Sleep Apnea – surgery and recovery

This is part two in the series.  The original article can be found at Sleep Apnea: The Back story.

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.