Storagetek’s Broomfield, CO, headquarters was abundantly decorated with artwork. After Sun acquired the company, everyone moved to Sun’s BRM campus, and eventually the Storagetek building was closed down. The artwork appeared overnight in the BRM offices. I don’t know who decided where to put it all, but our floor (engineering) got lots of photographs of objects in space.
Naturally, someone couldn’t resist a caption on this one.
All in all… #
@alanc Thanks; a nice evening of good French wine would help, and I can probably arrange that even here in SF, and very soon… #
@pfuetz Thanks! #
@davest @alanc Love to! Always like to learn wines w local experts. Had a long hymn to Oregon pinots at GHC last year from a fellow attendee #
RT @SunBlogs: Optimizing Legacy and Modern Application Environments with Oracle Solaris Containers at OOW2010 #
At OOW? Join Brendan Gregg and friends Monday at 4 for an Unconference session on the Sun Storage 7000 appliance #
@missbhavens the one you wanted? #
Hope today’s torture will have set me up to go to a really cool party tomorrow night, as well as to do my many tasks at #oow starting Sunday #
@koberoi wow, whose is that? I have a pic of zfsguy, but I know who that is. #sun #
@openstorage Yes, I will be filming it. 😉 #
Amusingly, one of the colleagues I hope to see during #oow week, I’ve known since age 14 at boarding school. #
@myinnervoice Really? That’s what happens when I need distraction. I hope at least some of them were enjoyable! #
@gbrunett In the Solaris demo booth Mon-Tues am, Solaris unconference sessions otherwise – I think I’m filming you, no? Looking forward! #
If you’re coming to #oow, stop by the Solaris demo booth and let me scan your badge. I think I get points or something. 😉 #
@ItalianoWJodina L’avevo dimenticato; spiega molto di quello che e’ successo oggi. #
@StopBeck O’Donnell actually has contemplated enjoying the naked body of a putative future husband? Gasp! That’s lust! #
@myinnervoice Shh! They’re watching. 😉 #
@LusciousPear Not up to it tonight, but definitely want to meet you. Coming to #oow? #
@thinguy Actually, correct vodka sauce actually does involve vodka, and is YUMMY. Will have to make that, haven’t in ages… #
@KatieS I thought tweeting while intoxicated was the whole point of twitter. 😉 #phoenix #
@thinguy The actual alcohol probably cooks off anyway, but maybe some kids would find the idea of eating vodka sauce cool. #
The Mother of All Sinus Infections Countries Beginning with IÂ #
@NomdeB I think you’ve been through at least as much, but I fully understand if you don’t want to read about any more! #
#
@ #PHB: Bryan Fischer: Christians must control the govt or atheists and pagans will take over – go atheists and pagans! #
@GodlessAtheist Good point – I don’t want pagans in power any more than any other believers. #
@hemantmehta Travelling while brown… #United #
Ian McKellan’s shirt on the anti-Pope march: I’m Gandalf and Magneto Get over it Excellent!!! http://twitpic.com/2pq44x (via @SpaceAvian) #
It is one of the greatest lessons in humanity learning empathy and understanding for what does not touch you personally #
@Roam2Rome those are the days you can only wear black or white scrubs #
FB advertising is irrelevant, offensive, or just plain dumb. Just because I’m female doesn’t mean I’m always in the market for appliances. #
Americana: Blogs about how to collect random stuff. Then about how to display it. Then how to organize it. Then how to manage debt? #
@jimpick I’ve been paid in (excellent) wine for re-translating an Italian winery’s website, which needed it badly. #
@apperceptions hmm, will it grow on a balcony? #
@oraclenerd I suspect they’re feeling a bit overrun by DBAs #
@missbhavens I think Cole Porter wrote a song like that, but you’ve got the lyric slightly wrong. #
@oraclenerd Keep in mind this year’s OOW is sandwiched between Talk Like a Pirate Day and the Folsom St Fair. Make of that what you will. #
@oraclenerd Wouldn’t it be great if Larry did his keynote in Pirate? #
