Tuesday, February 15, 2005

today's visit to the doc

Today I went to see my ENT and got a head CT scan to see how my sinuses look. Well, there is absolutely nothing wrong with my sinuses, they were picture perfect today. As a result, the doc doesn't want to do any surgery right now, not even take out my tonsils.

Now, while I thoroughly approve of him not wanting to do any unnecessary surgery, both Dr. F and myself think I will greatly benefit from having my tonsils removed. It's not that Dr. T has ruled out a tonsilectomy, he doesn't want to do it now, he wants me to try something for a month or two.

What, you ask? Sinus rinsing. Whee. If you want, you can read all about it here. Basically, one squirts 4 oz of saline solution up each nostril, which washes all the crud out. It's not nearly as neat and clean as the website makes it out to be. I used it for the first time tonight, and the solution went up, like it was supposed to. Somehow I missed the part where it comes draining out the other nostril. Eww. It's definitely something one wants privacy for.

So I'm supposed to do this every day for about 2 months, see if it helps with the infections by keeping everything flushed out. In all honesty, I think I'll be seeing Dr. T in about 2 months to re-evaluate this plan. We shall see.

For those of you who keep track of my post times, and know I really should be in bed right now - Hey, I'm on duty on the rescue truck tonight, so I can't exactly take my meds for insomnia, and expect to hear the pager go off, or at least find my way to the truck in a timely fashion. Also, I'm supposed to sit upright for at least half an hour after rinsing, to keep from swallowing any drainage. So, by the time I'm done writing this, I'll be ready to at least lie down, and pretend to sleep. Which is about now, I think.

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