The journey begins

As you may know, I was told a little over 3 years ago, that I need double jaw realignment surgery. I was shocked as are others who say "you look fine" and "I don't see anything wrong with your jaws/mouth/face". So as a way to chronicle my experience, answer everyone's questions and provide myself with a therapeutic exercise, I've started a blog. Here is entry #1. Enjoy, there's more to follow.

As early as a young teen, I frequently recall feeling like I could not breathe. After speaking with my pediatrician, I found myself, at age 14, sitting in the ENT's chair. To this day, my mom and I still half joke about the nightmare that was this appointment. I recall the visit far too vividly. Now, being a trauma mental health therapist, I know that this experience could be classified as traumatic with the flashback images I can still see in my mind's eye.

I remember sitting in the examination chair and him telling me how his wife loves having her sinuses irrigated, which is what he was about to do to me. I think he meant to ease my fears, but I did not know what I was in for.

He took a surgical needle with no eye, aka hole, wrapped it in some gauze and dipped it in a numbing solution. He then took the needle and put it up my nostril as far back as he could and poked my inner sinuses with it. I say poke, but I honestly felt more like a stab! What the ****! He switched out the gauze and did it again. Pokes/stabs #1 and 2.

He then took a large syringe in his hand, which I recall as being much thicker than an adult thumb, the syringe, not his hand. The syringe was hooked up to a machine, connected by a long, rubber    tube - the kind where you can't quite make out the color, burnt orange perhaps? He proceeded to poke/stab the inside on that same nostril. Stab #3 for those who are counting. I yelped, winced and recoiled. “Oh, you aren’t numb yet”, he stated as if he were surprised by my reaction. Back to the eyeless needle we went for more numbing solution and stab #4.

Next, he grabs the syringe again and here is stab #5. By this time, I’m death gripping the arms of the chair or my mom’s hand by now, but not for long. Apparently, I have a job to do, a job other than sit complacently while being practically tortured. For my job, I got to hold the putrid yellow, kidney shaped pee pan that hospitals love to have sitting on your meal tray. For a brief moment, I didn’t understand why I had a syringe sticking out of my right nostril, nor why I held a pee pan under my nose. But boy did I find out!

A quick flick to the machine and some water/saline solution is flowing from the machine, twisting through the rubber tube. It snakes its way into the thick syringe, out the needle, which is still lodged in my nostril, up into my sinuses and out the other nostril into the pee pan. Ahhh! Now the pee pan makes sense. I have no idea how long this occurred for. I do, however, recall the odd and semi disturbing feeling of water gushing through, what felt like, my brain, but I’m sure doctors would disagree and say it was “just your sinus cavities”. Regardless, not a feeling I was expecting.

Once the machine was out of the water/saline solution. He turned it off and then, wait for it, grabbed a large pair of forceps. He reached them into the nostril that did not have the syringe in it and proceeded to pull out, and I’m confident that this isn’t the official medical term, a wad of snot and mucus that largely resembled a massive 6” slug.

I don’t recall the rest of the appointment, but I do recall my mother, who was equally shook and disturbed, helping me to walk down the hallway by my forearm and elbow. I told her that I felt light-headed and queasy so she helped me to sit on a bench by the elevator as were knees were so wobbly. That doctor and his wife are sadistic. This was a first and last for me and kept me from seeking doctor's advice for several more years.