@missbhavens Being ladylike is overrated. #
Contemplating the follow-nomics of a TwitChange bid. But it was more fun to pick a fight, er, have a debate with @adamsbaldwin 😉 #
@Roam2Rome It’s like a black and white ball, only in the hospital. 😉 #
@avinash It’s an awesome joke, who cares if it’s photoshopped? #
Once a year or so I buy packaged mac&cheese, out of some vague childhood nostalgia. But it never tastes good. Must just make my own. #
Ask yourself: who paid for this ad? – Especially if it involves demon sheep. #
@avinash True, both are good. And pithier than Wizards and evil geniuses for equality! #
So many people seem to identify themselves primarily as parents. Does this place a psychic burden on the kids? #
…or am I overinterpreting the people who mention they are proud parents of and/or use their kids’ photos in their profiles? #
@italofileblog yes, lusingare means to flatter @italofileblog #
I’m getting close to a nice, round 1000 Twitter followers. Which is meaningless: probably half are bots or dead accounts. #
…it is sweet of Stephen Fry to still be following me, though surely he doesn’t read his 53k followers. #
I wish Twitter would clean out every account that hasn’t been touched in over a year; lots of warped numbers based on these. #
@sergiusens Which, clearly, I’m not – just spent half an hour cleaning out followers who had been inactive for >6 mos #
At some point I will have to figure out what I’m going to wear this afternoon, and (shudder) iron it. I really look better in jeans. #
@DeepakChopra What does that mean? How does a person turn into love? You become some sort of disembodied love spirit? #
@glynnfoster True, I did see a lot of people in jeans on opening day last year. Will you back me up to the boss on that? 😉 #
@bubbva You can read my longish follow up to a comment on this on FB (scattered conversations are a problem…). #
@bubbva Interesting book. But celebrities aren’t the only narcissists; ordinary narcissists =ly damaging in their own families, at least. #
@timminchin Plead a migraine. #
@bubbva Would be good to have you there; I’ll be filming, too. #
Rahul Gandotra’s short film The Road Home will be playing in Chicago on Oct 28th – highly recommend! #
@glynnfoster I thought he /wrote/ that wiki. 😉 I’ll take his word for it – save me ironing. Thanks! #
@BrentSpiner Don’t tell me you’re coming for Oracle Open World too? #
Who among my tweets has press/blogger credentails for #oow? #
RT @feliciaday: Saw Eat, Pray, Love. (aka First, World, Problems.) – Beyond first world, comfortable elite problems! #
@KeithBurtis Whom? #
@jeffhuber Buy. Now. Or be subjected to more cute banter with Gwyneth Paltrow. #oow10 #
@jeffhuber You misunderstand. You don’t get to do banter with Gwyneth, you just have to listen to it. 😉 #
@dboyll He could wear the suit AND talk like a pirate! #Oracle #oow10 #javaone10 #
@pelegri I could have helped with that… way more t-shirt experience than anyone needs. #glassfish #
Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice: What i tell you three times is true. #
Granny, Get Your Gun – there’s no hope left for Grandpa #sadmusicals #
That’s the way they like us in the United States, dark, boisterous, uninhibited #
NB: People usually look a little more excited than that to get free t-shirts. #
@KeithBurtis in response to Just need to execute – whom? #
RT @melanierenzulli: I hereby anoint thee lol RT @Z_Everson: Pop culture tip: There is no Lord Gaga. – Maybe there’s a Gaga Consort #
RT @DarylOrts: #oow10. 41,000 attendees: 36,236 are currently asleep. Thanks #hp. – and the rest are tweeting their discontent #
RT @arungupta: YAAAAWWWWN …. ZZZZZZZ #oow10 wake me up when Larry is on the stage! – I’m sure there will be plenty to wake you up shortly #
Umm, let me guess… Larry fell asleep, too? #
judging by the tweets, video stream is running a minute or so behind reality #
RT @ORCL_Linux: Customers can run #Linux on the new #Exalogic Elastic Cloud #oow10 – and Solaris #
