Wednesday, February 18, 2009

The Sound of Two Nostrils Breathing

I'm back from the doctor and my splints are out. He says I'm healing perfectly and the septum is nice and straight. I couldn't really fell the splints in my nose but there was some discomfort . When they came out they were much larger than I had realized and now my nose feels almost cavernous.

Apparently I had a serious fracture of the septum and there's no way to know when it happened. I asked if the enlarged turbinates were related to that and he said "we just don't know". It's common to see very large turbinates on the side opposite the deviation and I had that too. Maybe the tissue grows to fill the available space.

He literally vacuumed my nose, so things are much clearer. Without the splints I'm supposed to be particularly careful about bumping it. I won't be able to blow my nose like a normal person for another 3-4 weeks which is kind of annoying but I'll manage. I'm supposed to practice breathing through my nose and I assured him I already was. He also doesn't want me to take up kickboxing anytime soon. I told him I was hoping to get back to reading.

I go back in 3 weeks for what I hope is a final checkup. One pleasant surprise, apparently I don't have co-payments for post-operative visits. How nice.

2 comments:

The Dad said...

Sounds like you need one of these: http://www.woot.com/Blog/ViewEntry.aspx?Id=7295

The Dad said...

Let's try that again:

one of these.