Watch this space (and sorry that my Twitter plug-in apparently activated itself to spew stuff for the past week without my knowledge! )

In case you’ve missed my weekly tweet & update streams since my last blog post, here’s a post-sinus surgery update –

I’m Doing Great!

The first week after surgery was not especially comfortable, and pain medications were very much appreciated especially the first 48 hours post-op. Kidlet managed to knock me in the nose a couple times, including once in that painful first week, causing my world to narrow, my eyes to well up with tears, and me to sob like a baby for a couple minutes. All was well–no damage done (but she has a wicked right hook!)

Today was my 2 week post-op checkup. I see my ENT once a week for the first 6 full weeks after the date of my surgery (January 26). This means my next checkup is February 15, the day before I drive to Houston, TX, to attend my second NASA Tweetup. My first was, of course, the EPIC launch of STS-129, Space Shuttle Atlantis, on November 15, 2009. Expect a blog post specifically about the Houston, TX (Johnson Space Center / #JSCtweetup) tweetup after I get some sleep…

Today’s checkup went well and was very informative. I’m an information geek of the highest (worst?) degree, so I’d been wanting to ask my ENT if he’d taken any photos or videos of my surgery. Sadly, he didn’t and he would have been thrilled to, had I mentioned it prior to surgery. Oh well, lesson learned. I don’t plan on having a repeat sinus surgery, so chalk it up to a missed opportunity. That inquiry opened the door though, letting him know I wasn’t easily grossed out and was legitimately interested in some of the specifics about what he removed from my 100% blocked left sinus cavities. Suffice it to say that, while it wasn’t anything he didn’t expect to find, there was A LOT MORE of it than he sees when operating on a typical patient. He basically said his attending nurse at my surgery is one of the more “tough” gals and even she was a little grossed out by the amount of crud he removed. In short, he said, “You must have been MISERABLE prior to this.” YUP!

One of my doctor’s favorite phrases is, “Listen, the surgery won’t make you anything you aren’t already,” which basically means if you’re a really allergic person, it’s not going to “cure” your allergies. But if you’re a really allergic person and your SINUSES ARE BLOCKED, heck yeah, the surgery is going to open those up and try to give you functioning sinuses again (meaning: ones that can drain properly.)

The upshot with me is that I’m healing great, he is really pleased with where we are, but when he went in with a scope to check out my left maxillary sinus (cheek area; the place I had the worst collection of stuff) it’s filling slowly with “allergic mucin” again… that could lead to a sinus infection and we’d rinse and repeat. So he’s got me back on my sinus nebulizer which mists a specially mixed concoction of antibiotic and anti-inflammatory medication directly into my sinus cavities. Prior to surgery this was minimally effective since, yes, even misted medication couldn’t pass into my blocked sinuses. Now? It’s like night and day…I can breathe, my left nostril isn’t perpetually useless (as it has been for the past year) and I can resume my medication free-saline sinus irrigation (think neti pot for you purists, or pulsing irrigator for you techies like me.) I think we’re on the right track and I certainly feel better than I did prior to surgery so it’s already paying for itself.

I may have some stuff to add–as a consolation prize for not having any photos or videos, he gave me a copy of some of his notes from the surgery, so I may find some useful tidbits in there that I want to post. Or not. “Journey to the Center of Shannon’s Sinuses” doesn’t make for very compelling reading.

Check back on Tuesday sometime for my Johnson Space Center (home of MISSION CONTROL / HOUSTON) NASA Tweetup post.

T’Care!

Poor Sara is keenly aware of how ill I have been the past 16 months or so, and when I came home yesterday she thought I was home from surgery. She was excited and happy, until Justin and I reminded her I had only visited the doctor for a check-up and surgery was still well over a week away. Why would a 3 year old be excited and happy about her parent having surgery? She knows this sinus stuff and the concomitant headaches and lack of energy are going to be a thing of the past (knock on wood, again) very soon. She is looking forward, as am I, to getting back out to area parks and recreation areas and enjoying her energy levels again. Soon, kidlet, soon…

I have a sore throat today, even more sinus congestion than usual, and a doozy of a headache. I’m looking forward to the sinus pain/pressure and headaches backing off after the surgery–anything less than my 2009 Year of Chronic Sinus Infections & Debilitating Headaches will brand the surgery a success in my book. Just like my knee injury in late 2004/early 2005, just “being on the healing side of things” will be a blessed change from the status quo. At least with one’s sinuses, they’re not weight-bearing and they’re not muscles that atrophy, so there’s no 3+ months of physical therapy sessions in my future after the sinus surgery.

Not even sure I’ll be awake to catch the ball drop (in Times Square or the Tower of the Americas here in San Antonio, TX) with the way I feel.

So, almost five years after my last general anesthesia-based surgery (2005 knee surgery), here I am researching surgery again–this time, of my sinuses. Why? Because I’m in constant pain and so very tired of writing status updates like these:

“Killer headache due to constant sinus issues. Moving closer to scheduling that surgery ASAP. Painful to touch my cheek&forehead on L side.” 4 hours ago

“…It’s an old refrain, me & this pain. Sinuses physically 100% blocked on L side. Wx changes exacerbate pain.” 3 hours ago

“…Hoped to hold off a cpl months for finances & weather to straighten out but it’s getting worse & altering my activities, mood” 3 hours ago

Check ‘em out at The STS-129 Experience: Tweetup & Launch

I bought Sara’s Halloween costume LONG before the STS-129 NASA Tweetup was even announced, much less before I knew I was going to be one of the lucky attendees. I could have bought her an International Space Station or even a Project Constellation / Ares flight suit (the latter, of course, doesn’t even exist yet since it’s a long way from manned spaceflights), but the Space Shuttle is what I grew up with and I will always have a very special place in my heart for the Space Transportation System (STS) and the orbiter in particular.

Even with, or perhaps even because of, the Space Shuttle program slowly winding down (heavy sigh), I wanted her flight suit to be a memento/keepsake not just a Halloween costume–a reminder that when she was *imagine holding up the flight suit* “only this big” the Space Shuttle was still flying and building out the International Space Station.

Anyway, the moment my husband Justin (@bikegeek) took that photo of her I knew it was a keeper. It’s going to end up as a canvas wrap art print on our wall at home (it would already be there, if not for my expenditures to attend the tweetup!) and, naturally, when I discovered I was one of the lucky attendees it became the photo I featured on my contact/business cards–all of which I ended up handing out to people at the NASA Tweetup or elsewhere during my stay in Florida for the Tweetup.

And it ended up on my luggage tags and my desktop wallpaper, too.

So, naturally, it was perfect when I was approached during the (crazy-busy but awesome) launch day activities inside the STS-129 NASA Tweetup tent by @skytland who wanted to feature Justin’s photo of Sara in an article on OpenNASA.com, a collaborative blog written by NASA employees across the agency, and occasional invited guests. The article, “It’s Better in Person,” is terrific and it’s an honor to see our beautiful daughter’s photo featured in it!

A high resolution copy of the photo is available on Flickr via a Creative Commons-Attribution-ShareAlike license, which means anyone can use it for pretty much any purpose as long as they credit my husband Justin with the photo — Justin W. Moore / @bikegeek / Moore Photography & Design are all options, with the preference being his name plus one of the other items.

And thus, our already amazing and wonderful daughter is shared with the world in a most wonderful way–helping to advance the quest for space and the expansion of human knowledge. It doesn’t get any better than that. Wait, it does…seeing a Space Shuttle launch in person with 100+ amazing people? Indescribably perfect. Thank you so much, NASA!