RT @Mrgareth: By far the fastest computer for running Java, Larry says the secret sauce in Exalogic is #Oracle Coherence. #OOW10 #
RT @Radu43: Oracle Now mobile application now available on the Android platform. #oracle #oow10 #javaone10 #develop10 #
Yup, absolutely my kind of town. #
@SoLoKeii: No offense but all agnostics and atheists are going to hell. <– Our thoughts towards you are far more Christian, my dear. #
New followers: if you want news about Oracle Solaris, yes, I supply that because it’s part of my life. But I also tweet about other things. #
At the ZFS demo W079 Moscone North #
Huh. Avid is advertising on my personal website (The Videoblogging Manual Countries Beginning with IÂ #
Heading up to the Parc 55 to film three Solaris Unconference Sessions #oow – DTrace, Containers, 7000 Series Appliance #
Waiting at a street light in SF, I see a familiar figure draped in a Brazilian flag… #
No coffee even for speakers?!? #
Brendan and Roch on DTrace #
#
Sysadmins are all artists. #
So many people I enjoy spending time with are in town; very frustrating to be so ill and tired. #
Oracle Solaris 11 Outlined (Oracle Solaris)Â #
fingers crossed – may not need more sinus surgery after all. A few days on a different antibiotic should tell. #
Not really sure what HDR is, but I think I like it. #
photo gallery: Sept 11 Walk in San Francisco Countries Beginning with IÂ #
My appetite is so weirded out, I have to eat whatever seems appealing. Afternoon snack was an entire avocado with balsamic, & tortilla chips #
RT @SAGEProgram: Fastweb is offering a 2000 Study Abroad Scholarship!!! It expires tonight so enter your name in the drawing NOW!!! ht … #
RT @riccardo_iommi: Officials investigating #Vatican Bank in money laundering probe http://on.cnn.com/bd6l2i << this was lost news locally #
Evaluating the inside-my-head sitch. Books to take over for the ZFS hands-on lab, then Mason St tent for live DTrace Tech Cast at 1:30 #
Now watching: Oracle Technology Network Live #
Live now: Dave Miner on Deploying Solaris 11 – Oracle Technology Network Live #
If you’re at #oow, you can talk to Dave in person at the Unconference today at 3, Parc 55 Mason Rm (#OTNLIVE live at http://ustre.am/dv4c ) #
RT @Schlomo: @sogrady As previous owner of HoS, just want to say thanks for always being good to us. New yuppie HoS will open soon – yay! #
@plsleet nothing else is being live webcast afaik, don’t know how much is recorded for future viewing #
Coming up at 1:30 Brendan Gregg on DTrace – Oracle Technology Network Live #
Filming under very poor conditions. I apologize in advance for how bad this will look. #
@dave_miner speakers good as always, hotel lighting terrible. #
What you get when you pay for professional filming. Plus the filming, of course. #
@tpenta I must think so – I keep putting him in front of the camera. 😉 #
Kindle: wifi only or wifi+3G? Which do you own and why? #
@davest Athletic Wednesday joins Causal Friday? #
Video Romance Countries Beginning with I http://t.co/tSPiFCb via @DeirdreS #
RT @SAGEProgram: Congrats to Kodaikanal International & Woodstock School – once again ranked #1 & #2 India’s Top… http://fb.me/HtTZYNRB #
I’ve been confused about what day of the week it is all week, probably because my work week started on Sunday. #
@italylogue Found reverse expectations prob with Italian families who went to EuroDisney, were bored. But didn’t actually go on any rides. #
@vupine I Watussi always works. #
Down, Boojum down I say! #
DTrace book coming soon : Brendan Gregg #
What I thought I’d be filming didn’t come off, so I turned it into something other, possibly better. That’s the value of guerrilla video. #
#
Weird collection of headlines all featuring Mom – murdered mom, murdering mom, miracle mom. Umm… it’s hard being a mother? #
This was a really bad week in which to still be pretty desperately ill, but am beginning to have hope that I’ll be well soon. #
@timfoster Sorry I missed you. I’m not going regularly to SCA – the commute is awful and co. shuttle non-functional til it changes Oct 1. #
