that she'll be back in a week with Daddy ... to celebrate Christmas here.  Jim is hosting us all here at his house, and we're all very excited.  His first Christmas, his first holiday guests ... and he adores my parents - and they adore him - so it's going to be a great time.  Jim gets Veronica starting at noon on the 26th, so Mom and Dad will leave that day, and I'll head back to my apartment to spend the second half of the holiday holed up in my studio, catching up on my scrapbooking.

But in the meanwhile, I have another week of recovery.  I'm hoping the crankiness will pass with another night's sleep.  We're planning to get out of the house for a little while tomorrow - it will be good for me - and see Alvin & The Chipmunks, and maybe do a little shopping.

But for now, I'm gonna slip back into my feeling-sorry-for-myself funk.  My face hurts.  I guess that means it's healing.  Blech.

A PJ Party with my Peeps

My recovery continues.  The days are sort of blurring together ... my computer tells me today is Thursday, which means we're two days out from surgery.  Tomorrow will be the worst of it - 72 hours always marks the worst point post-surgery - but then it's all better from there.  So I'm staying on full dosage of the painkillers until tomorrow morning, and then I'll start the process of weaning off and we'll see how I do.

I've spent a lot of time sleeping.  In fact, I slept HARD last night ... I barely recall Jim waking me at 4am for my meds, and I only have a fuzzy memory of him kissing me goodbye when he left for work around 8-ish.  It was 10 when I finally woke up.  Eddie and I crawled into bed with my Mom, and that was sort of the modus operandi for our day: lazy and slow, what we wanted when we wanted.  Our big event was a trip to the grocery store after lunch to pick up lots of provisions to get through the rest of the week.

My Mom spent the rest of the day in the kitchen cooking up a storm while I slept (and slept and slept...) on the couch, until Jim and Veronica arrived home.  Dinner tonight was pot roast and tons of delicious veggies, as well as a sloppy joe ring ... and plenty of leftovers to keep us fed for days.

But the best came after dinner, when Jim and Mom dragged JIm's mattress off his bed and into the living room, and we all changed into our PJs, and had a regular ol' PJ party.

Yeah, all five of us - Mom, Jim, Veronica, Eddie, and me - cuddled up in front of the television and watched "Shrek the Halls" which Jim had DVR'd from when it was on last week.  It was adorable ... and I think Veronica really enjoyed the chance to do something so utterly goofy as have a pajama party with the grown-ups on a Thursday night.

She's in bed now, and Mom's working on her Christmas cards ... Jim and I are about to curl up on the couch and watch a little more TV before I crash and call it a night.  Another day down, another day closer to being healed.  I'm so grateful for having my Mom here - I don't know what I'd be doing without her, and she has been feeding me SO well! - and the quiet time with her and Jim and Veronica tonight was just so cool.

So many blessings to count...

Wasn't I pathetic?

With my permission, Jim snapped a photo of me in post-operative recovery:

Wasn't I horribly pathetic?  I couldn't get warm, so they had me bundled in not only the blankets from the hospital, but also the fleece cape I had brought with me.  The gauze pad under my nose is the fashion statement du jour, one I'll be wearing for the next several days.  It's both attractive and functional - basically, a drip pad, to catch all the oozing from my nose.  (Lovely, I know.)

What I appreciate most about this photo is the purple eyelids.  Good Lord, I was so exhausted...!  Still am, truth be told.  I've stayed awake for much of today, but it seems the moment I sit down on the couch, or sit still for even a moment, I crash - I'm out like a light.

Good news is that my appetite is back in full force.  Mom has been cooking up a storm for me, feeding me really well ... still bland stuff, but a little more hearty than yesterday.  I got ground beef and gravy over mashed potatoes today, and meatballs in tomato soup with rice, and omigosh, my Mom can cook!  What amazes me the most is that through all of this, my Mom is staying on Medifast, on program, focused on her diet and staying healthy.  It stuns me that she can cook for me and prepare such amazing food for me to eat - and she's even preparing lunches and dinners for JIm, too - but still stay on program herself, and drink her shakes and eat her soups.  WOW.  Her diligence and dedication amazes me!  I am so proud of her.

Eddie can tell I'm not feeling good, and he's been so sweet and gentle, and wants nothing more than to cuddle up with me and make sure I'm okay.  Having him here to love on me during my recovery has been such a blessing!

I'm fading again ... having a hard time seeing the laptop screen ... but I wanted to post a quick update while I could.  Maybe a little more tomorrow.  For those of you who have sent me emails with well-wishes, thank you.  The thoughts and prayers mean more than you can possibly know!

Home, safe and sound

The title pretty much says it all: I'm out of surgery, back home, safe and sound and surrounded by all the love a woman could possibly want.

