Well sleeping was a bit of a test. Somewhere along the line Donna and I began watching The Postman, and before I knew it she was in bed, it was midnight, and I had an hour left before the film was over. I was feeling just ok, and knew if I waited until 1AM I could take another dose of painkillers before bed.

When I went into the bedroom Donna had my pillows all propped up for me. The ENT wanted m to sleep with my head raised, which annoys me because I am such a flat sleeper usually. By about 2AM I was able to fall asleep relatively soundly. I did wake up every so often to try to swallow, so it wasn’t all fun and games but I sure did make it all night.

Around dawn I woke up to realized two things. 1) I forgot to put on my humidifier, & 2) it was time for more painkillers and I sure could use it. I wasn’t screaming out in pain, but I sure was a little uncomfortable. I crawled out of bed, took my meeds, had a little water and went back to sleep. I remember Donna saying something about lying too flat on my back (even though I know I had way more pillows under me than usual), and then I heard Claire shrieking. This was about 945AM and after checking on her, I fell back into bed until Donna called to make sure I was not still in bed at 10AM.

So it was time to transfer myself to the couch and take more meds. Got some painkillers and antibiotics, and Claire brought me orange jello. We mostly just sat around all afternoon. She wanted to color on the dry erase board with me, so I convinced her to put it across our laps. I also realized how many of her dry erase markers were dried out. She and I spent an hour drawing before she moved onto a show. She was looking forward to some Dora so I popped Forgetting Sarah Marshall into my laptop with my earphones. I don’t know if it was the painkillers or what but the movie was utterly terrible.

I moved onto some Pomegranate Sorbet and it tasted pretty good but since I’d just taken my meeds, it had an odd taste. I was still spitting a lot of gook but there’s still no blood, which is really good. In the late afternoon Donna picked Claire up to go to Karate, and Donna suggested I take a nap. I headed into the bedroom and was able to put together about an hour of fitful sleep.

When Donna and Claire came home, I was ready for the next test. Hot fluids. Donna had purchased several pureed soups, including a smooth corn soup. When she brought the bowl over, it was really warm, which concerned me. I let it sit until it was lukewarm (as I would rather warm it up again than to drink it too hot), and then I began to sip it with a teaspoon. It was very tasty and went down surprisingly well. I did have to warm it up once and I ended up eating most of a bowl full.

The only concerns I see right now is that occasionally it does feel like some of the fluids do go up into my nose a little bit. I know this can be a concern and a side affect that may never go away. I sure don’t want this to be permanent, and it is definitely one of the things I need to talk to the ENT about next week.

After the soup, I felt well enough to help Claire with her bath. I kept upright as much as possible, I am talking a little more, and I am feeling pretty ok right now. I had a little sorbet this evening after the soup, and the ENT is correct that citrus isn’t the best thing since it’s lemon flavored and a little sore.

My attitude’s been good, and Donna and I both expected me to be more out of it still. For example, I think we both expected me to be unconscious all evening last night and in bed much of today. I’ve been laying low, and I want to thank all of the people who’ve messaged me their well wishes.

Well Monday rolled around quickly, and Donna and I took Claire to daycare early in the morning before driving to Banner Good Samaritan Hospital in Phoenix. We checked in around 7:30AM, paid my 20%, and eventually got called back to pre-op. The nurse asked all the normal questions, had me strip down to my boxers, and had me put all my belongings away. Even though the signs all said no mobile phones, I still hung onto mind to tweet ’til the last minute. After I was all set up and had my IV, they let Donna come back.

After a bit Dr Orozco (ENT) & Dr Whooley (anesthesiologist) came in to answer questions. Donna and I wrote them all down and took a couple last minute photos before the nurse wheeled me down to the operating room. (Donna was to wait in the waiting room until I was done). As they wheeled me into the OR, I had this sense of overwhelming dread at the last second. It was the anxious feeling of passing the point of no return. As soon as they got me on the table, Whooley administered Versed, which is a relaxing drug they’ve used on me before. While he did that, he told the nurse to get a nasal intubation tube. I know enough about medical procedures to know I did NOT want to be awake when they intubated me!

Well, guess what? The next thing I knew was hearing Donna’s voice. She said something about the nasal tube, and then I opened my eyes. Right when I opened my eyes, I watched the RN swiftly pull what looked like a 6″ curved, bloody tube from my right nostril. Donna gasped because she didn’t realize how far into my body that tube would go. I did. It hurt a little but not really that much since I was still completely out of it. By this point, Donna has later told me that I’d been out of surgery for 90 minutes.