Who’s Next? #
@StephenAtHome You won’t be any more fictional than a lot of the characters who have testified before Congress. #
@oracletechnet how about the TechCast of Brendan Gregg that couldn’t be streamed live? #
@oracletechnet Thanks, not there yet. #
did find another familiar Aussie, though:Â Jake Carroll of Queensland Brain Institute #
@tpenta ooh, I didn’t know you were a musician. I love great guitar, and you’re delivering! #
Uh oh, new tweet hack? I’m pretty sure these two people would not be tweeting about making money by uploading files. #
I have a few ?s for those disappointed enough to crave a reversal of course after <2 years of different tactics… http://huff.to/bWyWxg #
Just generated a #TweetCloud, my top words are: oracle, solaris, video – http://w33.us/85s6 (http://twitpic.com/2rv4zy) #
Just generated a #TweetCloud, my top words are: oracle, solaris, video – http://w33.us/86il (http://twitpic.com/2rxsha) #
saw a guy with a t-shirt Slavonic Heathen Metal. Oddly specific. #
Daughter in 2nd round of interview process today; fingers crossed that she’ll soon be happily – and literally – embarked. Well, emplaned. #
@vdotw That is bad. My pattern lately is to wake up (for no reason) at 4 am and then have trouble getting back to sleep. #
@vdotw Yeah. I’m used to waking up a lot at night, the big question is always whether I’ll be able to get back to sleep easily. #
P. W -Q #
RT @richburridge: Need to improve my lizard wrangling skills. – Huh? #
Spent the weekend quietly – didn’t really have a choice. But enjoyed it. #
@jlb13 I loathe nights like that. Fortunately, for me, last night was not one of them. #
Apparently even birds find me relaxing to hang out with – two mourning doves are dozing on my balcony rail, just mellowin’. #
Pain is very selfish. It really doesn’t want you to think about anything else. #
@sogrady Pet gecko? #
@melanierenzulli I have a boilerplate web page I send them to, which explains why they can have a link – for a price. #
The domestic land lobster under its cushion reef #
@lskrocki @willsnow Oh, THAT terminal. You have to go about halfway back to the main terminal to get to the wifi. Then it’s fine. #
Margaret H, whose family owned a printing co, gave me something I have long coveted #
@xiehicks Interesting idea, thanks, tho the one I have wouldn’t lend itself to that. #
Damn, damn, damn. #
just for a change from techie stuff: Customs and Etiquette When Dining Out in Italy Countries Beginning with IÂ #
my apt is infernally hot this afternoon, but I’m too tired to go out in search of A/C. The solution? Home made lassi. #
@urbanturbanguy Sorry, drank it all! Now I need some soda to make fresh lime soda. #
@scrabb_ly what do I do when I’m boxed in and can’t play any further? #
By and large, I could have done without today. #
http://scrabb.ly/ is fun, though a bit slow at times, and maybe runs better on Safari than Firefox. #
I always think I’m fine, I should be doing x,y,z when this is very much wishful thinking and I should be RESTING. #
I’ve always tried to ignore illness, work in spite of it (otherwise I get bored). Problem is, then no one believes me when it’s serious. #
waiting for my Kindle to arrive. #
Antibiotic, painkiller, and ginger beer: breakfast of champions? (Yes, I did actually have food earlier.) #
Damn, damn, damn, damn… #
So of course the first book I bought for my new Kindle was Terry Pratchett’s latest. #
@tomcoates There is no such thing as too may Legos. #
@corey_latislaw I’ve been using it since I learned that you are not forced to share every location update, in fact I share very few. #ghc10 #
Leaving Oracle : Bill Pijewski’s Blog #
Balcony tomato harvest #
@digitalsista All I can think is They must have rented those sofas from the same place Oracle got them. #womenintech #tcdisrupt #
Some very kind friends came over last night, cooked me dinner, and provided company. Big help for the cabin fever I would otherwise suffer. #
