My Sleep Apnea Surgery Experience – Recovery Journal

Updated…

This is my online journal as I stay at home to recover from my operation from treating my sleep apnea. I will be updating it on and off till the end of my recovery journey.

Day 3

I went to sleep still feeling groggy. And after the nasal wash, the mucus and blood build up was “swishing” in my nasal cavity. It wasn’t watery, but it definitely wasn’t solid. The consistency was perhaps lava-like. 

I was trying to ensure that my right nostril wasn’t blocked, so that I could still breathe through it. As such, I had to sleep on my left to make the lava inside settle on the left. Before that happened, streaks of mucus still flowed down the back of my throat, inducing me to go suck on it and swallow (ouch!) it. But since the consistency was thick, I doubt I succeeded in sucking that part down my throat, so the process repeated itself, until I fell asleep…

Amazingly, I woke up the next day with a clearer mind. There was no longer this beckoning at the back of my head to close my eyes and do nothing. 

Breakfast today was Nestum instant cereal. I was too lazy to make something elaborate, but I wasn’t adventurous enough to eat something too solid. While waiting for it to cool down, I did a throat spray to prep my wound for the meal. Unfortunately, though, the Difflam throat spray wasn’t of much use. It was still a session of overcoming the pain of swallowing while eating.

Next, I did my morning nasal wash. After my virgin attempt last night, I was more confident in pumping the water up my nose. I was hoping that with more confidence, I could clear more stuff out. Again, I was too hopeful. The build up just softened and drooled out of my nostrils like last night. I also ended up blocking my right nostril. In the end, I had to soft blow my nose to clear my right nostril for breathing~

My online shopping also started coming in today. My new shoes came, followed by some materials I needed for the home organisation projects I intended to start during my home stay. Then my most desired item – OSIM uCozy V – arrived. I was really beginning to feel the aches kicking in. I had to prop myself up while lying down, which strained my neck for the past few days. Luckily, I anticipated this and placed the order early.

The get well hamper from my company also came at night. I had requested for tonics, since the other options – fruits – were too much of a hassle to process. The fish and chicken essence was what I needed to recover! The bird’s nest would also come in handy for patching up the tears on my face from the medical tapes.

Day 4

I woke up today feeling much better. Last night, feeling not quite satisfied with my nasal wash, I did another round. It really cleared up my nasal cavity and allowed me to breathe peacefully through my nose the entire night.

I also got to try my OSUM uCozy V, which I just couldn’t get enough of it! I used it on my neck and the entire back. I found the massage on my neck also helped clear my head a little. Not sure if it was psychological.

I’m still on a soft diet with my instant cereals for breakfast and instant porridge for lunch. I personally liked the porridge from 顿顿好 Welldone. Unlike the usual instant porridge from Mama or Myojo, the porridge didn’t clump up even when I didn’t stir them. Since the cup came with a cap, I could throw all remaining rubbish inside, close the cup again, and be relieved of the smell after the meals. For today, I also added some chicken to try introduce more variety to my diet.

After lunch, it was another nasal wash since my nose started clogging up again. There was less blood clot, and I assumed more of the congestion was from the mucus. Really hoping my nose would start to recover and relieve me of the nasal wash duties!

Day 5

I woke up slightly later, and ordered food delivery for brunch. Might as well, since I had intended since yesterday to try outside food today. I had tried the porridge from One Punggol’s Botak Porridge, and was confident it would be a satisfactory meal. I ordered the Porridge with Pork Slices and Century Egg. I also added a fishball noodle soup to meet the minimum order requirement.

The meal turned out to be disastrous. The meat and fishballs were too rough for me to swallow! Only the porridge itself, the century egg, and the soup was good enough.

SInce yesterday, I sensed a gout flare coming in my foot. With my water intake down to ⅔ of my usual 3L a day, I sort of expected this to happen. As such, I had been taking my gout medication since the night before. I also started making tea part of my daily fluid ration. However, the pain still persisted. 

My nasal congestion was nowhere better, neither did it get worse. I spent the entire day with heavy breathing through the narrowed nostrils. Even with 3 nasal washes today, my nose was still in a half-congested state. It was also causing me to start breathing through my mouth while sleeping. (something I could attest with my tongue stinging halfway through the night).

Day 6

I woke up late to my usual instant cereal for breakfast. As I had a full day of class, I also ordered in lunch, which was porridge from Rivervale Plaza – Ten Points Porridge. This restaurant has been around for ages, and has a great reputation for its porridge.

Learning from my lesson from yesterday, I ordered the Minced Meat Porridge instead. Surely the minced meat would be small and soft enough? Unfortunately, my meat still came with meatballs and meat slices, hardly any minced meat. Therefore, there was another grinding session to swallow the rough meat in the otherwise thick and smooth (and delicious!) porridge.

Remember the get well hamper from my company? It had a packet of soup ingredients, and that became dinner – with a bottle of chicken essence to zhng the nutrition value. The meal was completed with steamed egg with luncheon meat. Yes, luncheon meat turned out to be soft and smooth enough 🙂 

Despite my morning nasal wash, my nose remained congested. In fact, I felt like something was building up within my head. Whenever I tilted my head downwards, my nose could feel a pressure from within. Finally, I couldn’t take the congestion and did a nose wash again before night time.

After the first wash, I still felt congested. Although I could see that the water that flowed out was not colourless, they were still too clear. I reckoned that the water was too cold to really soften whatever was inside me. So I mixed up a 2nd bottle of nasal wash, but this time mixed in half of it with room temperature water.

Indeed, the method worked. After the first 2 douses, the goo started to drool out of my nose again. Slowly, but surely. The clot in there seemed to have loosened, and caused more congestion. However, as it was more fluid, I could blow them out with hard breathing. Yup, not the usual blow my nose blow nose. I was warned not to do that, in case I rupture my wound. Instead, it was long, heavy breathing while covering one nostril.

And then my left side seemed to loosen. I began to also blow through my left nose. I wasn’t too hopeful, though, as it had been super congested with blood clots for the past week. After some 5 minutes of coaxing, I managed to extract a huge blob of softened blood clot (half-blow, half-pulling). The mass was like my finger! 

Immediately after it exited, my left nostril could breathe like normal. In fact, it seemed to have relieved the pressure on my right, and more mucus started to flow through it. I spent about half an hour for my latest nasal wash, and at the end of it, the headache and congestion was gone and I breathed like normal again! That blood clot was really the root of my headache for the past few days!

Day 7

I slept pretty well after my very successful nasal wash the night prior. Why not? I was practically breathing like normal. I half expected mucus to build up overnight, but that didn’t happen. In fact, I remain congestion free for the entire day. So I didn’t do any nasal wash for the day.

I started to be more adventurous and had Fried Hokkien Mee for dinner. While browsing FoodPanda a few days back, the idea of Fried Hokkien Mee piqued my interest. It was wet and slippery. Back then, I hadn’t realised that meat balls and pork slices, though soft, were still too rough for me to swallow. The experiment was successful!

I also had white Fried Carrot Cake. This is a mixed review. The carrot cake itself was soft and smooth, but the egg was too dry and rough. Within the first few mouthfuls, my throat started to hurt. However, nothing could not be soothed by a Yubari sundae from McDonald’s. I greedily opted for the hot fudge sundae one, but quickly realised that the chocolate was too “heaty”. It actually stung my throat! So I had to leave it out instead.

The recovery journal is part of a series I use to document my journey, starting from my decision to take on the surgery, going through the surgery itself and preparing for the post-surgery care.