Septoplasty Surgery Today

7:35 AM – Friday, January 8th, 2016. 

As I am typing this out on my phone, I am in my way to get surgery today (septoplasty).

This is a surgery to fix my deviated septum. I like to think a “deviated septum” as a doctor’s nice way of a describing a crooked nose. The septum is the structure the two nostrils, and mine is deviated so much that it affects my breathing very negatively, and also makes it very easy to have a sinus infection with all the congestion. This is also causing a sort of sleep apnea at night because of the hindered breathing, not allowing enough oxygen into my body when I sleep at night.

I was diagnosed with Narcolepsy with Cataplexy only two years ago in the summer of 2014. Narcolepsy is essentially the inability of the brain to process sleep cycles correctly or consistently, resulting in excessive daytime sleepiness and unrestful sleep. Cataplexy often comes with Narcolepsy, and it consists of muscle weakness attacks as well as sleep paralysis (body asleep brain awake and conscious) and hallucination. It took me a while to come to grips with it. I would use narcolepsy as an excuse to not be responsible in studies at school and in service at church, and also as an excuse to be selfish and not love others. After a year of difficulty, I am starting to get a hang of this life of constant sleepiness during the day and unrestful sleep at night. I realized that I need to accept the struggles present in my life – especially my sleep disorder – in order to have joy in life.

A year later, this past fall, my general practitioner, Dr. Eck, realized that I have a deviated septum and that it made my sleep at night very unrestful. He suggested a possibly surgery and the ENT doctor he referred me to agreed. So I’m about to have septoplasty.

Here’s one of the many cat scans of my head, haha.

Another diagnoses and a surgery would sound like a disappointing moment, but for my family, my friends, and I, even my doctors, it’s a sense of hope. My condition has a chance to improve, even after I’ve learned to live life with it! It may not help my excessive sleepiness at all, but it would certainly help my breathing and constant sinus infections.

So if you’re reading this, I ask you to pray. Not just a prayer of petition that the surgery will go well and that there may be healing according to God’s will, but a prayer of adoration and thanksgiving- that God has given me peace about the difficulty I have faced, and that He’s given me an amazing family, loving friends, and great doctors to try to help me and give me hope.

“Many are the plans in a persons heart, but it is God’s purpose that prevails.” Proverbs 19:21