Sunday, March 18, 2012

Surgery Day

75/366
Thursday was a big day around here. After months of nasty debilitating headaches, Eric had surgery. He had some tests last fall to find the cause, but it wasn't until he went to an ENT a few months back, that we got a clue. The doctor put a tube with a camera up his nose into the sinuses, and said, Eww...that's Disgusting! That would be bad. Turns out he had sludge of chronic sinusitis, and nasal polyps. One polyp was so big it was blocking 75% of that sinus cavity, so the dr couldn't even see around it!

He has had nasal polyp surgery before, but the last time he was 12, and the whole thing was rather traumatic. He was not looking forward to a repeat. But as his doctor so eloquently put it, "A few things have changed in the procedure in the last 25 years."

So Thursday, he got it all cut out. They took out somewhere between 20-30 polyps, and ground down his sinuses. The big polyp, the one blocking 75% of the cavity, was the size of a gelatinous kiwi when they pulled it out.

How can a sane person be living with a kiwi growing in his sinuses?

It explains so much about how it got so hard for him to work on the house, work at work. Breathe.

Eric was so cute before they took him away. He looked like a little old woman.




And when they brought him back, we sat chilling out watching Harry Potter on TV. Luckily, Eric's seen it before, because he kept dozing off. Ahh, anesthesia! Before we even left the recovery area, as Eric practically fell asleep. He bobbed his head awake, and looked at me. "I just almost fell asleep with my mouth closed. I can breathe through my nose for more than 30 seconds!" He and I couldn't even remember how long it had been since he'd done that. I must confess I got a little teary, thinking about it.

I'm trying not to get my hopes too high, like thinking, what if he would stop snoring? What if scraping away all the guck really reduced his nasal allergies. At this point, I'm still wrapping my head around the fact he had a kiwi in his sinuses, and a. they pulled it out through his nose, and b. He was able to convey a single thought at all.



After being at the hospital for 7 hours, they finally let us go after Eric proved he could take in liquid and let it out. It was good. Although moving him made him seriously dizzy. All my CNA training popped back into place, as I helped him get from chair to wheelchair and beyond. But he was so gorky. Not my best pic of him, he did have his eyes open, and I just didn't realize he blinked. He wasn't THAT out of it.
And he did get some bad quease with all the blood that went into his belly on the ride home, but once he was over that, he's been feeling better. Slowly but surely. We've all been holed up at home all weekend, well since Thursday. Today was our first day out. Christopher got a sinus infection, and he went on antibiotics on Thursday too, so we've all been just chilling. Now we're all on the mend. Eric is on drugs, can't lift more than 10 pounds, and until today he's been sleeping in the recliner, mostly vertically. But he missed laying down, so he tried to day, and although his head hurts (no big surprise) he slept better. He also has to rinse his sinuses with a saline solution twice day, and it burns him, wears him out, but just the thought of the layers of sludge, his allergies and asthma medications will be SO much more effective! It's amazing. I can't wait to have my husband back!

OK, he's been a little funny on the good drugs. I took the kids out this morning, leaving Daddy alone for the first time, and an hour into our trip, he calls me, asking if I'd taken Sam, because he swore he could hear him crying, but couldn't find him.

I had to laugh, because considering the amounts of narcotics in Eric and Fina, the only two family members at home, who knows what's really going on?!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

That last sentence has me laughing out loud, because I can just picture Eric and Fina walking around the house.

Cathy Willman said...

Oh yeah, high as kites both of them!