I
slept reasonably well; even if my sleep was plagued with odd dreams about
hospital waiting areas. I eventually got up, and didn’t have any brekkie at
all; that was my instructions. Today was the day when my nasal polyps would be
sorted out once and for all (or so I’d been led to believe).
I’ve
had nasal polyps for years. They can be rather uncomfortable. Imagine having a
constantly dripping nose because you can’t sniff because there’s a lump the
size of a golf ball bunging your hooter up. There’s not much that can be done
about nasal polyps short of having the things cut out. Having them cut out
isn’t that bad at the time… they fill your nose with cocaine when they do it.
However once the cocaine wears off things are rather more problematical, and
you spend a couple of weeks hosing blood clots out of your nose with a syringe
filled with warm saline. It ain’t nice…
I
had my first nose job on November 4th
2014.
What was most memorable about that was that I felt a tad iffy after the surgery
and so took the offer of an overnight stay. I had perhaps the worst night’s
sleep I’ve ever had that night.
I
had a follow-up appointment in the out-patients department shortly afterwards,
was told all was well, and then somehow or other the hospital lost all memory
of me. So when the polyps grew back I had a major fight to get referred back to
the ENT people, and they scheduled surgery for the day I started my new job.
There were various administrative hiccups, and two years passed before I got a
nasal re-bore on 1 October 2019.
Having
been told the first operation would clear the nasal polyps, and having believed
them when they told me that very very occasionally the things grow back (which
is why I needed the second operation) I was a tad hacked off to realise the
polyps had again returned within eighteen months.
My
third polypectomy took place on 11 January 2022 when I wrote “It no
longer felt as though there was a marble lodged behind my nose. The surgeon
told me all had gone well, and that although he can’t say I’ll never need
another polypectomy, he felt I should be good for a few years”.
In
the event I was good for two years. On 31 January of this year the
surgeon stuck an endoscope up my nose and saw two huge polyps. He didn’t need
to do that – I could feel them.
Having
had three failed polypectomies, the surgeon suggested something a tad more
radical this time. In the past he’s gone in up my nostril and carved the polyps
out. Today’s plan was that he would drill through the bone in my upper jaw and
come in at my sinuses from behind.
And
that’s what happened. It’s called a Caldwell Luc procedure
Supposedly
this has a ninety-two per cent success rate.
“er indoors TM” dropped me off at the
hospital in Canterbury (where I once worked) at seven o’clock, and I
took a seat in the day surgery waiting area whilst the woman on the desk told
everyone that she was just covering for someone else.
There was a minor episode as patients were called through
to the ward area; one group were asked which one was the patient. They weren’t at all happy that only the
patient went into surgery and the accompanying tribe was asked to clear off. I’ve
seen this more and more at the hospital appointments I’ve been to recently. Why
can’t people just go on their own? Do they really need to go mob-handed?
I was shown to my little area where I put on rather
ill-fitting hospital clothes, and then answered the same set of questions three
times to the nurse, the surgeon and the anaesthetist. And it wasn’t long before
I was walked through the hospital.to the operating theatre. You’d think they
would have arranged things so that patients in hospital clothing don’t have to
walk through the public areas of the hospital with the swarming general public,
wouldn’t you?
I got taken into Theatre Three. I say “Theatre Three”;
it didn’t look much like an operating theatre to me though. I lay down… and
suddenly it was an hour later and all was done and I was being wheeled back to where
I started.
I did crossword puzzles for a couple of hours until “er
indoors TM” arrived to collect me, and then I spent much of the rest
of the day dozing on the sofa.
I think I’m still a bit iffy from the gas, and I feel as
though I’ve been punched in the face. Very hard…
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