1st week Post Op issues

If anyone attempts to allude to Endoscopic Transphenoidal surgery as being anything other than brain surgery or even "minimally invasive", don't buy it. Make no mistake, this is brain surgery and it is invasive. There is a reason that a neurosurgeon is performing the operation and he has a team of specialists assisting him. I guess in some respects I convinced myself that this was less than what it really was. The risks are many, the complications are great and it involves the neurological system which we really don't know much about. Consider the complexity of the pituitary gland and how easy an imbalance occurs. Our bodies and how it regulates itself is miraculous by design. A man with specialized training had to go in there, remove this thing which insisted on growing and somehow not disturb anything. How realistic is that??? As I mentioned previously, my symptoms prior to surgery were minimal. Here is the list if issues 1 week post op in order of observation:

• Headache/head pressure
• Extreme neck/muscle pain
• Pervasive ammonia or no sense of smell
• Distorted voice/sounds
• Stabbing pain in left ribcage

It took a day or two before I began discerning the different things I was feeling. The first day felt more like one big train wreck. I hadn't taken inventory, heck, I didn't even know I needed to take inventory of what worked and what didn't. As the days passed, I learned to distinguish between the head pressure, the nose pain, the neck pain, the soreness from the lumbar drain, the discomfort of the urethral catheter, and sleep deprivation.

First on the list was the headache and/or head pressure. This was to be expected and it supposedly will pass. My nose it tender at the location of the surgery but it rather blends in with the pain around my forehead. It can be described as an extreme headache but isn't localized to just the area of surgery. The pressure seems to encompass my entire head. The upside is that you have at your disposal a variety of drugs to control the "comfort".

Next is the neck pain. It reared it's ugly head on the very first day and is above everything else, the thing I feel the most. The only relief is to lay down and not move. Turning to one side or the other doesn't help. It's best to just lie still, face up. No amount of drugs contains it. If I lie still and try to rest, the intensity does pass. My doctor ordered an MRI of my spine to see if there something visibly wrong. In terms of pain or discomfort, I was well enough to go home as long as I remained laying down. Upon sitting up, however, the pain becomes overwhelming after about 5 mins.

Next is my sense of smell. My ENT came in 2 days after my surgery to remove the "packing" in my nose. Up to that point, I could not breathe through my nose. When he removed these gargantuan cylindrical gauze pads, it was like two large wind tunnels were opened up that led straight to the my throat. Never have I been able to breathe so freely through my nose before (or since). The removal of the pads themselves were uncomfortable but it went quickly and I think I had enough pain meds in me to take the sting out of any direct pain. Despite the ability to breathe freely, I did not notice any particular smell. In fact, it wasn't until well over a week later that I began to smell anything at all. And when I did begin, the smell was ammonia. I'm not sure what to make of it but I have other more pressing things to worry about.

Next is the distorted voices. I noticed this, mostly coming from the TV, during my stay in the hospital. It's subtle and I didn't think much of it at first. In fact, I rather dismissed it as possibly a defective speaker in the hospitals TV speaker. Upon returning home, it continued and I've asked others if they hear the same distortion but they do not. It sounds very similar to a distorted computer voice. I'm sure if I revisited computer movies made back in the 80's I could find the voice. There was one with Matthew Broderick where a computer wants to "play a game". That's the voice, it mostly comes from the TV but sometimes I'll hear it in my wife and kids voices.

Last on the list is a stabbing pain in my left ribcage which started the day after coming home from the hospital. I don't know what to make of this yet and I haven't had an opportunity to talk to my doctor about it. It it precisely located underneath my arm, about even with my nipple, and it is sensitive to direct pressure. The weight of my chest when I walk aggrivates it and I seem to able to avoid the pain by just supporting my left pectorial with my hand.

Well, that's it. During my recovery, the nurses made sure to check that I had my strength and sensation in my both my arms and legs (which I do). I can hear from both ears evenly(?), I can see directly and peripherally and my eyes dialate when light is introduced. I'm urinating the correct amount of volume so diabetes is no longer a topic of concern, my bowels are working (albeit stubbornly). I'm eating and sleeping.

Just taking this simple inventory, I'm again reminded that there are so many functions that our bodies perform naturally by miraculous design. I'm watching the Beijing Olympics and I'm observing these highly tuned, trained athletes. Talk about perfection, talk about ochestrating perfect harmony, talk about miraculous design. As I said before, our bodies are highly complex and as an engineer, I wish we were given the devine blueprints. That would eliminate a lot of the guesswork and I am convinced more than ever that our doctors are employing nothing more than educated guesswork.