I had a doctor’s appointment this morning and I headed out to the office from home a bit early with the idea that I might get in a little early and get the splints removed from my nose.
Except that the doctor has two office – one on Massillon road and the other up in Cuyahoga Falls. And I was at the wrong one. They called ahead to the other location to let them know I was on the way.
I got on the road right away and headed out. I ended up being about 8 minutes late – and then the receptionist ignored me for 2 minutes before getting me signed in. It was another 5 minutes before the nurse took me back. The doctor was in a few minutes later and got right to work. The splints were held in place by a couple of small stitches and he snipped those – then braced me for the “removal”. His favorite part.
This is the best / least gross picture I was able to find on the web of what he pulled out of each side of my nose. The Splints. (sounds like the name of a band)
The only problem with this picture is scale – the splints from my nose were about 2.5 – 3 inches long and nearly as wide as a quarter. The whiter section in the picture was a tube and the whole thing was made of hard plastic.
It wasn’t painful coming out – but it was… intense. Gross and covered in mucus, the splints seemed far too large to have fit in my nose – I suspect these were actually lodged in my brain.
The doctor jokingly asked if I wanted to keep them – and I was slightly tempted to. But I declined and he said that they make a note in the file of anyone that does keep them – labeling them a little crazy. He did a little more clean up in there and then the nurse left and I quizzed the doctor about using the saline solution, when I could swim again, and horrible taste in my mouth (which should pass in a couple days).
So, overall, not that big of a deal. It took me a couple hours to train myself to breath through my nose again, but it does feel a lot better.
When I was out on campus later today…. I could smell the flowers.
