Waking up from surgery was like waking up with a hangover from hell.  I halfway woke up multiple times for only a few seconds before succumbing to the sleep.  My blurred eyes caught glimpses of the television hanging over the bed and the various wires that came out of my arms like exposed veins and I knew I was back in the room where I started.  I assume as soon as my parents noticed me stirring, they came over to check on me.  All I could hear were disembodied voices that felt as though they were speaking from the other side of a closed door.  Eventually, I woke up in so much discomfort that I was not easily able to go back to sleep, despite the anesthesia that was attempting to drag me under.  My nose was burning and my throat was raw from the breathing tube.  I was trapped in the tiny bed and unable to switch positions or even move very much at all because I didn’t want to accidentally tear out my IV or disconnect any machinery.  I wanted to fall unconscious to sleep away the discomfort but I was too uncomfortable to go back to sleep.  Nurses came in and out and asked me questions but I was too disoriented to answer or even care about what they were asking.  For what seemed like the next hour or two, I tossed and turned and tried to go back to sleep but I knew it wasn’t going to happen.  Yet, I was still exhausted.  It felt like I had been awake for a week straight and my body was trying to go into automatic sleep mode but I couldn’t get comfortable enough to do so.  I was miserable.

When I decided to sit up, I asked my mom to help me.  She came over and took my left arm as I pulled myself up with my right.  It felt like a train had suddenly rammed into my noggin.  Blood spilled out of my nose like a leaking faucet.  Some of it dripped onto my gown and spilled onto the hospital blanket.  My mom grabbed some tissues and gave them to be to cover my nose.  My head began pounding like a drum kit in my temples.  My eyes began to water.  My nose was leaking.  My nose was burning.  My throat was sore.  And because I wasn’t uncomfortable enough, a nurse put a thick wad of gauze underneath my nose and secured it with a long strip of tape that ran across the expanse of my face and ended at each cheek.  I asked Mom if she’d hit me over the head with a bedpan to end my suffering.  She didn’t oblige.

I knew I wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep because of the small bed so I wanted to go home to my bed to sleep off the rest of the anesthesia.  Before I could leave, though, I was told I had to eat, drink and pee.  For the first time in my life, I think I wasn’t hungry.  And the mystery meat and mashed potatoes on the plastic tray wasn’t looking too appetizing.  I reluctantly opted for the mashed potatoes, which were the driest I’ve ever had.  I washed them down with several cupfuls of Sprite hoping to illicit some action from my bladder so I could get out of there.  Eventually, nature did call.  A faceless nurse and my mother helped me out of the bed, which felt like it was ten feet off the ground.  I stood up and felt a cold rush that wrapped around my head and constricted my brain.

“Whoaaa,” was all I could utter.

I then shuffled to the bathroom like a liver-spotted geezer.  My mom and the nurse grabbed my arms and stabilized my movement.  After standing over the toilet, dribbling for a good five minutes, I was done.  I then changed out of the blood stained gown and back into my pajamas.  At some point my IV was removed, along with the clamp on my finger and the blood pressure monitor.  A nurse brought in a wheelchair and I was carefully placed into the seat.  I was then wheeled through the halls, down the elevator and through the exit.  Mom and Dad were waiting for me in Mom’s car at the entrance.  I was helped out of the wheelchair and placed in the passenger’s seat.  From check in to check out, the whole thing last about five to six hours.

The drive from the hospital to home was forty-five minutes but the burning and pounding and soreness made it feel like forty-five hours.  The various potholes didn’t help matters.  And my mother, being the skilled driver that she is, managed to hit every single one of them.  The jostling of the car reverberated in my skull and caused my tender nose to vibrate.  I could only breathe from my mouth and sucked in the cold air that poured from the air conditioner.  I closed my eyes to try to block out the misery but nothing was going to make me feel better except slipping in between my flannel sheets and finding comfort in the silence and stillness.  But first, Dad had to get cigarettes.  As we approached a convenience store, Mom started to slow down.  Then, she turned on her blinker.

“What are you doing?” I asked Mom.

“Dad has to buy some cigarettes,” she replied.

“Are you serious right now?” I asked, noticeably offended.  The convenience store wasn’t out of the way and it was only ten minutes from home but every second that I was away from the sanctuary of my bedroom was one second way too long.  I just had surgery!  I was in pain!  I needed to get home and yet I had to wait on comfort so my father could get his cancer on?  Really?  Dad stepped out of the car and gingerly walked into the convenience store.  I slumped in the seat, trying to find some reprieve from the pain.  There was none to be found.

“Why couldn’t he just come back after taking me home?  Like, seriously!”

Mom just shrugged her shoulders.

Dad came back and handed me a 20 oz Sprite, which I took with a glint of anger in my eye and promptly chugged.  It was a race between my nose and throat to see who could cause me the most harm.  After the soothing liquid cool of the drink, my nose took the lead.

When we finally got home, Mom pulled into the carport and helped me shuffle to my room.  I climbed into bed and fell asleep in an instant.

