Breathe - Septum Surgery as a Life Changer.

Geesh, I hate writing like this, talking like this, I sound like a freaking old lady fixated on her medication, aches and pains.  But this is where I've been in my head for the past 10 days. Like Betty White says  for AARP,  I just need to "Get over it!"  And, it is important that I write this as people need to know that this surgery can be a game changer for people with sleep disturbances.

Breathing is pretty basic to life.  I've thought about the actual action of breathing a bunch over the last 10 days.  As soon as the surgery to correct my severely deviated septum was over I began to notice drastic differences in how I felt, how I breathed, and how I slept.  I was taking an opiate-based pain medication for the first 5 days after surgery and nasal passage swelling was pronounced during that time as well.  By the 6th day after surgery, with the stints still in place holding the new position of the septum while it healed, I noticed that was breathing better and I had not found myself with my mouth open and breathing through it in a day or so. 

This is also when my husband told me that I was not snoring at night.  This is absolutely amazing.  This is a really big thing to me.  Even before the apnea became apparent from the "snort, snort, choke, gasp" sequence of noises I would make several times at night and wake my husband,  I would snore like a sailor swears. 

My dad snored so loudly he shook the house.  I could hear him snore and gasp and snort in my bedroom upstairs and in the opposite corner of the big old farmhouse I grew up in.  He would take naps mid-afternoon if he could as he obviously had sleep apnea and never was able to really rest.  I appreciate how he felt, and I wonder if my deformation was inherited.  I've never broken my nose. 

I was happy that the surgery seemed to have worked better than I dared to hope it would.  Then it dawned on me how hard I had to fight to have this surgery and how long I lived half a life  because of something so simply, if not easily, remedied.  I think I am a little bit angry.

I asked my primary caregiver at least two years ago to have something done to check out my nose because of nosebleeds, sinus headaches, migraine and snoring.  She looked at my nasal passages and said things looked fine.  This year I asked at my check-up again.  It was with a different physician in the same university-based practice group.  He wanted me to use a steroid nasal spray and did not want to write a referral to an ENT specialist.  I insisted this time.   I'm glad I did.  I just hope it was in time to be able to undo some of the damage the deviated septum induced apnea caused.

I definitely will need to have another sleep study done to find out how my breathing really is.  In the last year my health has gotten worse and worse.  Two years ago I was diagnosed with non-alcoholic fatty liver.  I needed to do more physical exercise and get some weight off, but I had no energy. I had enough energy to work half-time and do a bit of work on my own business, and that was about it.  If I kept up with dishes and laundry it was noteworthy,  and  I slept as much as I could and it was never enough. The diabetes diagnosis really was not what I wanted to hear.  I wanted to get the nose fixed, Ramp up the exercise and getmy weight down before I became diabetic.   It is all a chain-linked spiral.  I have to stop the cycle. 

I can breathe again.  I've lost 10 lbs. in the last month. Now to get to and from the gym without having to take a nap when I get back.  It will be ok.  But how much of this could have been avoided if my request to check out my nose had been taken seriously.  A CT scan should have been done before any thing else was decided. I'm definitely unsure how to proceed with medical assessments.  Major trust has been lost.

Fear and Snoring in the Old Pueblo

Posting everyday when there is no stock pile of emergency blog entries built up is a bit stupid.  So call me dumb and dip me in rum and roll me in sugar.  I have so much I wanted to convey in the preceding three days of entries about virtual worlds, but I'm trying to get so much done before this Friday that I'm writing things that I should have been ready to post in the morning 10 to 15 hours later in the evening and my writing has suffered.  I will revisit the topic but only when I can do it justice. 

So today, tonight, I write from my gut rather than my brain and promise nothing.  I'm scared.  I have surgery to correct a deviated septum on Friday.  I can't breathe through my left nostril and my right one dries out and causes nose bleeds.  I end up breathing through my mouth.  I hate being a mouth breathing idiot.  I'm sincerely hoping that after surgery and the coming week of hellish recovery when my whole facial and dental structure will be terribly sore, I will only be able to have liquids, and I will only be able to breathe through my mouth.  I may have headaches.  That is the down side. 

The up side is that will just a little bit of luck, this will be the beginning of an upward spiral.  I've been on a downward one regarding health for several years now.  I should be able to breathe and have a much better sleep experience with greatly reduced apnea.  Once I'm healed fairly well - by the end of summer - I will be able to have a sleep study done to see where I'm at per stopping breathing during the night.   Then I will have my dentist work with the apnea specialist to make a mouth piece that holds my jaw forward and keeps my airways open during sleep.  Once this is done I should feel better in many ways because I will be getting deep sleep for the first time in many, many years.

Getting sleep will give me more energy.  Getting real sleep will also get hormone production related to sleep normalized.  Leptin and cortosol are the hormones involved with sleep and sleep apnea stress that also regulate hunger and create a desire for carbohydrates and fats.

Not sleeping well makes a person not only tired but also hungry and desirous of exactly the wrong foods.  If you a person is tired, and hungry, the motivation to exercise is usually diminished.  Without enough exercise, even more weight is gained and sleep quality worsens.  It is a vicious cycle.

In the past I loved working out.  Elliptical cross-trainers and weights were my friends. But in the last few years it has been harder and harder to work out. I got a bum trainer who did not understand a foot and ankle problem I had and had me on a program that injured me.  I lost my trust of the gym and when management wouldn't work with me I became angry and disillusioned. 

By this fall I plan to be hiking at least once a week and working out 3 or 4 times a week.  I expect the diabetes I have been diagnosed with to be totally manageable with diet adjustment by the end of the year, if not sooner.  I also fully expect to have lost at least 20 to30 lbs by the end of the year too.  The weight loss will also lessen the severity of the apnea and in turn I will have more energy.  By next year at this time, I expect to be pretty healthy and much less heavy.   This path all starts with Friday's surgery.   I will overcome my fear and regain my health.

Wish me luck and hold me to it.