Les Jones

New adventures in sinus something or other

Thursday, May 14th, 2009 | Misc | Permalink | 1 Comment |

The story goes that the Eskimo have 100 words to describe different kinds of snot. Or maybe it’s snow. I guess I’m the one developing new words to describe snot.

This is the mandatory TMI alert

The new kind of snot that showed up Tuesday night is old, dark snot, mixed with old, dark blood.

It was accompanied by a new kind of nose blowing sound which is very flappy. I blow my nose and something on the inside of my nose flaps loudly. I guess it’s the maxillary sinuses opening up and giving up whatever is left from surgery and years of blockage.

Anyhoo, this whole drainage and recovery thing isn’t over like I thought it was.

Tags: sinus surgery, tmi

Back from sinus surgery

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009 | Home Life | Permalink | 9 Comments |

A guest post by Les’s anesthesia

Here’s the anesthesia blogging I promised.

So apparently the bad old sinus surgery involved packing your nose with gauze afterwards. A week later the doc would remove the gauze - filled with dried blood so as to simulate concrete - from your nose. He removed it with a chain attached to the trailer hitch of a Ford Bronco in low gear. Same way you pull tree stumps.

In the new kindler, gentler sinus surgery they instead use a “drip pad.” It’s a 4″ X 4″ gauze pad folded into thirds and secured under your nose using an elastic band with ear loops. Picture a mustache made with a sideways tampon and you’ve got the idea.

(Remember, this is my anesthesia talking, not me. - LJ)

Because of the incredible absorbent qualities of gauze you change this very infrequently, like about every 10 minutes.

Even though you can’t breathe through your nose and you feel like Old Faithful has taken up residence in your sinuses the doctors and nurses are very insistent that you not blow your nose. Dude. If I hadn’t blown my nose where would all of the clotted blood have gone?

For the next few days I’ll be on the couch wearing a tampon moustache, hopped up on prescription goofballs, watching movies and intermittently posting on the blog. I’ll talk to you later, seven foot tall bunny rabbit!

Tags: sinus surgery, tmi

Les Jones as you’ve never seen him

Friday, March 20th, 2009 | Dancing Baloney, Home Life | Permalink | 7 Comments |

That’s nothing. Check out this video of my sinus CTI scan. I snagged the disc after the consultation was over. This is a series of image slices of my skull from back to front. The two big round things after the the first few images are my eyes, then my nose appears towards the end. The black areas are the sinuses where they’re clear.

Thing is, big areas of my sinuses aren’t clear and I’ve also got a deviated septum. I’ll be having sinus surgery next month. My doctor says this is the new kinder, gentler sinus surgery, as opposed to the old, unnecessarily cruel kind where they knock you out with a shovel, scrape your sinuses with a meathook and you bleed so much they keep your nose packed with tampons for a week.

Tags: sinus surgery, tmi