Pre Op Appointment

As if I wasn't freaked out enough about having this sinus surgery the nurse certainly didn't sugar coat the fun I would have during the recovery after surgery.  And when I say fun I really mean pain and a constantly dripping nose that you can't blow and pressure from foreign items in my nose and sinus passages and did I mention pain?  It sounds quite a bit like a week of hell if you asked me, but after that things should improve greatly.  It will be two weeks with no physical activity and after that I should be good to go back to doing pretty much everything I used to (just being extra careful not to hit my nose).  It should take about two months before everything is fully healed and I look forward to that part of all of this for sure!

So here are the details on what I'm having done, you can skip over this section if you don't want to know the specifics.  I've found some people don't get squeamish when I talk about such things. 

The first thing I'm having done is the Septoplasty and Bilateral Inferior Turbinate Reduction.  Yeah that's a mouthful isn't it.  The Septoplasty is the straightening of my septum and then the turbinates are reduced in size via a radio-frequency energy probe (Richard loved the name of that, it is rather amusing isn't it).  I believe this is also the part where they take little bits of the sinus passages (turbinates) out to increase the drainage flow as well.

The second is another mouthful, functional endoscopic sinus surgery (FESS).  This is the one where they will take a small metal tube (endoscope) and put it into the nose and through the wall of the nose into the sinuses.  The diseased sinus tissue is removed and the sinuses are irrigated and cleaned out. 

As scary as all of that sounds, I really am looking forward to having this done.  I've talked to more people that have had the surgery and other then the initial week or so the outcome has been pretty positive for everyone I've talked too.