This has been a really rough day... much more so than I had anticipated.  My two previous sinus surgeries were easy by comparison.  I had no post-operative nausea, and the painkillers were so effective that I didn't feel a thing beyond the pressure of the packing in my nose.  Today, however, has been a decidedly different story.

Maybe it's the fact that I'm getting old.  Perhaps the magic age "30" means stuff like this is just more difficult.  That's what they've been teasing me about all day, anyway.

Or maybe it's the fact that I went into this on an antibiotic, which I had to take on an empty stomach this morning before surgery.  (Which is never a good idea.)  And I suspect that it has something to do with the fact that this time, I don't have gauze packing jammed inside my sinuses ... instead, I have dissolvable stuff.

Whatever the reason, today has been extremely rough.  I'll be completely honest: I'm a huge wimp when it comes to feeling nauseous, but from the time I came out from under the anaesthesia, I felt puky.  They gave me IV drugs to help with it, and it did ease up ... and I made it home from the hospital without getting sick ... but once we got here, it was a battle to find something I could eat.  My poor mother - everything that first sounded okay, I'd take a bite and then say I couldn't eat it.  Jim finished my peanut butter toast, and then Audrey ate the buttered toast, and I choked down only part of the dry toast.

All three of them were here to take turns taking care of me.  I don't remember a whole lot of it; I slept an awful lot ... but it was finally late in the day when the anti-nausea drugs wore off and I got sick - and promptly felt a LOT better.  This is probably bordering on too much information, but if there's anyone else out there who's facing this type of surgery - and I'm seeing hits on my blog from seach engines, so if this can help anyone else, then that's cool - it turns out that because my surgeon didn't use the gauze packing like he did the last two times, my sinuses have been bleeding all day, and dripping down the back of my throat into my stomach.  I had a stomach full of blood.  And that's what was making me sick.

I've felt much better this evening.  And now that the full dose of Vicodin is completely in my system, I'm ahead of the pain and doing well with that, too.  It's just been a rough first day.

Now, as to the surgery itself ... my surgeon said that he is fairly certain that he knows what the problem was - and why we had to re-do the surgery (again).  It was scar tissue that had built up and re-blocked my left sinus cavity.  So he went in and carved out a large opening, larger than he originally intended; as he said, "big enough to drive a mack truck through".  There should now be absolutely no problems with drainage.  Once I heal up, I should be all set.

I'm looking forward to a season of travel - January through April - where I'll be healthy and free from sinus problems.  If I can make it through the whole round of meetings without needing antibiotics, then everything I've suffered today will be entirely worth it.

And now, I'm having a hard time keeping my eyes focused on the screen ... so I'd better sign off.  Maybe, just maybe, I'll be conscious enough to catch up on some more blogging tomorrow.  Until then ... g'night, all.

Ten hours to go

I'm horribly, terribly behind on my blogging ... but the past few days have been a whirlwind of insane activity, trying to get all my proverbial ducks in a row - so I can be ready for tomorrow.

Because in just about ten hours, they'll wheel me into the operating room for a third round of sinus surgery.  Oh, joy...

I'm hoping that once I get home, and get past the worst of it, I'll be able to catch up on my blogging.  At that point, I can write about the Billy Joel concert, and the Dealer Meeting video shoot, and Veronica's Christmas Play this weekend.  Those are the big things I need to log.  Or blog.

For now, I guess the big thing I ought to say is that I think I'm ready - as ready as I'm going to be.  I started - and finished - my Christmas shopping this week.  Seriously - believe it or not - I got all my gifts bought, and wrapped, and put under the tree.  So other than the one present I have in mind to make for Jim, everything is now done.  Big relief.

I bought myself new PJs to wear to the hospital tomorrow ... most importantly, the top buttons up, so we don't have to fight to pull it on over my head post-surgery.  Should make it easy.  I bought a couple new books, and I've got a stack of DVDs, so there's plenty here to keep me busy.

And best of all, I'm surrounded by love.  My mom flew in on Sunday, and she's staying until next Saturday to help take care of me.  We're staying at Jim's for the week, which is much bigger and much more comfortable than my apartment - and he wants me close by while I'm recovering.  Jim will be driving us to the hospital in the morning, and he's taking the day off work to be there for everything.  Then Audrey is coming over in the afternoon once we get back home.

Honestly, I figure the three of them are going to have so much fun hanging out and talking they'll probably wind up dosing me up with painkillers, putting me to sleep in the recliner, and then ignoring me.  Can't say as how I blame them.

It may be a day or two before I'm back online.  For anyone who cares for an update in the meanwhile, I'd suggest you check Jim's blog as I'm guessing he'll probably post current info out there on how I'm doing.

In the meanwhile ... I'm just hoping for a peaceful night's sleep.  It's going to be a long day tomorrow.