To be concise, to boil it down to the essence, what the otolaryngologist told me was “you came to us with a quality of life issue, and we believe we have identified a root cause of the problem which is not of your own doing and no fault of your own in any way. We can fix this in a straightforward fashion. It will be painful and inconvenient, but if you do exactly as we say and follow directions, by this date certain you will have significant relief of the problem.”
Can you conceive of what a dream come true this is?
None of the usual dissembling. None of the “you must adhere to this diet/adopt this meditative practice/follow this exercise regime/take these medications regularly and at some point in the indeterminate future you may see some change in some aspect of your life” which invariably ends with your blood pressure higher, your weight creeping up, your heart rate no better, your cholesterol unchanged and your depression symptoms shifting away from sad-and-mopey in favor of angry-and-drinky. This was simple. Part of the inside of your nose is misshapen and obstructing your breathing? We’re going to straighten that sonofabitch, and in two weeks – if you keep using the saline rinse every chance you get, sneeze through your mouth and sleep sitting up in a chair, and we know you’ve never been able to do that sober and not on a plane – you’ll be breathing like you never breathed before.
And damn my ass and pull the plow myself, I can breathe.
There’s still some swelling to go down, internally, which will open things up further. There are some sinusitis-like rebound effects from the Afrin which I was using to help control the bleeding, most of which subsided once I gave it up like I was told. There’s still some snoring because I haven’t yet started using the breathing apparatus again, which should perform much differently. And there’s one sore spot where the biggest suture was, which I just have to wait on healing. But when she vacuumed out the sinus cavities and sent me on my way, I was breathing like I literally have not breathed in thirty years, and it was transformative.
Would that everything worked that way.