As some of you may know (I've certainly whined about it enough) my husband and I caught whooping cough in November. We recovered - it really does take a hundred days - but I was left with an unpleasant problem. The only thing I can smell or taste is death and rot. It's awful.
I've had a bunch of tests, and they think there's either a) an antibiotic-resistant infection (Augmentin, Zithromax, Avalox, Doxycycline and a little prednisone for shits and giggles), b) a fungus, or c) something worse in one of the cells of my ethmoid sinus.
So tomorrow I'll be in the hospital while a good doctor explores my head with tiny sharp wicked tools. He has to fix my deviated septum so he can get to my sinuses first. I hope to be back over the weekend.
So let's all talk about things we hate about surgery. I'll start after the elegant squiggle.
1. Fear. I'm sorry, i know he's done it before, but your ethmoid sinus is up behind your eye and near your brain. My luck has not been so good over the last few years.
2. Hunger. I very seldom eat after 8 at night anyway. "Nothing after midnight"? I'm sitting here thinking of fried eggs and cookies and all sorts of things. And I can have them if I want, it's only 10, but I can't taste them. Well, it's really worse than that. They smell and taste like carrion. I will be starved tomorrow.
3. "Be here at 8..." and we'll get around to you when we can. Once I waited until 4 in the afternoon.
4. Answering the same questions again and again. I understand it's for safety. I don't like it.
5. The garage - the room where they leave you with a bunch of other people waiting for surgery. Invariably, I have to use the bathroom. I'm a fall risk. Bedpan time!
6. Going through that door into the dark.
7. Pain. The only thing I've ever had done to my head is corneal surgery, which was pure hell. I hope this isn't.
8. Pain pills that either make you sick or comatose.
9. Uncertainty. There's a good chance that the taste/smell nerves that run through the ethmoid sinus may be permanently damaged already.
So what do you hate about surgery?