Valentine's Week: Nose-talgia Tuesday

Tuesday is Valentine's Day. We celebrate by returning to the clinic to meet with the ENT surgeon who excavated my sinuses a couple of times back in November. I don't know what we're going to do today — could be just a chat, could be a scoping. I'm hoping for a chat.

It's a 12:15 appointment, but the doctor is running well behind schedule. I fill out a questionnaire, including a review of my medications. I get in some walking while waiting. A nurse then calls me into a room, takes my vitals, and reviews my medications on the computer.

Then a doctor comes in. I remember him from my hospital time. He asks a bunch of questions about my sinuses. He also reviews my medications. (I also reviewed my medications during my clinic visit on Monday. They're very thorough about the meds!) We are then shepherded to another room, and the doctor says, "You can see from the tower what you're in for." This means I'm getting scoped. He speaks softly, in a tone that I think he intends to be comforting. It doesn't work.

He numbs my sinuses by spraying something into each nostril. It drips down the back of my throat, tastes terrible, and numbs my throat to the point that it feels like I can't swallow. "This will wear off in half an hour," he tells me. He leaves.

My wife and I continue waiting, wondering if the surgeon is going to show up before the numbing effect is gone. About 20 minutes after the spraying, she enters, sprays some decongestant up each nostril, and gets right to it. Jan was prepared to leave, but the surgeon assures us nothing upsetting is going to happen. I know that should relax me, and in fact it goes quickly and doesn't hurt at all, but I notice that I am clenching very tightly some gauze pads they gave me to wipe my nose after the spraying.

The scope is a stiff, narrow metal tube with a light and a camera at the tip. The camera image feeds into a monitor on the tower next to my chair, and the surgeon is taking pictures and conducting a guided tour of my sinuses for the nurse, and maybe for Jan, but Jan has her head turned and her eyes closed, as do I. "This is where we took out [some bone]. Look how nice and open it is here. And over here ... Hmmm..."

Hmmm? What does that mean?

At the end of the tour, some pictures spill out of the tower and land on the floor, a sequence of circular images, mostly pinkish and fleshy, the "After" photos for the makeover of what used be Joe's Fungal Chambers of Horror.

Meanwhile, the surgeon sits in a chair and fills out a form with her findings. I'm still wondering what Hmmm meant when she looks up and says, "I'm very happy." In that case, so am I! Everything looks good to her. Yay! Pointing to some of the current photos, she tells me that some of my corresponding "Before" photos are posted for other surgeons to see, for educational purposes. Um... yay?

"That was a scary time," she says.

(Yes. When your oncologist tells you you're entering "think about how you want to spend what might be your last few weeks" territory, that is a scary time.)

The surgeon continued... Some ENT surgeons would not have operated on me, due to my lack of an immune system and platelets at the time. Luckily, she was the surgeon on call the night it was determined that I had the fungal infection in my sinuses. And, luckily, her résumé included several years working at a hospital with a lot of transplant patients, so she was used to, as she put it, just "hanging some bags" (of platelets, on the IV pole) and going in. In cases like mine, waiting until the conditions are right for surgery saves a lot of work, because the patient dies.

But they didn't wait back in November, and I get to celebrate Valentine's Day with my Valentine.