So my wife and I signed up for Upromise today.

This is one of the those rare things that actually makese sense if you have a young child.  You sign up for this program and a certain (small) percentage of qualifying purchases actually go into a fund for your child.

You don’t have to do any extra work either – you register your credit cards – including corporate cards – and any qualifying purchase you make contributes money to the fund.

As a bonus you can have other people sign up too – you might not have any children (or you might be a grandparent, etc) – but you can still sign up and designate who should get the cash.

Where does the money come from?  Advertisers and merchants – it’s a promotion for them of course.  All’s fair marketing but the two best things about this are:

1. You are getting bonuses for money you’d spend anyway
2. You don’t have to do any work after you sign up to get the benefits

And on top of that the Upromise people have some tools, etc, to show you how to get the best deals.  If you are interested just head on over to the Upromise sign up.

Day of surgery

The day of the surgery was unremarkable.  I showed up, they did they prep stuff, and wheeled me off to surgery without anything unusual happening.  I’d had surgery before for both right and left inguinal hernias so I knew the routine.  The expected drill was in by 9, out and back home by 5.  This was same day surgery.

UPPP and Septoplasty

The actual procedures I had were simple – Uvulopalatopharyngoplasty (UPPP) and Septoplasty.  As bonus they threw in a turbinate reduction

UPPP surgery is for sleep apnea.  In my case the ENT/Surgeon (Dr. T.) ended up removing my tonsils, my adenoids, my uvula, and some tissue along the upper-back portion of my mouth in the area called the soft palate.  Think of this as the “ouchie” spot you get when you a taco shell or something that pokes you in the soft tissue in the back of the mouth.  In any case Dr. T removed all of that.

Septoplasty is the procedure to fix a deviated septum.  Essentially they cut a flap in one side of your nose in the middle (septum).  Then Dr. T. went in through this opening and removed the bone/cartilage that was out of place from me breaking my nose.  Finally he did a turbinate reduction to open up the airway in my left nostril.  After that they just suture the flap up and you are done.

Waking up

I woke up to a world of pain.  I knew there would be pain – I was well advised of it ahead of time and I wasn’t surprised.  I was however surprised at the intensity.  I was being given morphine and this didn’t do ANYTHING to reduce the pain.  All it did was knock me out.  The first few days the nose repair tends to bleed a lot so I’d often wake up to my very patient wife wiping up the blood draining down my face from my nose.  I think she and I went through about a zillion tissues.

My nose didn’t hurt though – my throat was unbearable.  The intensity of the pain was actually far worse than when I had my hernia surgeries (although, as I am finding out – the hernia surgery pain lasted a LOT longer in one of the instances – the other time I have virtually no pain). 

I actually ended up staying overnight that Monday and was put on different pain killers on Tuesday.  This helped considerably but I still couldn’t swallow.  Thankfully I was on an IV so I didn’t get dehydrated since I was definitely not drinking anything either.

Side note: I love nurses.  My mom was a nurse.  I have a soft spot for anyone who chooses that profession.  However, there should be a simple screening question added to weed out potential nurses that goes like this:

Q: You enter a patient’s room at 4AM to administer drugs/check vitals/whatever.  Do you..

1. Leave the door/light how you found it (closed and off respectively)?
2. Leave the lights on?
3. Leave the door wide open?
4. Wear perfume?

Anyone who picks answers 2-4 should immediately be escorted out of nursing school.

Day Three

By Wednesday I was feeling good enough to go home.  Fortunately I had lots of good drugs to take home and my wife/daughter picked me up.  The pain was greatly diminished by the drugs (in my case Toradol to reduce inflammation and Vicodyn for pain) but still – I hate taking all this crap.  On the plus side I’m sleeping about 14 hours a day at this point and things are considerably foggy most of the time.

One Week After

I’ve lost 10 pounds.  I’ve developed Vidodyn-alepsy where I just randomly fall asleep on various pieces of furniture.

