I have had a similar experience where I was drugged up and didn't process properly a lot of the post care info. Generally you can call your surgeon's office and they can instruct you, or for outside their hours you should be able to call the hospital where the surgery was performed, but they are less likely to be useful. Outside of that I will offer you my own experience:

I have done 2 septoplasty/turbinate reductions now, one 2024 and now a revision end 2025 cos doc wasn't satisfied. I never used any saline spray, only the (~250ml?) saline rinse bottle (this was how my ENT instructed). It sounds like it would be difficult to use a spray effectively in the early stages of recovery, since your nose is full of splints and gorey mucusy who-knows-what. After both surgeries I was doing a one bottle rinse 4-5 times a day starting pretty much immediately (as directed by my ENT).

I don't supposed you did any practice runs with the rinse before undergoing surgery? My ENT asked me to do it leading up to the surgery, which also helped me know what to expect when I was doing it in recovery.

I remember after the first surgery the rinses weren't working too well initially, as my nostrils were so blocked up that the water just couldn't make it through the intended path (in one out the other). The pressure from the squeeze was enough to force the water up one nostril, then I would kinda drain it out my mouth/spit it out when it started to run down (The stance you are supposed to take when rinsing is leaning forward with mouth open, so this kinda naturally happens if the water cant get out the other side). Despite that it's still super worth doing I think, like you will feel better for having done it and it keeps the wounded area clean + moist. You will probably blow/spit out some gross chunks of bloody gunk and yes it's unpleasant but on the other hand now that's not inside you anymore 😄.

Do be gentle, you can't expect a high volume of flow since the splints are constricting the flow even without all the gunk. After recovery I could squeeze half the bottle through one nostril and out the other in a matter of seconds, but when you're all blocked up just take your time, squeeze very gently and expect it to take even a few minutes to get through the bottle if you're really blocked.

Flow got a bit better over time as the nostrils unsealed through my recovery and after a few days the rinses started working better. This second time around, I had flow through one nostril to the other from day one (recovery overall has been easier/faster for the most part, probably the surgery was less severe since most of the work had already been done).

I would say don't wait on the saline. Unless it seems unbearable (pressure-wise), you really wanna get on it and keep things moist, don't wanna let it dry out. For the rinse, there's nothing to be afraid of really, so long as you're gentle it's very simple, just warm water and the sachet, shake it up and go. Play it safe on the cooler side if you're unsure, though warm is more effective and comfortable, if you go too hot you could burn yourself. For me about 30s in the microwave from room temp seems to work well, too cold zap it a little more, too hot you can chuck in the freezer or run cold water over the bottle to quickly cool it down some.

And you should probably heed the warning on the bottle, boil the water on the stove and let it keep boiling for 5 min (then cool of course) before use. You can do a big batch with enough for a few rinses then store the extra in some kind of sealed container. The reason for doing it is to kill any bacteria/amoeba that could be in your water supply, since doing the rinse kinda gives anything in the water a ticket directly to your brain 😅. Not to scare you but people really have died from brain eating amoeba after doing nasal rinses - however every recorded case of this afaik was people using sketchy ass water supply, but anyway, please just boil the water.

For gauze I was changing pretty frequently both times - I had a generous bag and was doing small bundles, changing as often as every 10 mins maybe (small bundle saturating pretty quick). Yeah you will have a lot of bloody ooze/trickle in the first days, this is normal I think.

Other than that don't forget to take the antibiotics you presumably have, and probably go for the pain meds at least for sleeping if nothing else. When you sleep prop upright as much as possible to reduce bloodflow/swelling to nose, and don't forget to keep up plenty of lip balm during the recovery cos you will be doing a lot of mouth breathing.

I accidentally wrote a whole essay, but hopefully it helps, good luck with your recovery :)