I have had a bad nose for years. When I rode my bicycle i had to stop to blow my nose, when I ran I got exhausted in 30 seconds, sometimes I would wake up with a headache because of the lack of oxygen to the brain overnight, my nose was running 24/7, on bad days, i had a hard time eating, etc, etc. So i used all kinds of over the counter nasal sprays - some of them worked better than others but after a few weeks they all became useless and only provided emergency relief. This was going on for years but one day i had enough and went to see a doctor at a walk-in clinic. He told me use nasal sprays. Thank you very much for the 3 hour wait, ass****. I went back and another doctor told me to refrain from excessive phisycal activites. Maybe if i was like 120 years i would have understood his advice. Thanks again for the wait. Next time they made me wait so long I left before the doctor finished his coffee break.

Then I went yet another walk in clinic in Burlington - Rachel recommended it. When i told the doctor that i have a problem with my nose and it's nothing seasonal she told me that she is not a specialist and referred me to a nose doc. I liked that she didn't try to make me use more nasal sprays.
I saw the specialist, Dr. Korkis. He told me that it is no sense talking to him unless i take an allergy test first. Again, he didn't try to experiment with my just so he can look smart.
I saw the allergy doc and I turned out that i'm allergic to dust. Yikes. There's dust in my house everywhere. So I went back to the nose doc and told him about the dust. He said dust shouldn't matter in my case at all and he recommended surgery. He is a surgeon after all. Two days later I agreed to the surgery and filled in all the forms and did the pre-op tests, etc and on December 11th I was ready to have some mucus scraped out of my nose.

We did some research and found out that the procedure is called septoplasty and it's not a big deal. Why would i research it on my own? Because the doctore didn't tell me anything about it. He's a good doctor but he is always running behind schedule and keeps the appointments very very very very very very very short.

Pre-surgery days

I didn't have much time to think about the surgery. We had been really busy at work and we had been really busy at home too and it wasn't until the night before the operation that I got stressed out and nervous.

Surgery day

Rachel drove me to the Joseph Brant Hostpital in Burlington. It's funny how a year ago I barely knew where Burlington was and now i'm having surgery there. I saw a Tim Hortons in the lobby and that instantly made me feel good about the hospital. What can I say, sometimes i am really simple. It felt strange being in a hospital and not having to work. In Canada, the only time I was in a hospital is when we worked there with John and pulled heavy dollies around and worked our asses off. Now there were no dollies. It was rather strange.We went up to the 3rd floor where I checked in and sat down in the waiting room. And for the first time in my life they called me first even thoughI arrived last. That just felt great, leaving all the suckers there waiting, lol.

The nurse took my temperature and made me stand on a scale, then walked me into this loooong room which was more like a big hallway with beds on the sides. She stopped at an empty bed and gave me a big plastic bag and a gown and told me to take my clothes off minus socks and underwear. So much about wearing my favourite pair of jeans and wearing nice shoes. Then she told me to lie down and cover up with a blankie. I thought that's fine but what's the big fuss, it's only a nose job... Then she asked me the same questions I had to answer in writing earlier and the throw in a few bonus questions in the end which i didn't understand so she just put N/A there.

Just to make conversation, I asked her about anasthetics because it just didn't seem to add up: my doctor's secretary told me it was going to be local freezing but they asked me way too many odd questions about general anaesthesia. She just smiled and said "Oh no, it's going to be general anaesthesia - it's too hard to isolate the nose only." She was talking about paramedics afterwards but I wasn't listening because I was shocked to find out about the general anaesthesia. Apparently she said that a paramedic will come and hook me up with the IV because sure enough a guy showed up and hooked me up with the IV.
In the meantime, they showed Rachel in. She said she could tell from a mile away which was my bed because everybody was lying there still, only my feet moved under the blankie. Okay, i'm a little fidgety, so what?

Back to the IV: They don't teach that in ESL classes that's for sure. What kind of IVs are there? I could only think of "poison ivy" but I thoguth that would be rather odd so I asked Rachel. She said i was idiot (in a nice way). But at least now I knew what IV meant. (I've always known it in Hungarian). Today, I googled it and here's what Wiki says about IV: The a paramedic showed up, introduced himself (his name was Adam) and told me what he was going to do to me and oh, i have nice looking veins, thank you and in two minutes he was done. I asked him about the anaesthesia and he said it's good stuff, it's a white liquid and it's called the "milk of amnesia" and I won't feel a thing. Then he scared me shitless when he mentioned the breathing tube.

It turned out we were running behid schedule so I had to wait like 2.5 hours before they rolled me out of this pre surgery purgatory. Advice #1: go to the washroom before surgery. Trust me, you would rather piss yourself than go to the bathroom immediately after the operation.

A nurse rolled me through a few doors next to some cleaning equipment. I'm sure there would be a nicer place to put patients before surgery but this was close enough to the operation theatre and serves the purpuse so well they never thought about relocating the cleaning equipment or moving patients elsewhere. It's like how they keep the binder of papers under the edge of the matress of the bed. It's not very high tech but i guess it's been working well so why change it.

