Thursday, January 27, 2011

CT Scan - nothing crafty in this post!

Yesterday's scan was as uneventful as I expected.  I'm an old hand at these though not usually on my head!

As you can tell from the time stamp on this post, I'm losing sleep over this whole issue - but that's nothing new!

I insisted on taking the films with me.  I don't see the ENT for another week so I need something to torture myself with until then!

My sister who had just come back from a 2 week spell in Hawaii (she has such a hard life ;-P *lol*) was at work on her day off so I couldn't get a free second opinion (or first opinion in this case) on my scans.

This meant I'd have to to the best I could on my own.  How hard can it be?  Afterall, I've always got Dr Google, right?  And the radiologist who reported my last CT couldn't tell my index finger from the middle one.  At least I can do that much!

The first thing that struck me was how hideous the human face looks on a sinus CT.  I look like a demented alien...an ugly one at that!  This is before I even started looking for deformities in my nose!

Well...let me tell you it doesn't take an expert to see my nose is a complete mess!  My findings are as follows:

*Septum is really badly deviated towards the left side - in several places!  The lowest place is so bad it explains why the ENT couldn't get his camera into my left nostril more than a few cm.  I thought he was just being slack when he pulled it out and started on the next side at that point.

*Inferior Turbinates (thanks Dr Google!) which are the lowest ones are huge.  There is air around them but very little.

*Middle Turbinates are a mixed bag.  The right is filled with air which really didn't look good until Dr Google informed me it's called a Concha Bullosa and really isn't that big a deal.  The left turb looks...kind of normal!  At least it did on initial inspection but later I noticed an air bubble higher up.  A little too close to brains and eyes for my liking.  :-/

*My left maxillary (cheek) sinus has a big grey blob in it.  It's in the same spot in all the different views so it's not just a smudge on the scan.  It's not air or bone so it means it's either tissue or snot or something like that.  Back to Dr Google I go to see what it could be since I couldn't sleep.  The first few entries that came up were somewhat unnerving but further reading it looks like it's a polyp.  Seriously gross!

Now my only concern is to make sure I get a nice anaesthetist who will be prepared to work with local anaesthetics/nerve blocks alone.  If he asks very nicely I might allow him to give me a tiny bit of happy juice provided it doesn't make me fall asleep.  There is no way anyone is going to be messing with my face unsupervised!!!!

From a pain perspective, what I've read seems positive.  Bone pain is the worst and I've survived 4 of those surgeries so this one shouldn't be too awful...except that there is bone involvement in the deviated septum.  Yuckity yuck!

I am really REALLY not comfortable with the idea of people doing things to my face...but if it means I'll stop being tired...and how much more crafting time will that give me?

And if I'm not too dopey I can hand sew in hospital.  That's the down side with wrist ops.  There's no crafting to be done during the boring hospital stay with one arm out of action!


The ENT is keen to do the surgery asap - hopefully within a week of seeing him next.  YIKES!

2 comments:

  1. ooh... I sure hope that you feel better!!!!!

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  2. well dr alex, i think you should hang out your shingle! :)
    i am glad they are keen to operate ASAP - i will be thinking of you as you wait to see the ENT - good luck
    xx

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