Marc's Public Blog - OSA, Obstructive Sleep Apnea and MMA Surgery

After sleep studies and doctor/specialist appointments, it was finally time for Surgery at Stanford by a specialist in the area.



Before the surgery on Wednesday, I wasn't allowed to eat anything that day, or drink much at all, with surgery that eventually happened around 17:00 made for a long day. It took about 60mn and another 30mn for me to wake up. In that time, the surgeon removed my tonsils (amydales) to help with my restricted airway at night, straightened the inside of my nose and removed some extra tissue that wasn't needed so that could breathe better through it.

Recovery wasn't a piece of cake though. Once the anesthesia had worn out, I realized that my throat wasn't happy at all, to the point that I just wouldn't want to swallow my own saliva, so I started to spit it out. The pain meds I was given just didn't seem to do much good and I ended up sleeping a few hours with my mouth opened and tilted over a cup so that the saliva could drip out of my mouth. That way, I was able to sleep a few hours.
The next morning, I was ok as long as I didn't try to swallow anything, but that wasn't a long term working plan (I was on an IV so that I wouldn't dehydrate since drinking just a slip was extremely painful). They gave me more regular pain meds (oxycodone), and they just did not help.

At that point, we went for the next level up: a 75mg shot of demorol. Boy, did that feel like horse tranquilizer: I couldn't stay awake and alert more than 20-30m at a time, and would do weird half awake dreams and stuff, but I have to give it credit that a few hours later, I was able to start swallowing some amounts of liquid. It was still painful, but at least it was doable (and that was the condition of my release and being take off IV: the ability to self-hydrate).

After that, I got home on Thursday and basically took it easy while trying to drink a bit when I could. By Friday, I could drink mostly what I needed and eat a few bits 30mn after taking pain meds (giving them the time to kick in).
By Sunday, I was mostly off pain meds and while my throat is still sore right now, and I can't just eat anything easily, or even open my mouth wide and chew properly, my current state is quite manageable. I still take one or two naps per day though, and use the rest of the time to work on things around the house that I've been neglecting for too long.
And the upside is that between my recent backpacking trip and the forced diet, I temporarily lost almost 10lbs. Yeah!