Hi guys, I'm home from the hospital. I'm so bummed. I went in at 5am yesterday, got admitted, and waited three hours for the surgeon. They walked me into surgery, put me under, and I woke up feeling really nauseous, but overall pretty good! Waited another two hours for the surgeon to come speak with me, only to find out the very disappointing news that she had to back out of the surgery once she got in there. Turns out that my nasal passages were too severely swollen. She tried Afrin and a Cocaine nasal spray ( ) to try to shrink them, but couldn't get up past them to do her work. So she was only able to do a partial surgery.  She did remove some polyps on the right side and I have packing on my right side, but couldn't get to either ethmoid passage to do the planned work on them. Instead, I'm going back on antibiotics and prednisone for two weeks to try to shrink down the passages and then will have to go through this whole process all over again. She also did a biopsy on my nasal tissue to try to find out why it's so swollen. She said she has never had to back out of a surgery like this before. I go back on Thursday for a follow up, to get the biopsy results, and to come up with the next plan of action. I have packing on one side and a big bandage on my nose still as it is bleeding very heavily. She said her even just trying to touch or work with the tissue would cause it to bleed profusely.  I'm not really in any pain or anything, just feeling some discomfort from the packing on the one side and with it bleeding like it is. So I'll find out more info hopefully on Thurs. But I'm so depressed that I went through surgery and wasn't able to get the sinus problem corrected. So the saga will continue I guess.

For those that are curious and are actually still reading, LOL, here's my history.  I've had sinus problems for about four years now, but the first two years looking back were not that bad at all. I'd get maybe 3-4 infections a year and they would be nasty and drug resistant, but would eventually go on a long term antibiotic and would finally kill it and then feel fine for a few months again. The past two years have been pretty awful though and when I was officially diagnosed with chronic sinusitis. I've had a sinus infection for 21 of the past 24 months and even months of antibiotics won't kill it completely. I go off and it comes back within 2-3 weeks. I've been to an allergist, ENT, homeopathic, etc. and have already been through one sinus surgery on different passages.  I use a nasal irrigation machine daily and a humidifier at night and hot steam baths/showers every morning. I've been on flonaise (sp?) and zyrtec the past two years and have tried several other nasal and allergy prescriptions as well. I've been on antibiotic and two oral steroids for the past two months in preparation for the surgey and was feeling better actually as the steroid helped shrink the nasal passges. But my prescriptions ran out 10 days ago and the doctor didn't think I'd need to refill them that close to the surgery date. Well, she was wrong and the infection came back even worse than before, hence the cancellation on the ethmoid passages yesterday as the surgeon couldn't even reach them.  All the C-Scans showed severe infection in the ethmoid passages which is why we elected to finally do surgery on them. But then yesterday happened, so we're back to trying to shrink the passages and attack the infection again with yet more antibiotics and steroids.

That's the quick history. But anyway, when she got an inside look yesterday, she said the sinus passages themselves actually didn't look that bad. Typically swollen nasal passages are a secondary result from the sinus passages, but she think it might be the other way around for me. That swollen nasal passages might be my primary problem, causing congestion and blocking the mucus and bacteria in the sinuses and causing the infections. So now she wants to try focusing again on the nasal passages before going back in for the second surgery on the ethmoid nasal passages. She took a biopsy and we should hopefully have those results by my follow up appt on Thurs. If the results give us a clue of what's causing the severe swelling and how to treat it. She wants me to go back to an Allergist for some specific testing and to try the allergy shots as I haven't tried that yet. (We always thought the problem was more in the sinus passage) and she is testing for a couple rare diseases that could also possibly be the cause. I don't remember their names, but she said they are treatable. So if we find a different route, we'll go that way and see what happens. Best case scenario, we get the swelling down for good and I can avoid a third surgery . But the more likely scenario is that we'll get the passages down and then go back in with yet another surgery as it's still very possible the ethmoid passages are part of the overall problem. So I'm kind of back to the unknown right now and hope to get more answers on Thursday. I'm SICK of being drugged up all the time and being in chronic pain. So I'm really hopeful we'll finally find the cause, whether it be tied to the nose itself or to the sinuses still or both. I just want it fixed so I can finally feel normal again. Two years is a really long time to feel crappy.

I swear I'm losing more and more brain cells everyday too, LOL! But seriously, I do struggle with memory and basic things that have always been very easy for me. I have a photographic memory and never had to study in school. I just read my notes and I'd remember everything exactly. Same at work, we have over 10,000 pages of guidelines and I can tell you not only what it says, but what page it's on, where on the page it is and what the page looks like. I was breezing through college level testing exams in 4th grade, was able to skip two grades in high school, got four BA's in my four years at college, and got promoted as the youngest manager ever at my company all by the time I was 20 years old. But now I struggle to remember basic things and can't recall things nearly as well. I feel like I've been dumbed down and it's so frustrating. All this long term medicine is having terrible affects on me.  Hopefully we'll get at least some direction at Thursdays' appt. 

So anyway, I'm home now and not feeling too bad.  My throat has been really sore since I woke up from my sinus surgery attempt yesterday, which is from the tube they put down my throat after I was put under. It feels even worse today, so I looked in the mirror just now, and I have big red sores on the back of my throat and roof of my mouth. No wonder it hurts! Is that normal does anyone know?? That little floppy dangling thing (sorry can't remember what it's called, LOL!) is all swollen and red too. The sores, for lack of a better word, aren't infected or anything like that, more like red patches and scabs. It looks like they must have scraped it up quite a bit putting it in or taking it out. Anyone else ever had that from being intubated during surgery?   I didn't have that the last time.  My nose is swollen today as well, but it doesn't really hurt at all, and I can't even feel the packing up there. But I can definitely feel the throat! It feels even more exaggerated from having to breathe through my mouth and fighting severe dryness as well. I only got a few hours of sleep because I kept waking up so often coughing from such a dry throat. I guzzled down four bottles of water during the night and still couldn't get rid of that feeling.  Fun times!