Once a bed opened, they moved me upstairs. There are holes throughout my afternoon that she could probably fill in, but as I said before, I am writing this for people who will have these surgeries more for me. Through out the afternoon I was surprised at how sore I wasn’t. Yes, not that sore. The ENT had said I would feel like I have the worse sore throat ever, but that’s not true for me. I’ve had a sore throat where I felt like I was swallowing glass all the time. This isn’t that bad. But you know what they didn’t tell me that has bothered me? The gook. Now, I haven’t seen any blood but have you ever had a mouth full of really thick spit that you just needed to get out of your throat? Well, that’s what I’ve been feeling completely for 24 hours now. I’ve been either spitting into tissues and tossing them or trying to swallow. It takes 2-3 times for me to swallow when trying, and most of the time i don’t completely succeed. The ENT said all of this is normal for now.

The evening after surgery I was in and out of consciousness all night long. One time I woke up to a meal sitting in front of me. It was all liquid sort of food, and one thing there was chicken soup that was pureed. I decided to try it, and some of it was going back up my nose, which was sort of scary because I sure don’t want that to permanent part of my eating abilities from now on. I gave up on soup and then had some pudding. It was lemon flavored and he said no citrus but it felt ok to me.

By 2AM Donna reminded me that I had my noise cancellation headphones with me, and since my roommate was way too loud, I popped those on, and fell asleep for 4-5 hours. Tuesday morning was a lot of waiting around to be released. Over night I realized the nurse had been giving me double doses of my painkillers, which was good news for me. After the nurse split the dose to the correct dosage, it still was doing it’s job just fine.

As for talking, it sure isn’t something I want to be doing but I’ve had to talk a little here and there and it’s been ok. It doesn’t really hurt, but I am just not that interested in talking too much. Of course, Claire doesn’t quite understand but she will be ok.

By about 1PM I was allowed to go home. Donna drove me home and I’ve been mostly on the couch since. I’ve slept a bit and watched TV, and the only reason I can post this is because I am 3 1/2 hours out from painkillers so I am relatively lucid right now.

I am sort of surprised by my lack of appetite. I thought I would be terribly hungry and my family even had a great dinner here near me, but so far it’s not bothered me at all. I’ve been sipping on a Gatorade all day and forced down a chocolate pudding. I know what my weight was pre-surgery, so I can more about that after this journey. As for the bathroom, I know I need to be urinating. When you have something like this and don’t urinate then it’s definitely an issue, which could lead to dehydration and fluids in the ER. Yuck. So I am keeping track of my toilet habits, too. As for bowel movements, if it don’t go in, then it won’t come out. ’nuff said. ok, moving on…

I think bed tonight will be a new test.

Ok, so there’s a bit of a gap since my last story about surgery. My scariest part was the whole not finding a lot of information online from people who actually did the surgery. I did meet a guy at my doctor’s office who had the same surgery and he told me about some things, but at that point I wasn’t sure the name of my surgery so I was half listening.

I talked to a few nurse friends who pretty much said “why get surgery? why do you need it?” Of course, I did see many websites and even talked to the doctor who said if I don’t I have a high increase in heart attacks, strokes and arrhythmia. Since heart problems run in my family, we were all a little scared.

By my next appointment on Sept 21st, I was pretty sure I was doing it. I talked to Dr Orozco who seemed to mollified many of my concerns so we scheduled the surgery for Oct 5th in the morning. This was the first business day of my two weeks off so the timing was pretty perfect.

Then I needed pro-op authorization from my PCP. Routine, right? Not for me. The EKG was quickly abnormal, which resulted in three trips to the Cardiologist. The first was another EKG which was better, but he still wanted two stress tests. I was still not authorized as of Thursday afternoon when I was running on the tread mill in my work shoes with an IV pumping nuclear stuff into my arm.

I also was on the phone with Orozco’s nurse, who I sure wouldn’t want to work for me. After the Sept 21st appointment she said she would call to confirm insurance an call me. We even checked to make sure she had my mobile number. 10 days later I called her. She said everything was set but of course it wasn’t. I had to call insurance and get the rigamarole from them, but by last Friday I was cleared through insurance, cardiologist and the PCP. Here we go…

I don’t know anyone who wants to have surgery who isn’t have an emergency, but now that I am 12 hours away from surgery what do I say? I don’t know. I’ve been keeping myself pretty busy (denying it?). I remember to take out my contacts and not wear jewelry. I also packed a bag based on what the pre-admission lady told me Friday afternoon. Claire’s scheduled for day care in the morning and Donna’s off work for half a day to stay through PACU with me. I ain’t got much else until afterward. Here’s to life.

A few years back we had a tree removed in the backyard and while the arborist was here they suggested the clean the dead limbs out of our huge 40′ pine trees in the front yard. They told us it would make the trees healthier and happier. We agreed, they climbed up and cleaned out the trees. No problem.