@NomdeB So far I like it, comfortable for reading and I can load all sorts of stuff on it, tho a pdf to kzw tool would be good. #
Dunno if the dr will want to torture me again today, might almost welcome it, if it would relieve the current pain/pressure. #
Thanks to everyone tweeting from #ghc10 – very useful (and some consolation) for those of us who can’t be there #
SAGE Program alumna Weezie Yancey-Siegel speaks at TEDx on youth, philanthropy, and creating change #
RT @SethGreen: Utah rules accidental miscarriage= Criminal homicide? – being a fertile woman in UT is dangerous #
I love it when unplanned juxtapositions cause unintentional humor. This “sequence” occurred during yesterday’s Oracle TechNet taping of an interview on DTrace between Brendan Gregg and Rick Ramsey.
NB: I have no idea what the cameraman in the background was actually laughing about, it seems to have been an inside joke with the camerawoman behind me.
The session was supposed to have been webcast live, but the live feed had gone down. I’ll let everyone know as soon as the taped version is available. It was a good talk.
I thought the best way to commemorate Sept 11 was to prove the terrorists haven’t won, by doing something I would have done on any other beautiful, sunny Saturday. So I went for a walk (plus two tram rides) in my beautiful new hometown.
Note: If you are squeamish about surgical procedures and pain, there are parts of this you really don’t want to know about.
Part 1: early-mid July, 2010
I’ve been suffering from sinus infections for at least 25 years, perhaps s a result of living much of my life in very polluted environments (Bangkok, Pittsburgh, Milan). Chronic sinus problems are so common that I’m sure many of you can empathize. But this latest bout is probably the worst I’ve ever experienced.
It’s not so much the pain. There is pain, but not the screaming headaches and “bend over, and feel like someone stabbed you in the face” pain I’ve experienced in the past. Maybe I’m not getting the pain of stuff sloshing around because my sinuses are so full of gunk that there’s nowhere for it to slosh. I’ve seen the CT scan, so know this to be true.
But I can feel this in my upper teeth on the right side, and the hinge of the jaw. I’ve had TMJ for years as well, figured this was more of that (grinding my teeth lately, for unrelated reasons), but it also seems to be a symptom of the infection.
And there’s a horrible smell that I can sense, not exactly in my nose, but inside my head somewhere (maybe the vomeronasal organ?), like something died and is rotting in there. Getting this gunk out will probably be a disgusting process, but I’ll be glad when it’s gone.
This pain isn’t even really manifesting as pain. It somehow gets translated into “I feel so awful I want to cry,” and shattering fatigue. Tylenol with codeine dissipates the feeling, whether because it is in fact relieving pain, or because the codeine is enough of a high to take the edge off the mood. (Yeah, I’m a big-time druggie if codeine can do that to me.)
For years I have resisted the idea of sinus surgery. People I know who’ve had it report that it works for a while, then doesn’t. My sinus doctor in Colorado wanted to operate, but, as far as I could tell, he just liked doing surgery. He never did anything to convince me that it would be effective.
—————–
Part 2
I don’t remember exactly when the above was drafted; between severe illness, and tumult in other parts of my life, much of this summer went by in a blur. I had taken antibiotics for an acute sinus infection back in February, as, indeed, I have done at least annually for many years. That round of medication calmed things down, but I never felt fully cured. I had suspected for years that a colony of something had taken up permanent residence in my sinuses, and over time had become resistant to various antibiotics. I could tell a new doctor, “No, that antibiotic probably won’t work” – and I was always right. You’d think that would be a clue, no?
