Goodbye Mr. Sniffles

For about three years my boyfriend, Jason, has had nasal congestion. It is like he has had a cold that just never goes away. Some days were better then others but on the bad days there was no going near him because he was so annoyed from sneezing and blowing his nose constantly. He said he felt like he was suffocating if I got too close to him. Those days were fun. So of course the loving girlfriend that I am decided to come up with some nick names like Mr. Sniffles and JSneezy (like his gamer-tag JSweezy).

About a month ago one of his friends said that he use to have the same problem and he had surgery to fix it. After we heard that we knew Jason was going to need the same thing. So we took a couple months to plan out which insurance would be best for him to get this surgery. And of course, when he went to the doctor they said he had a deviated septum and his "mucus producers" (Jason's awesome medical lingo) were over producing. So basically the inside of his nose was crooked which was blocking off part of his airway which mucus was clogging his nose. The plan was to straighten out his septum and remove the part that was overproducing mucus.

Now I get to have some fun nursing input on his naiveness, which is always fun. He had to get some pretests done, where they found out he was late on his tetanus shot. So the nurse came in and gave him the shot and after she left, he pretended like he has in excruciating pain. And said that the needle looked like it was too big to go into his arm. It wasn't that big. Then he had to get some blood tests done. They took out about 2 oz of blood into a small tube. First he asked if thats how much blood people give when they give blood... Is that a serious question? Second he said that he felt dizzy because he lost so much blood. Then when we got home he joked about how he cant do anything because he just lost too much blood so he had to relax.

Finally on Friday, he went in for surgery. I had to work but I just happen to work in the same facility he had surgery. I took a 15 minute break when he got there and another 15 minute break when he got out. Here is what he looked like before he went in.



Then he had to get pushed out by staff.



And then when we got home.

 The two strings that are taped to his nose are attached to some gauze that are stuck up his nose to soak up the blood from surgery and help it heal straight. Those gauzes are blocking his airway, so he is not able to breath out of his nose at all which you can only imagine is terrible when you are trying to sleep. Then there is a white gauze that is catching the excess drainage and the blue thing helps hold it in place. Since surgery, he was been laying around and sleeping when he can finally get comfortable.