Hey, thanks for all the emails asking how my sinus surgery went.  I’m fine.  My anesthesiologist cycling friend, Jeff Unruh helped me out a ton, at the hospital and afterwards.

The hospital was backed up nearly 2 hours, so I wasn’t out of surgery until early evening.  I woke up with virtually no hangover.  Felt pretty good actually.  I was up in the pediatric wing because they were trying to consolidate the nursing staff over the holidays.  I was scheduled to stay overnight, but that wasn’t happening.  To be discharged, you have to eat, piss, get vital signs recorded 7 times and have the bleeding under control.  I took care of the first three pretty quickly.  But, the faucet wasn’t working well.  And, the pain had started.  Long story short, I took a pain pill that I had a reaction to.  Full on nausea, dizzy, headache etc.  But, I didn’t want to show any of this to the nurses because I wanted to leave.  I couldn’t open my eyes it was so bad.  The last time they took my blood pressure, it was something like 150/90 instead of the previous 110/70. She said, you must be in a lot of pain. I got out of there around 11pm.

I was still pretty sick to my stomach until 2 or 3 am.  I just sat in a recliner, mainly to keep my nose high.  I had no pain medication, so it was nearly impossible to sleep.  I watched the Traveling Road show from 3-4 am and This Old House from 4-5 am.

The weather here was wacky yesterday.  It got up to 67 degrees, record high.  It was in the upper 50’s at 11 pm.  And, a tornado watch.   A line of severe storms rolled through around 2 am and it rained for 4 hours.  Pretty good night to be awake — all night.  Then the temperature started to drop and it started sleeting and snowing.  Now, there is snow on the ground and it is in the 20’s.

I was hoping the pain would be less by this morning.  But no.  I’m not much into taking pain medication.  When I break bones I don’t usually fill the pain prescriptions.  But this was different.  I’d say the pain felt like I had the worst sinus headache I’ve ever had, plus an additional sharp pain from the trauma.  Jeff Unruh came through and hand delivered a prescription to the Walgreen’s by my house.   How is that for service?  Now, I’m way better.  I’ve slept a few hours today.

It seems weird getting all this concern over an elective procedure.  But, I appreciate it.  And, just because it’s elective, doesn’t mean it isn’t serious.  So, thanks again.  If everything gets better at the rate it’s been improving today, then I’ll be fine by early nearly next week.  I’m not supposed to be riding any time soon, but my ergometer is in the living room and is calling my name.

Drugged. Happy? Pediatric wing (stuffed animal from nurse).