No more hospital visits... Knock on wood!!

March 20th, 2015

My final visit to the hospital and checkup with the doc.. To see the progress and get the plastic thingy (sorry for my ignorance but I still don't know what they're called :( ) out of my nose that was correcting(?) my deviated septum. Boy, now I can believe you can practically stuff anything up your nose. I was wondering how kids got those huge toys stuck up their nose and had to visit the emergency room... I mean, I had my eyes closed when they were pulling it out but, wow, seriously they were huge.. And I just had thought it was some kind of tube. 

Anyhow, it was a quick visit: the nurse did her thing and the doc examined and told me it's healing well.. no infections or out of the ordinaries. I just need to take care of it a bit more with the cleansing for a month since there'll be scabs and occasional slight bleeding. Still am not supposed to blow my nose or pretty much he said blowing your nose is not good at all (for anyone). Mid April I should be able to start exercising and in about a month's time I should start getting some feeling back. It still feels a bit numb and stiff :( but it is still heeling so need to give it time. 

My check up for the first surgery went fine too. The swelling is all gone and I could see a huge change after the doc took pics to show the difference between the before and after photos. 

Breathing is much better now. I think it could get much better after the swelling goes down and I can feel my nose again, lol. It's weird because after the surgery, taste and scent are much more pronounced. 

Also, no snoring! And I'm feeling more rested as days go by.... Except for the occasional times where I can't really fall asleep but that has more to do with my insomnia problem and getting my biorhythm in order. However, sleeping 3 hours a day is ok because I do feel much more rested than I used to before the surgery. ;) But yes, a regular scheduled time wouldn't hurt either. 

I'd like to thank all my friends and family for being there for me and sending me good thoughts! 

Love you all! 

Second surgery... Thank heavens it's over!!!

March 6th, 2015

While my first surgery to fix the obstructive sleep apnea was concentrated in the oral area, my second surgery was all about the nasal area: fixing the crooked nasal cavity by inserting a plastic tube and burning of some tissues to broaden the airways, and some other thing I couldn't understand... :P

The morning of... I got ready to head to the hospital on the subway with the morning crowd headed into work. My surgery was scheduled for 10am but had to be there by 9:20 to see the doc before the surgery and and do a simple checkup. So, with all the people cramping up in the subway off I went...

Morning crowd...

Got to the hospital way early, talked to the doc, did some basic tests, got changed into hospital gown and off to the surgery...

I got another round of general anesthesia and this time it was different because I actually felt the liquids flowing into my veins and it hurt! But after that I only remember waking up again cold in the recovery, dizzy and just hurting all over and not being able to breathe through my nose. After gaining a bit of strength I was moved to a bedroom where I wasn't able to sleep for the next hour and half OR drink. So, tried to focus on some other things in order to forget...read a bit, played some game, chatted with my friend on FaceTime. Time did pass quickly and gosh, was I glad to be able to drink water!

I was feeling weak, tired and thirsty. My nose was blocked with gauze stuffed into it and breathing through the mouth made me thirsty all the time. I was released from the hospital around 8pm with nose still blocked, an IV needle stuck into my right wrist, so couldn't breathe properly and couldn't use my right hand. On top of that, I couldn't wear my glasses because it'll put weight on the nose and that was a no-no. So, I was half blind, and half-crippled...

Sleeping that night was really hard! Kept waking up and I couldn't sleep lying down so had to sit up again and that made it a little easier to sleep. 

March 7th, the day after the surgery I had to return to the hospital to get the gauze out of my nose and get the antibiotic shot. Getting that done even though it was very, very painful, I'm glad it was done because I'm feeling much better! 

Next appointment is a week later and I'll get rid of the stitches and the blue bandage that's covering the nose. And a week later from that they'll take the plastic tube out. 

I can't wait till everything is healed. For all the swellings to go down and have fully healed it'll take months.

There are also some precautions I need to take in the meantime (for about a month) like: no excessive exercising, no heavy lifting, no tilting the head down, no sauna or public bathhouse, no alcoholic beverages (up to 3months) 

Obstructive Sleep Apnea

I've been told I snore. 

Yes, people snore, and women do snore. The problem with me though is that I've been told I stop breathing after a very loud snore. And this had been going for some time and hadn't really thought much of it even though my family have had constantly told me to get it checked out. So after ignoring it for the longest time, I finally went to a sleep clinic to get myself checked. (Because it was getting serious and even I was starting to notice and coincidentally I saw a program related to sleep apnea and how badly it could affect your daily life and health.)

February 6th, 6:30pm was the day of the appointment with the doctor at my sleep clinic in Gangnam. We did a short survey, and met up with the doc and did the CT scan, x-ray, and blood works. Didn't take much time maybe an hour or so then at 9pm came back to the clinic to get hooked up on the wires and whatnots to get my brainwave, breathing and movement scanned and filmed. Went to bed around 11pm and the next day they had the results ready by 5pm. 

February 7th, second meeting with the doc... and I was hoping maybe a little retainer would do the trick but it wasn't going to be that easy. He said my results were pretty much on the top of one of his worst female patients. (I pretty much rank 2nd) the results said that I've been waking up over a 100 times in an hou tall becaue of sleep apnea and generally 30/hr is in the red zone and my results were 3times higher. Also, the longest I didn't breathe was 37seconds and that's not good. 

Hence, it came down to two choices, non-surgically I could be using the breathing mask to help me breathe during my sleep for the rest of my life OR surgically, I could broaden up my airways. Luckily, and thankfully I didn't have to get the complicated surgical procedure done.. just a simple not to painful surgery was an option for me, which involves: reduction of the tonsils, uvula and tongue. And yes, it sounded horrifyingly painful and frightening when the doc explained it. And it made me think of all the brave women out there who actually get jobs done willingly just for the sake of beauty... I could never do that. From the CT scan, we could also see that I had a narrow and crooked nasal cavity, hence that needs to get fixed as well and having all that fixed should cure 90% of my problem. (So, 2nd surgery si scheduled for 6th of March)

February 12th, 7pm - The Day of Surgery!

Nervous, anxious and a little frightened.. changed into hospital gown and walked into the surgery room. As I lay down on the surgical bed, I saw those circular lights that we see often on tv and the doctors started connected me to IVs and other electrical wires. The anesthetistf came in and started injecting something into the IV and put a mask on me, telling me to take deep breaths. After couple of breaths I don't remember anything but waking up in the recovery room, shivering.It wasn't painful at all, like the doctor had said, but felt all swollen and awkward, yes, swallowing was very hard. I started out with water, which was difficult, it felt like my throat was the size of a pin hole.

For the first couple of days, I could only eat water, ice cubes and ice cream. I still have to be careful with what I eat because I can't risk the stitches tearing and bleeding. So, for the next couple of weeks until everything is all healed and my lower jaw and four lower front teeth are back to normal, I can only have liquid food, no seasoning, chunks, spice... just soft, cold, sweet stuff.. Oh, and I have to sleep sitting up until the swelling goes down. It's been pretty good so far, I guess it helps because I cant chew or swallow. However, I can't wait till I can eat alll the food I've been missing out on! :)

It's been about 10 days since the surgery and the swelling has gone down substantially, the bruises are almost gone, there stilll are a bit of yellow and blue, purple patches but it should disappear in time :)

I have a checkup at the hospital coming Monday to get the threads removed and to see how the healing's been progressing so far.