Then over the last year or so we noticed the trees weren’t growing new limbs and the needles they had weren’t looking very healthy. The arborist came out for a quote on other work, and while he was here I asked about the pines. His response was “Do you water them?”. I just gave him a look. Of course I don’t water trees. When I grew up, things just grew. Grass grew. Flowers grew. We definitely didn’t water mature, huge trees that have been growing for decades. I scoffed but after he left I watered them a few times. I’d put the hose out there and “flood” the yard (not really since it’s not designed that way but they did get water!).

It’s about six months later, and they sure are dead. Terribly dead. I’m not too thrilled with all of this. Needles are coming off like rain (which I wish I had more of), so the other evening I took the hose out again. I put it near one trunk and went inside. About three hours later I remembered the water and ran out. I moved the hose to the other tree, came in, and asked Donna to remind me to turn it off before we went to bed. Of course when I woke up the next more and hopped into the shower, I wondered why I had no water pressure. OH NO, all night long the hose ran in the front yard. I ran out and turned it off at 5:00am; water down the road and the rock yard spongy mud.

‘Course the trees still look dead.

The last two springs, I have had some odd irritation in my nostrils and have also developed respiratory issues over the last five years, so I hit the ENT. The first one I went to said to not worry about the nose thing because, as Murphy’s Law would have it, my nose was not irritated THAT DAY. Ugh.

When I began having issues again two months later, I went searching for a different ENT. Several friends had used Dr. Charles Orozco downtown Phoenix, so I figured that even thought it was a hike from South Chandler I would try him. He ran several tests, explained I more than likely had an ongoing Staph infection in my nose that an antibiotic ointment would hand, and asked if I had any more issues.

I explained that I had excessive snoring (to the point that my wife would sometimes sleep in the guest room) and I was always tired. He said to err on the side of caution that I should do a sleep test. I thought that sounded like a pretty good idea since any test I could do where I get to sleep more would be awesome.

Within a week I was at East Valley Oximetry hooked up to all sorts of electrodes, and preparing to go to sleep. The woman told me she’d come in to put a CPAP on me if I had “episodes”. I wasn’t sure what any of that meant but I was tired and went to sleep. Over night she instructed me to do several things like roll over and lie on my back, and I woke with this weird mask over my face. The CPAP is a mask that goes over your nose and blows humid air down your throat continually. As she unhooked everything in the morning, she said I had episodes so I asked for clarification. Her response: “You stop breathing when you sleep.” Beyond that she was vague since she wasn’t the ENT. He’d have to read my results. I was pretty sure he’d want my tonsils out, which I was ok with since so many people had them out anyway.

A few days later I was back in his office and he explained that true, good, restful sleep was REM sleep, and that I on slipped into REM sleep about 1/2% of the time. Yes, you read that right. Half of 1% of my sleeping is restful. He also said I stop breathing on average 60 times an hour at night. So, yes, every minute.

I asked him what we do now, and he said we had two options. 1) wear a breathing mask like the one during the sleep study every time I sleep forever, or 2) surgery. At first he was relatively vague with the surgery, but I cam to discover he recommended removing my tonsils (no problem), shrinking the back of my tongue (kinda odd but less evasive than it sounds), and cutting out m uvula and part of my soft palate in the back of my mouth (OMG, ewww ouch!). After we discussed each of these procedures for awhile I asked if perhaps we could try the CPAP to see if it helps, and if not, then I could move on to a discussion of surgery. This was in mid-July, I was returning to work right away, and I figured I could do surgery over October break if it came to that. He agreed wholeheartedly, and I asked what would happen if I just did nothing. His response: “You could die”.

See the dangly uvula back there hanging down? It’s gonna be in a glass jar soon enough.

I was diagnosed with Obstructive Sleep Apnea that could lead to strokes (I am 34 for God’s sake!), heart attack (runs in my family!), or arrhythmia (yuck!). I made an appointment with East Valley Respiratory to be fitted for a mask and to pick up my CPAP machine. The day I went the woman had several different styles of mask and I picked the one I thought would work the best. A couple people I’d talked to said that they can’t sleep with them, but I can sleep pretty much however/whenever so I wasn’t worried. The lady said it would be $400 for the machine, which was my part after insurance; I forked over the money and took it home.

Immediately I realized there was literally no way to snore on a CPAP at all since you have to sleep with your mouth closed. It is physically impossible not to. I got use to the mask very quickly and have slept with it almost every night since late July. Of course, I expected to be wider awake, have more energy and not be tired during the day. This didn’t happen. I also didn’t like the whole “you need to wear that mask for the rest of your life” attitude, especially since I travel all of the time. I began to research surgery.

Doc tried to give me the layman’s terms of what he wanted to due, but I would’ve preferred the medical terms because, as we all know, I am not a dummy. Eventually I discovered he wanted to perform a uvulopalatoplasty, tonsillectomy, and a somnoplasty. As I research, more and more I couldn’t find anecdotal materials, and I sort of put it off because I knew I couldn’t even bother go under the knife err…. laser until October when my fall break began.