Damek.

Today is Monday, June 27. Tomorrow, I’m having surgery to fix my deviated septum and drain my sinuses.

It seems that the main cause of the headaches I’ve been having is sinusitis. I’ve tried antibiotics, as well as a steroid which was supposed to reduce the inflammation. It hasn’t worked. Since being told about the deviated septum, I’ve been hyperaware of it and how it affects my breathing. That annoyance factor alone led me to schedule surgery just to get that fixed. Since the sinuses still seem to be inflamed and causing headaches, I figure, why not let my doc drain them while he’s in there fixing my septum? He said it was advisable as well.

I’m pretty anxious about the whole thing. Aside from anticipating the surgery in general (I haven’t ever had surgery, unless you count getting all my wisdom teeth out in my teens), there are some potentially serious complications involving the eye and the brain that you can read about here (scroll to the bottom of the page). They’re very rare, very low risk, and my doctor tells me they’ve never happened to his patients, but as all worrywarts know, there’s a first time for everything.

I keep reminding myself that this surgery happens all the time, and the real risk, the thing that happens in well over 90% of cases, is that everything will be fine and I’ll be better off after the surgery than before. Besides, it could be worse. Alex’s mother had to have her sinuses scraped (don’t you just love those two words together?) when she was pregnant with Alex, which required her to have it done without anesthetic, and which is a story that Alex never tires of hearing.

Me, I’ve elected to be put out entirely. This raises the risk of complications from the general anesthesia, but I was put out entirely when I got my wisdom teeth taken out, and I’m too afraid that I might move during surgery and screw something up. Plus, I just don’t want to be aware when somebody’s screwing around in my head. I think I could handle local anesthetic for some other procedures, but if you’re going in my head, I’m checking out. Just wake me when you’re done and give me some post-op instructions.

So, wish me luck. Hopefully in a week at most I’ll be back in the game with a smooth procedure and recovery, breathing easier than ever before.