end of a long story

Okay.
So a while back I told you about my husband's trip to the ER.
And I never followed up with that because each appointment required a new test, another appointment and more waiting.

Until yesterday.

Let me back up a tiny bit: he spent the summer seeing an Ear Nose and Throat doctor who has been fabulous. However, the insurance has tons of "hoops to jump through" as the doctor said, and that included two sleep studies to rule out sleep apnea. Sleep studies have to be scheduled, done, followed up on, and so it took weeks between both of them.

The official conclusion(s):
~As we knew from the CT Scan, a severe deviated septum that was blocking the nasal passage enough to drastically decrease the quality of sleep (no wonder the man has had chronic tiredness our whole marriage!).
~But also, a uvula that (thanks to excessive coughing with the many, many sinusitis episodes) was stretched out. As in, if I looked in his throat I could not see the end of it and what I could see was skinny-ish. If it touched the side of the throat--thanks to its elongated state--his throat spasmed shut. Fun times, I tell ya.

As we suspected, surgery would be the end result. And while they were inside his throat removing the uvula completely to prevent a recurrence of the over-stretching, they planned to take out his tonsils (just to keep from ever needing a similar surgery). Remember, the initial surgery was for a deviated septum. That makes three-surgeries-in-one.

And, after two months of waiting, he had this surgery yesterday.
Today, he is home. And in a lot, lot, lot of pain, the poor man.
He has his own basket of medications--we filled five prescriptions and got a whole list of recommended over the counter items as well. Not to mention Ensure, yogurt, broth, Gatorade and other similar foods.

I'm feeling so bad for him, but mostly I'm glad it's over. In a few weeks, he will breathe better than he ever has (via nose, that is), and the throat spasming is already a thing of the past. Thank you Lord!!

And, most of all--in spite of the pain and the long weekend with no school to decrease the quantity of children around while he is recovering--it's just good to have my husband home. One night in the hospital was enough to make me really miss him.

(ps...the roof story I promised back in June is still in the works and more annoying by the day...it will come--eventually, I hope; sigh.)