the predictions of nose-tradammit

well, here's the first entry of what will probably be another short-lived idea slowly killed by my laziness, but until then....excelsior! Hilary suggested this plan, and since I've been couchbound for nearly a week--and the only thing more tedious than healing is boredom--I've started to detail my frequent misadventures with an account of my recent surgery and subsequent events.

A brief contextual backdrop: I'm young, very healthy, and in good shape. I'm lucky to not deal much with hospitals, surgeries, forced inactivity, etc. I got surgery to fix a deviated septum and congenitally dysfunctional nose-- essentially, I get ~50% of the airflow through me nose that most people do. It leads to sinus infections, bad head colds, occasional asthma, and less aerobic ability than I should have. It's not life-threatening, but a big pain in the ass that my dad and sister also dealt with before surgery greatly improved their lot and prospects as marijuana-sniffing dogs in future karmic cycles.

There are two things worth mentioning pre-surgery. The first is that all surgical patients share the same pre-op room, as far as I could tell. This means that when making small talk with another patient ahead of time, I had to contrast his "removal of a cyst on his kidney" to my.......deviated nasal passage. Nothing like a little perspective to make you feel like an ass. The second notable thing was that my anesthesiologist was a distractingly pretty blonde ukrainian woman with a strong enough accent to make me think not of surgery but of eastern-european organ smuggling rings. I still haven't counted my internals, but I'm not expecting much when I do...

After I got out of surgery, I was pretty gone-zo, and I didn't appreciate the idiot nurse (who failed to give me complete home-care instructions) hinting that she wanted me out of recovery when I felt like such trash. I'm sure her comeuppance was realized when I unexpectedly threw up a load of blood Linda-Blairr-style into the nearest trashcan. The blood had drained into my stomach from me poor old nose throughout the 2.5 hr surgery and the stomach is not too keenon that shit. I wonder how Dracula gets along... anyway, her eyes widened and the clumsy compassion of the contrite came to the fore. I looked at her like, well, what do you think of that, dumbass? Think I'm just sitting here pretending I need to vomit? Sorry you can't get off shift early to go home to your boyfriend or husban--- oh, wait. You're an unattractive bitchy nurse who doesn't have anyone at home, probably just a cat named Mr. Right.

Okay anyway, I got home thanks to the Indy-500-style exploits of my roommate who has
otherwise been great . The snake-charmer's hypnotic sequence of high-speed curves
and dips on the Cap Hill arterial route coaxed the remaining contents of my stomach out and invited them into the sink upon my return home. I'm really sorry the details are so lurid, but hey, the details make the story and for reasons that will become clear, I'm working with LOTS of time and very little sleep on my hands. once I got that out, I felt infinitely better and settled into the routine I've been on for the past few days: oxycodone and cephalexin (antibiotic) every 4-6 hrs, sleep when possible, drink water, ice, flush nose with saline, repeat. Here are some of the fun particulars I've discovered: 1) oxycodone constipates me something fierce. I've had to quit taking it because all of my awesome plans to eat dried plums and other fibrous consumables have been rendered useless by the oxy's potency and I'm now working my way through
various.....encouragers...to remedy the shituation. Better than that, I'm allergic to my antibiotic! Never had it before, but wouldn't you know, it manifests itself in the form of.....severe nasal congestion! wow, what are the odds?! so now, every time I take cephalexin to keep myself from getting, oh, a fatal brain infection, my sinuses swell to the point where I feel like I've got a live grenade in my face. Benadryl has helped, but it's an uphill battle. Let's see, what else...oh yeah. the allergic reaction causes some shallow breathing, which is awesome when you're trying to fall
asleep and only breathing through your mouth anyway. god dammit. so, sleep has been a
luxury item; the only saving circumstance is that I'm probably burning less than 200 calories per day here on my blanket-perch and don't need a whole lot of REM. Interesting fact: daytime tv is not as bad as you might think, especially when you're on narcotics. depressing fact: if this is what narcotic drugs are like, then a whole lot of rock stars are just plain stupid (and stoved up).

merry monday,

the constipated nose gnome.