[Health] Septoplasty Blog

[Seiko]

Part 6

This will be brief.
The ME/Fibro crash has arrived.

The dissolving dressings/packing inside my nose is breaking up. One side is nearly all out. Not dissolved completely but turned from a dressing into a blue/green gel.

A little zazen today but the headache is too much.

I am looking forward to Saturday when I can start flushing with a neti-pot. It feels like that could bring about a turning point.

Gasshō, Seiko, stlah

[Kokuu]

Take it easy, Seiko. Your practice can be resting for as long as it needs to be.

Nice if you can do Zazen, but fine if not.

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

[Shonin Risa Bear]

gassho
shonin sat/a tiny bit of lah

[Jundo]

A little zazen today but the headache is too much.

Let the headache be the throbbing headache, the moaning be the moaning, the fibro crash be the fibro crash, the dissolving be the dissolving ... and it is excellent Septoplasty Zazen.

Gassho, J
stlah

[Seiko]

Part 7

Still a headache and my eye sockets hurt, still a blocked nose, and bleeding/dripping, still a little dozy, still an ME/Fibro flare-up . But my lovely wife has brought me out to eat a light lunch by the side of a lake, and the sun is shining on the water.

IMG_20250712_172806.jpg

Gasshō, Seiko, stlah

[Hokai]

I was an amateur boxer at University.
Suffered with a deviated septum

with you in the spirit of sore snouts

Gassho
Hōkai
satlah

[Seiko]

Part 8

I am pushing myself to type this today. The headache and ME/Fibro flare continues as well as all the other symptoms. I think the physical trauma of the operation, the anaesthetic and the energy required for recovery is the reason for my exhaustion.

The nasal wash is intense. Up to five times a day. Each time it leaves me with some pain in nose and sinuses, so much that it is hard to speak, hard to think about anything else. But each time more debris flushes out, pieces of dissolving dressing, general gunk that needs to be out. I will spare you photographs. It's both unpleasant (haha - that's me being British - it's TORTURE) and gratifying. The more discomfort from flushing the nasal passages, the clearer the "tunnels" become, so I keep going.

I have that love-hate relationship with the squeezy bottle.

Onwards.

Gasshō, Seiko
(not feeling able to sit conventionally today, but doing a lot of nasal-flush meditation).

IMG_20250713_115010.jpg

[Kokuu]

That doesn't sound at all pleasant, Seiko, but I am happy that it is doing its job.

Gassho
Kokuu

[Vic]

Thinking of you today, Seiko, and wishing you a swift recovery. Glad the squeezy bottle is is working as intended.

Gassho,
Vic
Sat/LAH Today

[Seiko]

Part 9

I'll recover. I decided to post this series of notes because I haven't posted before when really sick - I usually just go silent. It's hard to draw up the energy to type this during a flare-up of chronic illness. But I know there are folks here who are far more ill than me and perhaps seeing my comments may encourage them (YOU) to post more too. There's always going to be others here who are also having a rough time. Perhaps sharing a little of that may help someone else see they are not going through it alone.

It's still hard to function due to the ME/Fibro flare. As expected the sinus rinse continues to produce bloody mucus. That'll probably keep happening until around the two week mark. Nasal wash 5x a day is keeping me busy. It's only surgery+6 day today.

My wife is away at a conference - 4 days - which puts me in charge of cat medicines again for the duration. So I have to summon the energy for that. With the extra bladder-health supplements and her antibiotics, that's 4 pills in the morning plus two liquid meds, then two pills mid afternoon and three pills at 10pm. It'll be easier when the course of antibiotics are done and the supplements are down to one per day.

Everything is impermanent right? I'd like this headache to understand that. Reclining zazen today with the 6-day-old headache as company. It is what it is.

Sleeping seems like something other people do.

My foot is almost better.

Gasshō, Seiko, stlah

[Seiko]

Part 10.

Like a few people in our lovely Sangha, I have persistent chronic illness - for me it's Fibromyalgia and Encephalomyelitis - it ebbs and flows like a tidal river. This background health concern seems to mean that every other little thing hits me so much harder than it would before I had any chronic illness.

Sadly, I've had a headache ever since my operation. Quite a bad one. Today is surgery+7 day. I'm one of those people who rarely takes pills or potions, but the last few weeks has broken that rule. Today I have been prescribed codeine-phosphate. Apparently they often give this for persistent pain after all types of surgery. As it's a mild opiate I'm looking forward to the side-effect of drowsiness. I hope it kicks in around 10.30 tonight.

My activities have been limited since 30th May when I had the surgery on my foot, the operation on my nose came along before the foot was better. Although my movements have been curtailed, my visits to University stopped for now, and I have to avoid in-person social interaction (due to the risk of catching someone's germs before the stitches inside my nose heal), I have come to know myself a little better during this time and to enjoy the bad and good in every passing moment. As we Brits would say, always playing everything down, "It's alright".

If you are having health issues or going through a tough time for any reason, please reach out in the forum or privately to me or any priest here, if you need a chat with someone. No judgement.

Gasshō Seiko stlah

[Shinshi]

Thank you for sharing your health journey Seiko. I hope you feel better soon. I'll sit Metta for you tonight.

Gassho,

Shinshi,

Sat-LaH

[Seiko]

Part 11.

Reality, I think, in part is getting to know myself. Not the image I have of myself, not how I would choose to project myself, but how it really is.

Once again I receive the lesson, the understanding, that we are a bundle of chemicals. My body doesn't deal well with certain medicines, it overreacts. I recall the medics waking me up after the surgery, then waking me up again sometime later, sounding more urgent. I remember my mother having her appendectomy and the doctors saying they would try to avoid another general anaesthetic for her in the future, because it was so hard to wake her up.

The prescribed combination of Codeine-phosphate on top of ibuprofen and paracetamol has made me spaced-out. It has happened before when I was first diagnosed with M.E. fourteen years ago, with different meds. I just got a little reminder. It's more than spaced-out. It's more like barely-conscious, fuzzy. Too fuzzy to make decisions, use kitchen appliances. For the last two days I slept most of the day, and slept through the night too.

I decided not to take any pain meds today. No extra chemicals to cloud my thinking. We'll see how that goes. I haven't felt like myself. I want to be more awake, more aware.

Gasshō Seiko stlah