post surgery day 6

Finally a sign of life huh.
I'm still recovering big time but figured it is about time to write a little here about the whole shebang. The surgery apparently fine but since they completely knocked me out I obviously don't remember anything.
I do remember waking up feeling disoriented, thirsty as hell. Since I just got out of the OR I was still on IV which means no drinking just yet. I kept bugging them and they wetted my mouth a few times but that didn't help all that much.
Once I got to the 2nd recovery room I was given a drink and soon after finished it, and bleeding all over it hehe, I needed to take a pee. Nobody around so I asked some visitors to other patients in the recovery room but still no nurse popping out. So I just belted out that I had to pee. That worked :-)
Trying to walk while still under IV is like doing the moonwalk on a beach ball.
Another nasty effect from the IV is that you feel the constant need to pee but you only trickle, if you're lucky. I seriously spent most of the night on the toilet trying to pee. Fortunately during the night the IV effect wore off and I started being able to take a decent piss.

Paul showed up while I was in the 2nd recovery room, I think while I was trying to get dressed. That took a while and although I could walk slightly better than that first walk to the restroom the nurse turned up with a wheelchair. I was rolled to Paul's car and got in, all the while bleeding. Had to throw the used tissues onto the car's floor cause the bleeding was endless.

We picked up Silvia who would babysit me since Paul had a work meeting to attend to which turned out to last till after 11 pm or so. Was I glad to have someone around me phew. I really underestimated the aftermath I encountering and which is still giving me fun times.

During the first 2.5 days I had internal packaging up my nose so my head was congested. Breathing, swallowing, talking, eating, drinking all were extremely hard. With every swallow I could feel the internal packaging go up and down. While changing the external bandage on Thursday I noticed that the packaging in my right nostril was slowly being pushed out due to the swallowing. Eventually I ended up pulling this one out on Friday morning, several hours before the next doctor's appointment was and when he would remove both packaging. But when one of the packaging is already hanging out of your nose covering your mouth you simply can't avoid removing it to be able to put on a new bandage.

Back to the first night. Silvia ordered some Chinese online while I just tried drinking as much water as I could bear to swallow. Since I wasn't allowed to use straws I rarely finished any of the glasses. I put on "La vie en rose" for Silvia while I was spending most of the night on the toilet trying to overcome the IV peeing effect.
Somewhere around 11:30pm Brad showed up and fairly soon after Paul showed up to pick up Silvia. Both Silvia and Brad helped me changing the bandage and witnessed all the bloody stuff so kudos to them for being true warriors.
I believe Brad and I watched some more DVDs before we finally decided to go to sleep. I think I got like 30 minutes of sleep that night.

From Thursday on I started getting fevers and headaches which the Tylenol didn't do jack shit about so I asked Brad to get me some decent painkillers. I forgot which night it was but one night I was feverish and half hallucinating and it felt like my nose was actually detached from my face. Scary shit!

Brad went to visit his parents on Thursday afternoon but returned around 9pm or so to watch the Steelers game with snowy reception on my TV. I slept through most of the game being exhausted from everything that happened since Wednesday morning on and the serious lack of sleep.

On Friday Steffi picked me up to drive me to my doctor's appointment where the internal packaging in my left nostril was removed. That was extremely uncomfortable feeling and very very bloody. But it was also a huge relief to finally have all the internal stuff removed from my nose. As the doctor put it: this was the moment from which on I would start to actually feel better. That was true with the difference of eating. Although I couldn't eat much I would get fever and headache everything I ate something. Which took hours to wear off.
So when Saturday arrived, which was also my birthday, I decided to only eat once during the entire day. However, I turned out not to eat anything until after the party.
Also had a webcam session with my parents and sister which lasted for a good 2.5 hours. Just before it started my nose exploded and started oozing pus and blood a lot. Since I was afraid I'd run out of bandages I decided to just dip my nose constantly during the webcam session.
Once we finished the session I changed the bandage but soon felt it getting soaked again. Once the party started I was back into dipping and being silent mode while my guests chatted and enjoyed some drinks/bites.

I don't remember much of Sunday, I just watched more He-Man episodes from the Season 2: Volume 1 boxset and also saw some movies. Additionally, I prepared some dinner (spaghetti) which was the first warm supper since Tuesday December 18.

I ran out of movies to watch yesterday so I decided to drive to Dreaming Ant to quickly grab some new ones. The draining seemed to have stopped so I was in dubio whether I should put on a new bandage. In hindsight, I'm glad I did 'cause halfway through on my way to Dreaming Ant the waters broke again and flooded big time. I couldn't even speak while at Dreaming Ant, that's how bad the flooding was.
So I just got the DVDs, got the hell out of there and changed the bandage once I got home.
No further drainage happened so when I couldn't fall asleep this last night I just removed it around 4:35am. Interestingly I did catch some sleep after that.

Right now I'm having some breakfast and as a consequence am dripping a bit but no way in hell am I going to put on a new bandage.

So you see, the fun is not over just yet.