I also am still having a very hard time eating.  I went out to dinner today with my wife to Arbuckle’s in Stevens Point.  I got cheese ravioli which was a good option for me but I am still only able to eat small portions.  I think I ate a total of two ravioli (they were the large variety).  I did however get in some serious coveting of my wife’s sandwich.

I also tried their famous cheese fries – I was able to eat some small pieces I cut up but in the end my throat was too sore to really eat much.  At this point I am only in Vidodyn (not Toradol) and Tylenol.  The pain has again increased a bit but is manageable – I just don’t like eating very much right now since that just plain hurts a LOT.

Did I mention the Bad Breath?

One thing they warn you about the UPPP surgery is you will develop bad breath while everything heals.  What they do not warn you about is how REALLY bad your breath is.  It is amazing just how bad your breath can be when your throat is healing.  My wife and toddler were very gracious about it but since I can feel it all the time I really pity the times they caught a whiff of it.  It’s just nasty.

Fortunately that’s starting to improve.

According to Kurt – a friend who had the same surgery – you need a good solid month before you are back to eating normally.  Also, you can randomly expect things to come out your nose that were intended to go mouth > teeth > stomach.  His wife Amy said Kurt recently laughed an M&M out his nose.

I’ll post more updates when anything useful happens.

First – my basic background – I’m 35 and I snore. My parents snore. My sisters snore. My brothers snore. And I don’t mean “they have a nice cute little snore like my toddler” I mean they have this god-awful unhealthy snore that kept me awake for YEARS growing up whenever I’d have to share a room with them (family trips, etc).

I have snored for many years. My college roommates used to yell at me because I’d keep them awake, as did anyone who ever slept in any proximity to me.

I weigh quite a bit more than when I was 17 and weight 155 lbs.  However, I snore the same now as I did when I was 17 and weighed 155 lbs. It is safe to say (in retrospect) that I have probably had obstructive sleep apnea for a long time.  I’m working on reducing weight but I highly doubt that will have much of an effect given how long I’ve snored like this.

However…it was never an issue for ME – it just annoyed those around me. That was, of course, until I got married – then it became a larger issue.

Let me preface all of this by saying my wife has been supportive and none of this is a comment against her – but the basic facts are simple. She went through a period of time where she had great difficulty sleeping. Any minor disturbance would wake her up – including me snoring.

Naturally, she would wake me up and ask me to turn over, etc, so I’d stop snoring.

Obviously this is a viscious cycle and we continually would wake one another up – or one of us would just accept defeat and go sleep in another room.  Obviously none of these approaches are good long term solutions so eventually I went to my doctor and he referred me to an ENT.

The ENT’s take on it…

The ENT wanted me to do a sleep study. Since I am fortunate enough to have good health insurance this was completed in short order. The results gave a clear indication of sleep apnea.

I would stop breathing for up to 60 seconds at time – I woke up 137 times in 6.5 hours – and my Oxygen levels dropped below 90. The other indicators were all conclusive as well.

During that study they also tried CPAP on me. I hated it with a passion. I had a LOT of trouble falling asleep with it and I had a sleep aid (ie, drugs) administered. What was worse was my reaction when I woke up. I panicked. I don’t think I have ever truly panicked in my life before but seriously – if you had taken the CPAP machine off and replaced it with a live squid on my face I don’t think I would have reacted worse. I woke up and started swinging at the thing to get it off my face.

I’m probably in some kind of “Hall of Fame” at the sleep center since they record every second of the process. “Look! Here’s Squidboy!”

Moving on….

I met with the ENT again and he explained all of the options. At my age I’m old enough to have run through several doctors of different types and I’d say he very good. He explains things well and was very patient. In his opinion/experience I was a very good candidate based on the shape of my face, mouth, throat, etc.

One thing I haven’t mentioned up to this point is my nose. I also have a deviated septum. I’ll summarize the story here and just say I smashed my nose into someone accidentally in college years ago. That was easily the worst I’ve ever bled.  Ever since then airflow on one side of my nose is about 20% of what it should be.