The day after my surgery, I had to go back to the doctor for a follow up.  It wasn’t easy waking up at five in the morning.  That hangover feeling still hadn’t dissipated.  Somehow, I managed to get out of bed but I didn’t bother to shower or change clothes.  At the hospital, I waited, blurry eyed, for the doctor to come in.  The nurse had put those white strips up my nose again.  When the doctor, more peppy than usual, came into the room, he got right to work asking me how I was feeling and some other questions that I can’t remember.  I think I mostly mumbled my responses.  I was surprised when he pulled out a long piece of bloody gauze from each one of my nostrils.  I didn’t know anything was up there.  No wonder I couldn’t breathe!

As the doc explored my nose, he said, “You know, your septum was one of the worst I’ve seen in a long time.  You also had two extra holes in your sinuses that were filled with a thick, white mucus.”

Well, lovely.  He just keeps discovering more and more stuff messed up within my muzzle.

Back home again, I sat up in my bed.  By that point, it wasn’t so much that I was in pain, just an intense amount of discomfort.  I had to stay propped up on my bed at all times to allow my sinuses to flow properly, although they were still stopped up with blood, mucus and crusties.  It sucked because I usually sleep on my stomach or side but I had to sleep halfway sitting up.  I also couldn’t sleep with my ceiling fan on, which is how I would usually sleep.  I couldn’t breathe out of my nose and I couldn’t blow my nose.  And for someone like me, who usually blows their nose constantly, it was an exercise in frustration.  The first few days after the surgery were a wash of unconsciousness and nausea.  When I wasn’t sick or asleep, I was mad that I couldn’t blow my nose or sleep comfortably, especially with the pull of the anesthesia still clinging to my cranium.

I went back for a follow up appointment a week later.  The appointment was for him to suck out all the crusty junk that had accumulated in my nose over the past week.  When I got there, the nurse stuck those freaking white numbing strips up my nose yet again and then laid me back in the chair.  After a few minutes, the doctor came in and took the white strips out of my nose.  He then prepared the suctioning machine to clean out my nostrils.  It was so bad. Those numbing strips didn’t work because I felt every bit of it!  Well, I say that but maybe they did work and the pain would have been worse without them.  Either way, it sucked.  Literally and figuratively.  The doctor also used a light that he stuck up my nose to help him dig around and the light was literally so bright that I thought it was going to blind me.  I squeezed my eyes as tight as I could and yet the light was still as bright as if I had my eyes wide open.  I gripped tight to the chair as my eyes started to tear up.  The suctioning hurt as the boogies and blood tore away from my nose hairs.  He went so far up my nose I swear he was fondling my thoughts.  In the process of suctioning, he moved my nose around to get to where he needed to go.  Now, remember, it was only a week ago that he had sliced my nose open and it was still sore.  All week long I tried to be so careful so as not to bump my nose into anything and here he was, manhandling it like he was working a handful of dried out Play-Doh.

Yet, after he was done, I was able to breathe.  I took in a deep breathe of hospital room air and it felt amazing.  I wasn’t quite sure if I could breathe better than before the surgery.  I was just happy that I could breathe at all and was grateful for it.  It did feel a bit weird, though, in a way that I can’t quite explain.  The nurse said it was common because of the numbing strips and the fact that I had become accustomed to breathing out of my mouth.  It would just take some getting used to.  After the numbing wore off, I tried breathing out of my nose again but then it just burned.

Unfortunately, a few days after the surgery, the lump in my throat grew to mammoth proportions.  When the lump pops up, it usually starts out by becoming firm before expanding.  About a day after the surgery, I noticed it getting firm.  Then, overnight, it got so big that it extended all the way to my chin.  It was probably the size of a tennis ball.  The doctor didn’t immediately notice during my one-week follow up appointment because I was laid back in the chair with my head down.  I told him that it had gotten huge and then I lifted my chin for him to see it in all of its massive glory.  As my eyes were staring at the ceiling, I couldn’t see the reaction on his face.  After the appointment, while we were in the car, Mom told me that as soon as he laid his brown eyes on my lump, his goofy grin dropped immediately.  Almost as if he was in shock.  After poking the lump, he told me he thought it was a good thing.  It meant that his theory about the lump and the sinuses being correlated was probably correct.  He prescribed some steroids and antibiotics to help reduce the size of the lump and told me to come back in another week for a final suction session.

First it was the nausea and the eventual dissipation of the anesthesia that took about an entire week to get over and now I was going to have to deal with steroids and antibiotics?  Those made me feel nauseous as well.  I remember the entire month of September being nothing more than a drug haze for me.  I was in and out of consciousness and feeling like crap.  I couldn’t write, watch television or enjoy a good book because I was too whacked out.  As my appetite went anorexic, I wondered when I would experience flavor again.  I spent most of my time documenting the lump’s decrease in size through a series of photographs.  I wondered if I’d ever feel like myself, if I’d even remember what myself felt like.  It was weird being so blank-brained for so long.  It was also kind of nice.  I hoped the final session with the doctor would provide some sort of relief.  I was hoping to finally be done with the entire ordeal.  I’d later come to find out that this was only beginning.

To be continued…

Written By Brannon Jackson

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, Phase 2 Studio or the clients of Phase 2 Studio. Phase 2 Studio makes no representation concerning and does not guarantee the source, originality, accuracy, completeness or reliability of any statement, information, data, finding, interpretation, advice, opinion, or view presented.