When my doctor said I’d need to plan to take two weeks off after surgery to un-deviate my septum, I literally laughed in his face. Two weeks off. Who in the world has time to take two weeks off work?!

I’m sitting here now, day 5 after my surgery, hoping that the pain meds kick in. Cause gosh dang it; this hurts!

It is strange. They cut a hole in your nose, move things around, close it back up again, and send you home. Like – it is normal or something.

My brain is mush. I wake up with my nose and sinuses clogged, and never had I imagined I would flock to the nasal rinse like I do now. Squirt up my nose and bloody mucus pops out. Hurting and choking me along the way. But the relief! Encumbered by the strange pain at the top of my nose because water was never meant to go so high inside ones face.

I lay on the sofa, scrolling till my glasses start to hurt my nose and I have to take them off. But what else can I do. So I hold them up beside my face as I squint through the lenses to try to read the endless doom-scroll of Reddit; for what else can I do.

I log into work chats every so often, and try not to give comments; can I even trust myself to think and offer input when my brain refuses to work?

The doctors notes say to avoid blowing my nose too hard. What even does that mean? I don’t blow – it hurts. I do, it hurts. There is no winning.

My thoughts are meandering. I am writing this to try to take my mind off the hurt. The hurt that infuses my forehead, the top of the nose between my eyes. My cheeks that are scorched from the bandages they used to secure the gauze after surgery.

I keep hoping that at some point the bloody ick will stop when I clear my nose. That the headache will go away. That I won’t need my pain meds anymore.

But that day is not today. So I will keep rambling.