Another nurse came and asked me the same questions i had to answer in writing earlier and another nurse already asked me a few hours earlier. Then I met the anesthesiologist / anaesthetist. Why are these names are so hard to spell? I have to google-copy-and-paste them every time i want to use them. He asked me another bunch of questions - only a few were overlapping this time.

Funny from Wiki: "Anaesthetists in the United Kingdom are doctors with five years undergraduate program. They usually enter anaesthetics from other specialties, such as medicine or accident and emergency. Specialist training then takes at least seven years. It is overseen by the Royal College of Anaesthetists. screw you all. boobies help this job alot so if you got boobs come on in"

The nurse asked me to walk in to the operating room. Then things sped up. They sticked ECG monitoring thingies on my body, strapped my legs down, tucked under my right arm "so i don't help", and put my left arm on a gel pad. I was looking around as much as I could because i love to look at cool equipments and I found the anaesthetic machine pretty cool looking. Then the anaestetist made me inhale oxygen for a while then looked at me he said: "Sweet dreams". I felt a tingling sensation all over my body. For about 2 seconds. Then i was out.
I wasn't too nervous - i trused the doctors and the nurses. They did their job very well and I did my job well too: I lay there like a good boy. I had thought about "what if i don't wake up", yada yada but I probably only thought about so i can include them in this blog. I wasn't scared at all.

When I woke up I was in another room and i had an oxygen mask over my face. I have no memories whatsoever of a breathing tube - yay! The nurse told me to take deep breaths so I did. Then i heard someone asking from the far side of the room "Is Mr. Wagner here?" I was brought up to be a really well behaved child so i instantly raised my head, turnned towards the voice and nodded yes to the women and even raised my hand a bit too. She had a good laugh because she was asking the nurse - people with oxygen masks should shut up. 5 minutes later they took off the mask. I started to look around to see what's going on and saw a bunch of other people looking all dizzy. A nurse caught me looking around and asked me if i was doing fine. I gave her the thumbs up because i wasn't sure anymore if i was supposed to speak at all. Then she asked me if i wanted a popsicle. Aha. It is a very good thing that i happened to see someone with a popsicle earlier in the morning otherwise I would have thought for sure that they messed up my hearing bad. Popsicles are good to keep the mouth hydrated after surgery. Advice #2: when they ask you about popsicles always say yes.

After about 15 minutes they rolled me back to the big room where i stayed before the surgery. They said a beutiful young woman is waiting for me there and sure enough Rachel was there. It was great to see her. I was pretty groggy and the next 2 hours went by very quickly. They gave me water and a kleenex box and a bowl for vomiting or whatever. The fun began when the nurse told me that I can change back to my street clothes. As soon as i sat up i felt really hot, i started to sweat but my skin was cold, everything was hazy and dizzy and i neary puked. But i didn't. Good stuff. I put on my sweater over my shirt but took if right off because i started to feel very hot again. Rachel went downstairs to move the car closer to the exit and they pushed me out of the hospital in a wheelchair. My first time in a wheelchair. I really never every wanted to sit in one but at the time I loved everybody in the hospital for not making me walk out on my own.
11 people looked after me in the hospital and they were all really nice. They were friendly with a smile on their faces and they did everything to help me before and after the surgery. I have respect for all of these people. If a painter (it's just an example, no offence Picassos) screws up their job or has a bad day...well...who the hell cares? But what the nurses and doctors do and say makes all the difference between dignity and humility. Thank y'all for your kindness!

In the car I felt hot and cold at the same time. We stopped to pick up a bottle of water then Rachel drove me home. When I realized that she is turning on to the 407 instead of taking Dundas I felt that I loved her more than ever:) Then she put me in bed at home, got my medicines and fed me the pills and some apple sauce. Apple sauce! What a great food! So here comes advice #3: have apple sauce handy at all times.

Post-surgery days

The first day was very very shitty. Then the doctor took out the packing from my nose. He ripped it off so quickly i had no time to get scared. It hurt a lot and when he was cleaning my nose it felt like he just broke the bone...and again...and again. Then he put a paper towel againt my nose, told me hold it there and see him in a week. Hmm...yes...very professinal but it would have helped so much if he gave me another 30 seconds of his life and said something like this: "hey, your nose will bleed for the next 3 days and it will be blocked completely. it's normal. take some tylenol." But he didn't say any of that so for days i've been wondering now if it's normal that my nose is plugged and it's still bleeding. I called the office and they said it's normal. It didn't sound very reassuring. I've been looking for articles about septoplasty recovery but there isn't much out there on this topic. The only decent forum I found is this: Septoplasty forum. I found some great tips there but i think the I should have been given a damn panphlet because not everybody is an internet freak like me. Advice #4: Research everything on your own. Preferably before the surgery:)

And this is where I am now: waiting for the airways to open up. I'm using a sterile sea-water spray which is supposed to help to clean the nostrils...so far no luck. Well, tomorrow is another day.

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