hhhrnph. Groggy. Very groggy. Where was I? Idiot Doctor that’s right. Let’s call him Idiot#1 (there are more idiots to come). After realizing that the surgeon who operated on me at 12 years of age had basically become a soul-less money guzzling super demon, I had to find someone else. And in that effort I suppose the super-demon (I thought he was Idiot#1?) helped me establish a new focus. I decided that I would not choose my doctor based on anything other than my personal reading of him. Not what he tells me, not what sounds better, but what I honestly thought of him during our meetings.
In order to do that I would have to have a very high level of social and emotional awareness, or in easier terms, I would have to be really good at reading people. Thankfully this was a skill I had already acquired. Being a chubby geeky gamer and classic introvert I spent the majority of my life on the edge of rooms looking in. That meant that I have probably spent more time observing humans than interacting with them. I’m not entirely sure if that is a statement that is at all unique, this must be true for most people after a certain period of time. But I mean that growing up, I was the quiet thinker in the corner of the room, who occasionally became the class clown, usually during Arabic class.
In any case, you will just have to trust that I am a good judge of other people’s emotions and have a high level of social awareness. Except with my family, for some reason with loved ones your methods of deduction tend to go a little haywire and are replaced with confusion. This tends to become a fixable problem as you often re-calibrate and achieve proper social interaction after a brief period of overload. But this is about the doctor. The second doctor I visited was exceptionally younger than Idiot#1 (I now prefer super-demon :/) this gave me hope, because I knew that a younger doctor meant that he was more up to date with the latest medical practices. What I overlooked was that this guy was taught by the super demon himself. This doctor looked at my scans and told me that my septum was indeed deviated severely, and that my interior turbinates were too large. He argued that the turbinates were the real cause of my sleep apnea and breathing troubles (just like the super demon!). He said he didn’t recommend surgery on the septum because ‘it might damage the septum if it was operated on before’.
It wasn’t his argument that I called bullshit on (even though it was a classic Egyptian doctor tactic of suggesting possible danger to convince you of another course of action), it was the way he said it. Just like the super demon this man was not a great actor. When I asked him again why he only wanted to operate on the turbinates and not on the septum, he gave the reply above, but squinched (thats not a word) his face inwards and looked down and a little to the left. Averting his gaze. Brow furrowed because he knew he was being less than truthful. Not gonna fool me bro. In reality Idiot#2 wanted (you guessed it) MONEY!!! Surgery money!!! And what a beautiful thing money is, but he wasn’t getting mine.
It wasn’t just the fact that he was obviously lying, I also just didn’t like the odds he gave me. He said without operating on my septum he could restore my breathing to 60%. What a pitiful number to throw at me. If he’s going to lie he should have at least bumped it up to 75% or 80%. It sounds better and I would never be able to argue malpractice over a presumably lost 20%. What a chump. That was that for Idiot#2. Unfortunately Doctor #3 ( I don’t want to call him and idiot because he’s the oldest one and he’s a nice man) was not much better, but he gave me breathing room. He argued that there was nothing wrong with the surgery performed on my septum, and that my problem was purely allergies. I begrudgingly decided to try his allergy medication, while simultaneously sending my scans to the good old USA to be examined, using a website called Second Opinions. Idiot#2 had already confirmed to me what Google had told me, that septum surgery at such a young age is wrong. The nose tends to keep growing and reverse itself back to being deviated. This was obviously what had happened to me over the last few years. When I told Doctor#3 this, he made the sort of sound you make when you’re not sure if you want a third(!) piece of cake. Something like a ‘eeh’.
But you see, I understood his predicament. He was old enough to have made that mistake hundreds of times before the medical community realized you shouldn’t operate on kids. He was probably so upset to learn that, he decided to refute it, to pretend as if those findings didn’t exist, or were at the very least debatable. I understood that kind of defense mechanism, I really did. But what worried me was the middle class family I saw waiting to go in after me. For them an error on their doctors part could cost them everything. They could spend all they have for something that doesn’t heal them at all. Most people in Egypt trust their doctor. If he wants to lead them away from a certain procedure because it doesn’t involve HIM doing the surgery, or making the money, he often succeeds. That was what was happening in my case, the Ear Nose Throat guys wanted to keep the business (ME) to themselves, instead of referring me to the proper surgeon for my condition.
When the scans came back from the USA they confirmed what I had been suspecting:
1: My nose was absolutely destroyed
2: It definitely was NOT allergies
3: I needed a plastic surgeon.
That’s right folks, I had to get a nose job. A Functional Rhinoplasty they call it. It was a procedure so complex that only a plastic surgeon could properly perform. I realized then that I was being duped. Definitely by the super-demon and Idiot#2. It was in their interest to operate on me, so they told me that’s what should happen. Instead of referring me to a plastic surgeon so I could get that 100% improvement.
In any case, long story short(?) I found a great plastic surgeon on a website called What Clinic (What an important website!). He had the highest ratings on the site and I trusted my gut. 5 stars is 5 stars. He gave me the same diagnosis as the folks in the USA without me telling him what they said. He was also very honest and clear with me, and once he passed those tests I knew he was the guy. His name is Dr. Ashraf AbolFotooh and you can see his clinic profile here:
That my friends, is the full story of how I successfully achieved my goal of finally having a good night’s sleep for the first time in years. But how did the surgery go? How did that process feel? How many people saw your penis under that flimsy hospital gown? How many nurses did you flirt with while drifting off under anesthesia?
More on that tomorrow.
NoteWorthy 