Although they do not think this is a contributor to the sleep apnea it is really inconvenient (Warning: Gross sentence ahead). I’ll skip the political correctness and just be blunt: when the airway is that small it tends to get constantly plugged with boogers regardless of your hygiene. (Gross sentence over).

So – on April 20th – all of that got fixed ( and by fixed I mean operated on – whether or not it worked needs more time…)

I guess the appropriate question to ask is this – what do I want to get out of this? I’d say three things:

1.) Ability to actually sleep in the same room as my wife without waking her up constantly
2.) To feel well rested again (I haven’t for years…but I also have a toddler so….)
3.) Be able to breath out my nose again

That’s my story – and I’m sticking to it. Feel free to ask questions.  The next part covers the actual procedure and after effects.

Monday was normal.  Tuesday was very busy but also normal – the last thing of any importance was my wife and I going to the “Y” to the trainer appointment.  Since she was 12 weeks pregnant (give or take) the trainer was showing her some more low-impact things to do and generally running us through a few other things.

Wednesday – things changed.  We had our first major pre-natal appointment.  This was the one where we would hear the heartbeat the first time.   Before we go there, let’s cover recent history.

 We had one pregnancy that was successful – we have a great 2-year old.  The second one terminated naturally around 9 weeks.  My wife was naturally very nervous for this appointment and I was a bit tense too.  However, no one thinks something bad could really happen twice – the odds are against it (although surprisingly right in the poker-player range of odds).

During the appointment – no heartbeat.  So they did an ultrasound with a small, portable ultra-sound.  No definite results.  They moved up to the larger cart-based ultra-sound.  No definite results.

This resulted in the next step, using the “BIG” ultrasound that was effectively the size of a large computer workstation on wheels.  This time we got definitive results – we had to wait to see the doctor to get the official results but we could see it ourselves – an empty sac which should have been filled with a 3″ or so embryo.  We had the same experience before  we know what to look for – and my wife summarized it best by saying “this seems all too familiar”.

The rest is details – pregnancy #3 is over.  My wife is recovering.  But that leads us to how people react to this sort of thing.

If an old person dies – or even someone who is roughly classified as “not young” (including me) at this point – people try to comfort the family with sayings like “At least he/she got to live a full life” or “They got to do many things others don’t” and what not.   And that’s not just a trivial comment – it’s true.  Anyone alive in American (and most modern countries( is living longer, better, and healthier than the majority of  humans throughout history.  We instinctively know those comments have some weight and meaning.  That’s not the case with a miscarriage.  There’s just not a lot you can other than the aforementioned “that sucks, etc” clause.

The problem is threefold.  First, there’s nothing you can really say that isn’t a modified version of “That sucks and we are thinking of you – if you need anything let me know”.  I am not questioning the sincerity of anyone’s comments – they have all been sincere and appreciated.  But you can’t simplify it – you can’t downplay it – it just proverbially is what it is.

Second, if you are single – or if you have never tried to have kids – you can’t really identify with the situation.  You can certainly sympathize – but you can not empathize.  If you are a single female you simply haven’t sat there and felt like crap for 12 weeks (= 84 days = 2016 hours = 7257600 seconds) hoping to it is all worth it and having those dreams crushed by a harsh reality.  If you are a single guy you haven’t experienced any of the major forms of weirdness guys develop with a pregnant wife (I tend towards the sudden over-protectiveness) and then had to deal with it all changing plus your own emotional stake in the process.  You just can’t identify with it.

Third – if you are a guy – you can never really appreciate the woman’s point of view.  You can certainly try – I know I have – but we never have the physical connection with a child that women have during pregnancy and birth.  I’ve had multiple guys tell me that when their children were born they didn’t have the immediate love and closeness that their wife had.  It took some time.

So – no matter how you summarize it – we had a loss.  But we’ve also had a win – and she is two years old and cute as a button.  Her birthday is that week.  We’re concentrating on that and moving forward.  After all – life is measured by how you pick your self up after you get kicked in the teeth by reality.

-From a friend of mine in regards to the miscarriage, asking how my wife was doing.