Nose 3

I'm the sort of guy that worries about everything in my life, so it'll be no surprise to you to learn that the spectre of my upcoming nasal surgery is continually lurking in the abandoned amusement park that is my mind. I related in my last post how I was a little frustrated at the lack of definitive information about what I can expect on the day, and I'm still mostly in the dark (mostly.) I did speak to my friend Emily about her experience undergoing surgery, and while it did settle my mind a little, the caveat remains that Emily's op was more complex, and involved a different NHS health board. Two, I think.

I've been wondering recently if my deviated septum symptoms are getting worse, if I'm just more hyper-aware of them, or if the increasingly cold weather is having an effect. I've been sneezing a lot, even the good (left) nostril feels blocked, and I've been experiencing some mild sinus pain. In addition, I've tried to walk while eating recently, and that hasn't really gone well; within a few seconds of starting mastication (stuffin' mah face), I find myself gasping for air.

Since my visit to the consultant, I've wondered if my breathing affects my sleep, and I read somewhere that if you have to consciously aid your inhalations, because you feel you're not getting enough oxygen, when you're sleeping, you won't be able to do that, and so you might wake yourself up to get more air. I'm not conscious of this happening, but the sleep app I use does suggest that I wake up on average 2-3 times a night. I'm not yet sure if this is normal or not.

I took a long walk yesterday morning in the cold November rain, and when I got home there was an appointment letter from the NHS, inviting me to a pre-operative consultation, to assess my health and ensure I'm fit for surgery, and for me to glean any further information. My appointment is next week, at the Royal Infirmary; my previous letter about the waiting list was from Gartnavel. So, that's a little confusing; do Gartnavel just oversee appointments for the north of Glasgow, or are various stages of the process handled by the nearest facility capable to do so? I suppose in the grand scheme of things, it's no big deal whether the procedure itself takes place in Gartnavel or the Royal.

A number of people whose blogs I've found through Google, and Emily, had their pre-ops a week before their surgery. I'm also a wee bit concerned by that; ideally I'd like my op to take place in early January, to allow me to enjoy the festive period. I've got a few, rare (social!) things on over the next few weeks. I'm sure Emily said she received her surgery date at the same time as her pre-op date; perhaps I should have received another letter with the date of the actual surgery? 

Still, I'll have the chance to ask questions at my appointment next week. In preparation for the assessment, I've been brushing up on my medical history. Generally, I've been quite a healthy person, with no underlying conditions...that I'm aware of. I had a physiotherapist appointment on Friday, and she told me she thinks I have mild scoliosis, but I don't think that's anything to be too worried about. Most of my surveys of hospital interiors have come as a result of minor injuries and trips to accident and emergency, but there have been a few outliers.

I'm not sure if it still happens, but teenagers in the United Kingdom used to receive inoculations to prevent against tuberculosis. You would leave class one day, visit the nurse, have some testing serum injected into your forearm (known as the Heaf test, in my day), and depending on how your skin reacted, you would either receive the BCG (Bacillus Calmette–Guérin) vaccine, or you would get a trip to the hospital for a nice chest x-ray. My skin did react, and so I had my lungs x-rayed, but I never received any treatment, or vaccination. As my mother was my guardian at the time, and therefore the point of contact regarding consent and information, and as she can be a little bit scatty in this respect, I never did find out what the story was behind the x-ray. And it bugged me a little. I mentioned it to the physio on Friday while we were talking about my medical history, and she’d had the same experience. It transpires that if your skin reacts to the Heaf test, but your x-ray doesn't show tuberculosis, it implies you've been exposed to the disease when you were younger, and developed a natural immunity. Which makes sense to me.

I've only actually been admitted to hospital twice in my life. Once was when I was born. The second occasion was five years ago. I’d been taking stronger and stronger anti-inflammatories to combat an ear infection, and one morning I took them without enough food in my stomach, due to my complete lack of appetite. Within a few hours, I was in the emergency surgery unit at the local hospital with the worst (to date, still the worst) pain I've ever experienced. While it eventually turned out to be gastritis, an inflammation of the stomach lining caused by the anti-inflammatories, a not-especially serious condition, I did find myself wired up to an electrocardiogram machine, and on a drip for a while. A week or so later, a trip to the ear, nose and throat department in the hospital revealed that my ear infection was actually a cyst in my ear canal; I don’t think anti-inflammatories would have helped.

I wrote about the subjectivity of memory in my last post. While I was in the emergency surgery unit, a nurse affixed a red identity wristband to my arm, after having asked if I was allergic to anything. I am; penicillin, but that’s another long story. I thought that my allergy was written on the bracelet, but digging it out on Friday, it appears it wasn't. Further investigation suggests that the NHS, again, have a bit of a mixed bag policy as far as patient ID bands go. Some use different colours for different reasons; red for allergy, yellow for fall risk, etc. Some use coloured bands in addition to the standard white ID band. Some use coloured bands instead of the white ID band (as in my case above.) Some note the allergy on the band, some don’t. In a guidance document I found online, it was suggested that allergies should not be noted on ID bands, as care-givers should cross-reference the patient’s ID with their notes before any medication is administered. All of the above reinforces that there’s a fair amount of inconsistency in the NHS, but that’s perhaps to be expected in an organisation of its size. It does however mean that I'm still not quite sure about what awaits me over the next six weeks (yes, I'm very aware this is all paralysis through analysis.)

Still, I guess I'm about to find out…