By Memorial Day weekend (end of May) I was feeling bad enough to seek a doctor here in my new home in San Francisco. My friend Jeffrey suggested using Yelp to get a recommendation, and he was the one to find San Francisco Otolaryngology. I called just before the holiday weekend but, not surprisingly, it was impossible to get an appointment anytime soon, especially with the strongly-recommended Dr. Jacob Johnson. So I didn’t make one. I treated myself as best I could with nasal rinses (neti pot), and got through the immediate crisis.
By the July 4th holiday weekend, I just couldn’t go on any longer. I called again, and was able to see Dr. Brian Schindler in the same practice. He rinsed out my nose (squirting saline up one nostril, siphoning it out the other) and collected samples for culturing (he got charmingly excited over snot). This was a big “Well, duh!” moment for me. Why, in 25 years of infections, had no doctor ever thought to culture the stuff? Why had I never suggested it? From my adolescent experiences with having third-world diseases in Bangladesh and India, I was used to the idea that you take samples, find out what’s growing in you, and treat accordingly, rather than prescribing random medicines in hopes that something will work.
I saw Dr. Schindler on a Thursday or Friday; the culture wouldn’t be done til the following week. But my condition by then was so awful that he wanted to start me right away on Augmentin (antibiotic). “I don’t think that’ll work,” I said. “Maybe not, but it’s less toxic than some of the alternatives. Once we get the culture back, we’ll change it if we need to.”
I got an almost frantic call on Monday: “Go to the pharmacy right away and pick up a prescription for Ciprofloxacin, come in and see the doctor again ASAP.” The bug in there was pseudomonas, a bacterium which doesn’t respond to any other antibiotic. I’d taken cipro before and didn’t like it, but there wasn’t any other option. Sometime around then they did a CT scan: yup, looks pretty gummed up in there.
After two weeks on cipro I wasn’t any better. Dr. Schindler said he could “tap” the sinus to flush it out more vigorously, but he was afraid that the natural openings the stuff needed to drain out of might be so swollen by infection that not much could come out. He suggested balloon sinuplasty, a new procedure analogous to angioplasty: a catheter is inserted and a balloon inflated, to widen the natural sinus-to-nose openings.
Although I’d never had anything remotely surgical done to me before, I was by then so miserable that I would have agreed to anything. The upside was that this made me a patient of Dr. Johnson, who turned out to be just as wonderful as everyone on Yelp had said (though I liked Dr. Schindler, too).
We scheduled the surgery in a hurry; it was performed on July 29th at the San Francisco Surgical Center, in the same building as SF Otolaryngology. I hadn’t been aware of this new trend in American medicine: small surgical centers can be quicker and cheaper for outpatient surgery than hospitals.
It is possible to do balloon sinuplasty under local anesthesia (in fact, if I’d been able to wait a few weeks, I might have participated in a study to do it right in the doctor’s office). Since I didn’t know how I would react to other kinds of anesthesia, I initially opted for local. But I did expect to be given Valium or some such to help me face it more calmly (I’d never done anything like this, remember?). Somehow that was overlooked during the admissions procedures, so, when they finally came to take me into the operating room, I was stark, trembling terrified. (As well as exhausted – hadn’t slept from nerves and pain – and very ill.) We mutually decided to do anesthesia after all.
It was the best sleep I’d had in months. Unfortunately, when Dr. Johnson had finished enlarging the hole into my left maxillary sinus and was ready to start flushing water through it, they woke me up, so that I wouldn’t breathe the stuff into my lungs. I suppose to prove I was conscious, I had to hold the dentist-style aspirator. This was all very nasty and painful.
Then he did the balloon thing on the right side. Also painful. But I was still anesthetized to some extent, so I guess it could have been worse.
