If you're looking for a good time, then I can wholeheartedly recommend giving Nasal surgery a miss. Oh, yea, it sounds like a bag of laughs: the excitement, the glamour, having someone crawl up your nose with a huge knife -- what's not to like? And yet, somehow, the reality just doesn't live up to the hype.
The surgery itself isn't that bad -- except for the papery gown thing, which is a bit 'peek-a-boo' for my tastes -- and you get a nice injection that works like three double whiskies in rapid succession. Wheeeee... But that's because you spend the nose-hacking part asleep. The nasty stuff only really kicks in when you wake up.
Noses are designed for a very specific job, they keep our glasses from falling off our faces, give people something to pick in their cars, produce nasty squonking noises and bogies. What they're not designed for is hacking bits out of. They're the wrong shape -- long twisty-turney tunnels reaching way back into your head, so it's a pretty intrusive procedure. And from the looks of things the surgeons have used my face as a knee-rest.
Yes, I am Mr Swollen potato head.
One of the worst bits about this kind of surgery is the packing they stuff all the way up into your sinuses. Not the putting in, because you're generally unconscious at the time, but the taking out. The idea is that with half a ton of cotton wool up your hooter there's not too much bleeding -- but there is an alternative to cavity wall insulation: cauterization. Basically they burn the inside of your nose and sinuses so they don't pee blood everywhere. This is what I've just had done. So imagine the irony when I have to spend half the recreating the gorier scenes from Night Of The Living Dead. Everywhere. Squoosh! Squoosh! Squoosh!!!
The most surreal bit comes at about nine-ish when She Who Must phones to see how I'm doing and I'm all like, "Er, can you call back later?" sounding a bit bunged up, holding a blood soaked rag to my nose, having just coughed up half a pint of haemoglobin, while Nurse One and Nurse Two try to hook up an IV and some morphine... Mmm, morphine... Thence follows an action-packed night of blood and frolics.
And while I'm pleased to say I managed to keep a reasonable sense of humour for most of the night, by the time five in the morning comes round I'm struggling really hard not to be Mr Grouchy Trousers. Not helped by the fact they're 'upgrading the hospital facilities for my convenience' which involves hammering and bashing and sawing away in the wee small hours right outside my room. Bastards.
Anyway, although I had all sorts of good intentions about doing some work while in here, the only thing I've been able to write is this. How crap am I?
And in case you're wondering, Thursday was more of the same, only with slightly less bleeding. And more vomiting blood. And some ice cream. So it wasn't all bad. But now that I'm home, bringing half their pharmacy with me (amazing what you can pick up in the dead of night when everyone's asleep), I'm giving serious consideration to some pills and a bit of a snooze. Then it'll be all, "Work Monkey Boy: WORK!!!"