Day 6: Recovery

Mornings are always the worst. I think it's because I don't wake up every four hours to take pain pills. I wake up with a stuffy head, headache, and upset stomach. After taking the pain meds, and using the saline rinse, I feel generally good. It seems that at this point most of it is painful congestion and headache, and that only happens when the pain meds are wearing off. I am curious how it is going to be when I run out, which will probably be mid-week.

Not a very eventful day today. I slept a lot for some reason. I did have a little luck in the bathroom today; I have been taking something to give me a little extra help and it is still.....a struggle. But I guess you take what you can get when you can get it ;).

When rinsing my nose, not very much is coming out. This surprises me, because when I read other people's experiences they talk about big chunks of yuck coming out for weeks after. I had maybe a couple blood clots come out, and that was it. I think it might be because I have been drinking like two gallons of water per day pretty consistently. This is partly because I have had really bad dry mouth off and on. So we'll see if my nose stays clear for the next couple weeks.

Something I am curious about is coming off the pain pills. I have heard that I need to wean off of them, which I plan to do, but I am not quite sure what to expect. When I switched over to Tylenol the other day, I noticed some anxiety for a while. I suspect it was from not weaning off appropriately. This time around, I will do whatever the doctor says and we'll see how it goes.

The exciting news for today is that I left the house...to walk down to the mail box. All I did was go out my door, down the steps, and walked the 1/20th of a mile or less down to my mailbox, then back up to the house. Chris came with me and we took our dogs. I felt pretty woozy before we had left, but I thought 'whatever.' It was sort of like walking in an invisible layer of Jello. If I looked around I got dizzy, and borderline motion sick. Half way down the hill, my mouth went completely dry. I couldn't breathe out of my nose. And we still had to get the mail and go back up the hill. When we got back up, my legs felt weak, and I B-lined it to the couch to chug water and sit down. Hopefully my next excursion won't be as unsteady!

Tomorrow is the big day when I go get the nasal splints out (Yay, first actual outing since last Tuesday!). Chris has to drive me since I am still on the pain meds. Apparently they are quite large, so I am interested to see them. I am a little nervous about how they get them out, I believe they just pull them with a tool similar to pliers. I'll try to keep them and post a picture tomorrow.

I am scheduled to go back to work this Thursday, so here's hoping I won't be so whacked out by then!

Stay tuned!