When everything was done and my brain was beginning to work again, I finally asked the doctor a question that had been on my mind for some time: how did someone who was clearly of south Indian origin come to be named Johnson? Turns out it’s not uncommon among south Indian Christians (I’ve spent a lot of time in north India, not much in the south).
I was given Vicodin, got home (yes, accompanied), spent the rest of the day tweeting and sleeping in a haze of pain. The next day I started working again (from home), and was soon back in the office a few days a week, working from home the others. I was even doing vigorous physical exercise, moving boxes of stuff around Sun’s Menlo Park campus to prepare for a major office move. I probably should have been resting and recovering.
Because it wasn’t over. During a first post-surgery visit, Dr. Johnson squirted water up my nostrils and aspirated it out so hard that the cartilage in my nose flattened under pressure. This is not usual; all we could figure was that it had been softened by years of nose-blowing. It sprang back immediately, but I felt bruised the next day. The flushing showed that there was still gunk in there (which I already knew).
I had been on the cipro for six weeks. I was feeling physically somewhat better, but emotionally a mess. Having plenty of reasons to be under stress, I didn’t think much about this. But, after spending one night crying and thinking about cutting myself, I looked up the side effects of ciprofloxacin. Sure enough, they include depression. I stopped taking it immediately.
In any case, it wasn’t working very well, if at all, on the pseudomonas. The next option was to “tap” into the sinus. This means driving a large needle and catheter (picture below) from the inside of your nose into the sinus cavity, then pushing saline through that and out the natural opening to flush out the sinus.
The first time, this took several hours of preparation (mental, for me) and gradual local anesthesia, which was unpleasant in itself: it involved shoving a sharp spike wrapped in cotton with anesthetic on it deeper and deeper into my tissues, then me sitting there with a large metal whisker hanging out of my nose while it took effect. Dr. Johnson does that three times, to numb the soft tissues. It doesn’t anesthetize the bone.
Then he held the side of my head while he shoved a large metal spike through the bone into the sinus cavity. (He told me to close my eyes so I wouldn’t freak out over the size of it going in.) “This is going to hurt,” he said, and he was correct. Hearing something crunch and squeak through your own bone is also uniquely creepy.
He then attached a tube to the metal catheter and flushed saline through it. This, too, was painful and, for the right sinus, was like pushing mud through a straw. Everything (saline, blood, pus) drained out my nose into a kidney tray. It had the same horrible odor I’d been living with inside my head for months, which is the characteristic smell of pseudomonas.
The left side was more painful to get the catheter into, but less painful to flush, and the stuff that came out was mostly clean. So at least we wouldn’t have to worry about that side anymore.
I went home, took a painkiller, and whimpered a lot. There was some improvement over the next few days, but soon the gunk was back.
A week later we did it again, but this time only the right sinus. The procedure hurt horribly again, but seemed to be more effective: the next day (Sept 11) I felt so much better that I took a long walk in the city. However, by Wednesday the bacteria were clearly back in full production. We did the tap again Friday (yesterday), only to try to tame the beasts long enough for me to get through my duties at Oracle OpenWorld next week; neither of us expect this to resolve the problem. This time was the worst because the catheter slipped out and he had to punch it in again. I may never forget what that felt like.
Unfortunately, all this pain has in a sense been for nothing: something’s still living in there (he took a culture again just to make sure it’s still the original pseudomonas), and we have to get it out.
The next step is more-invasive surgery. Whereas the sinuplasty ballooned open the natural opening without cutting, this time he’ll cut, to enlarge the natural opening from the sinus into the nose. When you use a neti pot, you don’t actually get much fluid into the sinus: the negative pressure of water streaming past the small sinus opening pulls some of the gunk out, rather than it washing out. With a larger hole, I can squirt or pour fluids into the sinus to attack the beasts directly. Then it will be up to me, I guess, to self-medicate as much as needed.
So… I’m scheduled for more surgery. Fun.
