Hollyisms

Personal ramblings and thoughts

I have answers…

Back in April I shared a post titled “A challenging start to the year” and in this post I talked about how I had been unwell for the whole year so far.

Well, it’s now August 1st and I’m still unwell.

However, I now know what’s wrong with me.

At the time of writing that post in April I’d just had a chest x-ray, a blood test and I was trying out a new nasal spray.

After my blood tests and chest x-ray came back clear and the new nasal spray stopped being effective, I got rereferred to a ear, nose and throat (ENT) doctor. The ENT doctor sent me for yet more blood tests (seriously, is there anything left inside of me?!) and a CT scan.

Yesterday I had another appointment with the ENT doctor to review the results of my scan and it showed that all my sinuses are super blocked. That means, as we originally suspected, I have sinusitis.

It also showed that I have a deviated septum. I don’t think I’ve had this my whole life so I’m not 100% sure when this happened, but I had notice that my septum was on the wonk.

I’ve been given antibiotics and nasal drops with steroids in to try for the next month or so but it looks like surgery is the only option.

I’m feeling a mixture of emotions. I’m so relieved that I finally have a diagnosis (or two) because 7 months of being unwell without knowing why has been really tough. I was also starting to worry that people might be thinking that I was making it up or overexaggerating about how bad I felt.

But at the same time the prospect of surgery terrifies me. This will be my 9th time under general anaesthetic and it never gets easier. My earliest memory is being put to sleep as a child and those memories never go away. I won’t go into the details, but when you’ve been the victim of medical negligence it’s very hard to trust anyone, particularly when you’re in such a vulnerable position. I hate feeling like I’m not in control and I hate the feeling of uncertainty.

Of course, I plan on going ahead with the surgery regardless of these feelings. I few days or weeks of discomfort, both physically and mentally, from having the surgery will be worth it if it relieves the sinusitis symptoms I’ve been experiencing. I’m older and wiser; I know what I need to get me through the surgery and I have a great support system in place.

It’s probably going to be a while before I have my surgery as wait times here in the UK are pretty long, but that’s ok because I’ve got my trip to Disneyland Paris (the second attempt!) coming up in September and we’re still in the process of having our kitchen renovated (something I’ll talk more about in a separate post) and I’d rather wait until those two things are done and out of the way.

As I say, it’s just nice to finally have some answers.

Onwards and upwards.

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