7 days out

Last night was a little easier since I planned ahead to wake myself up around 2 am to drink and take a small dose of meds. The swelling is still pretty tight under my eyes (makes it hard to look awake!). Just 2 more days until I have the wires cut and everything examined. You can see the bruising all down my neck; apparently they had to pull pretty hard to get my lower jaw this far forward (1 cm forward).

Mao decided last night that my water is the only water in the house she can drink, so we got her a dedicated cup. She now drinks on the coffee table like a civilized person.

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6 days out

Still very bruisey at the jawline and under eyes

6 days out from surgery and my everything is still very swollen and painful. I tried to get through the night with only a single dose of pain meds, and that was a mistake. I  was up around 5:30 so tired and in pain I could hardly think. John helped me set ice packs back up and get medicated so I could sleep. Feeling helpless is kinda terrifying.

The nasal congestion is an issue off and on, but I have a cool mist humidifier that helps a little. Not being able to breathe through your nose nor your mouth gets pretty scary.  The plastic splint holding my bite together only leaves a tiny gap between the last teeth on one side, so any active swelling in the cheek can close it up in a hurry. I have to stick a tube back there to prop things open when they swell up like that.  It’s a full time job making sure my sinuses stay open on at least one side. I am strictly forbidden from nose blowing for 4 weeks since that can cause a bleed, so it’s not fun.  When I brought this up in hospital, one of the surgical residents “Oh you can breathe through your mouth just fine even if your sinuses swell shut”… way to miss the point.  When you have to prop your cheek open so you CAN breathe,  that’s not “just fine”.  Thankfully my actual surgeon doesn’t seem like such a dunderhead.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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5 days out

5 days out and I can almost stop using the narcotic pain meds they hospital sent me home with. I have baby ibuprofen too, but you have to drink half the bottle to get 200 mg, so I’m just trying ice and cool compresses as needed. The Oxy they gave me for pain makes me very itchy, and the tylenol w/codeine doesn’t seem to help. We had to spend almost an hour on the phone with the off-hours advice nurse just to get the ok to take over the counter Benadryl for the allergic itching. I sometimes wonder why they put those people there at all when they seem incapable of helping anyone.

You can see some of my bruising now, under the chin, and my face still looks like that of a chubby 16 year old. I had at least 12 different nurses in the hospital staggered over varying shifts, and most of them thought I was a little girl. This meant that they also thought that John was my dad, which was even more awkward. 😉   I am very numb under my eyes and down the center of my face, but I am regaining a little bit of control over my lips and smiling.

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Prissy kitty feel betters

Even Mao, the prissy kitty is doing her part to make me feel better. She snuggles up on my belly while I have ice packs and cold compresses. I love my family. 🙂

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3 days after

After much needed sleep and kitten cuddles on the couch, I feel lots better.  Now I’m working on trying to get enough calories, which is still a challenge. I’m finding everything too sweet, so we’re trying other things without any sugar instead.

The swelling above the eye and the swelling below pulling the lower lid down: this makes focusing to read almost impossible for more than a few minutes!

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Discharge day and an Emergency

By now, I’ve spent 2 nights and almost 2 days recovering from surgery and they’re ok with letting me go home.  John went and got me the baggie of medications I needed, which cost a whole $80 (shockingly little).

I’m writing this from after my first night sleeping at home. The pain meds the hospital had been giving me were much less concentrated than the kind they gave me to take home, and this presented a problem to the sleep deprived brains here in this house.  My pre-release dose was 10mg of liqiud, and the new dose is 20x stronger… sooo, I managed to get a dose 20x stronger than intended and we spent the next 6 hours in the ER being monitored for breathing and heart rate, fighting falling asleep.  This was un-fun.  We didn’t get released to go back home until 11pm and were both totally wiped out.

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1 day after

After the first night spent at the hospital, my Dr. wanted to keep me an extra night. He wants all his surgery patients to be able to keep 2 liters of liquids down via syringe and I wasn’t able to do that yet. I guess it helps when your surgery center and hospital don’t have to fight over when to kick you out (for financial reasons). In this regard, Kaiser has been really wonderful.

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Day of surgery

I’m wiriting this on day 3, and wouldn’t have been able to do this before now, just to give you an idea of how pain medded and sleepy I’ve been.

My surgery took roughly 5 hours then I was sent up to a private recovery room to sleep off the anesthesia. This took most of the day, and evening, with nurses coming in to check my pain and nausea levels. Both were pretty high for me, and even the minty mouth rinse caused some serious gagging.  They had me on 2 pain meds and 3 different anti-nausea meds, but I didn’t need too much of the latter after the first night.

Nice snug jaw strap I don’t have to wear any more.

John spent 2 nights sleeping on this little chair. He’s crazy tired too!

Day after surgery

Lots of swelling around my nose.

I got free Angelina lips! 😉 At least for a while.

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Photos: week before

Here are some photos the week before my surgery so you can compare swelling (chipmunk photos coming!).  Plus, it will document the change in my profile.  The profile photos show how far back my lower jaw is naturally, but my chin still sticks out well, so they’re going to do reduce my chin a little at the same time so I end up in proportion. 🙂

Week before surgery

Before surgery

1 week before surgery

12 months in braces, just before surgery

 

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