Day 2: When Right is Not Quite Right!

Left Jaw Pain: 3/10

Right Jaw Pain: 7/10

Hip Pain: 0/10

Inconvenience factor: 10/10

Note: Early on basic things like reading text messages, books or computer screens made me feel immediately nauseous. It took a number of days to get past this. All these early post-surgery blog entries are retrospective but hopefully still capture the key points and feelings as best as I can remember them. 

Attempting to eat via syringe!

The hip - with Pain Buster line-in visible!

My first full day in the wards....Time to take stock and assess the state of play. Good grief! 

One of the first things that I really noticed when I woke up was the number of things stuck into and onto me. Simply moving was fraught with danger.

The full compliment of my accessories were:

1) An IV drip in the back of my left hand pumping fluids, pain killers and I think antibiotics into me constantly. The tube and needle were stuck down with a LOT of tape.

 2) A sub-cutaneous injection point on my right upper arm - also secured in place with a lot of tape.

3) Four round tabs with metal discs in the centre stuck about my front (for monitoring my vitals during surgery?)

4) A hospital medical bracelet

5) A bandaid on my inner left elbow where I had been stuck with a needle previously

6) A big wadger of fake skin covering my hip incision (see above)

7) A draining tube from my hip wound that allowed blood to drain into a bag (rather gross - so photographic evidence removed). This was taken out early in the morning thankfully!

8) Tubing from a Pain Buster ball inserted into the hip wound. The tube was actually stitched onto my skin in two places. All taped over. (The Pain Buster ball uses pressure to slowly release general aenasthetic directly onto the hip bone graft site - really clever!). 

9) A dressing over some stitches on my face.
10) Oxygen tubes tucked around my ears and blasting air up my nose. 

All this stuff made what should have been a simple trip to the bathroom, an epic mission. Firstly get yourself to the edge of the bed, remove oxygen, arrange all the bits you need to hold, drag, carry to the toilet with you. Then stand. Put on flip flops, make sure the gown is still being modest. Pick up Buster Ball, and drainage bag in right hand. Grab IV stand with left hand making sure the tubes don't all get tangled and now shuffle to the bathroom! Then work out how to lock the door and sit down. Talk about doing things the hard way. In protest I pulled off the bandaid on my inner left arm and binned it. There!!! Down to single figure attachments!!

By the time I had struggled back to bed, my breakfast had been delivered. I'd been told that I needed to start to taking thing orally as my drip would be taken away soon and I'd have to hydrate in the conventional by-mouth way! Breakfast was porridge. Nice THICK porridge. Umm...what was I meant to do with that? Did you not get the memo that I have had jaw surgery and my teeth are elastic banded essentially SHUT!??!?! I am meant to be on a LIQUID diet for 2 weeks! In desperation, would you believe, I actually tried to use a paddle pop stick to push little chunks of porridge in the small gap between the elastics. No, it did not work. Breakfast consisted of 100ml of orange juice syringed into my mouth! Good thing I wasn't particularly hungry.

I was pretty tired and out of it until about noon when I jumped in the shower (ok - I didn't really jump). The IV and drainage bag were out so at least I didn't have to deal with them anymore. Finally a bit cleaner and back in my own clothes, I felt kind of okay - or maybe that was the drugs settling in. Lunch arrived. Mashed potato and puree pumpkin. No, they seriously appeared not to have gotten the memo. I pointed it out to a nurse and asked for some LIQUID food so that I didn't fade away. Lunch = 100ml syringed orange juice. At least I'd not get scurvy!

In some downtime, I started gently prodding bits of my face. I am completely numb from the bottom lip down to my chin tip and there are some other patches of skin around the place that just lightly tingle (I guess these are the nerves coming back to life). Occasionally, it feels like liquid is running down my face, but when I go to wipe it, there is nothing there. My tongue often feels like I have just burned it on hot food and it is a bit painful and tender. I can feel the new bone that has been placed up into my cheeks. Weird!!! And there is a whole heap of really gross stuff still wedged up my nose.

Even before these first tentative explorations, I knew my face was unbalanced. The left side was a bit tender and puffy, but the right side was screaming hot, permanently achy and impossible to touch without intense pain. It also felt like I had a severe ear infection on the right side and kept asking the nurses to check. They assured me that I didn't. The surgeon came past, told me how great I was looking (yeah right) and how pleasing the results were. He asked how I felt. I asked him about the right side of my face. Turns out that the bone didn't behave as it should have on that side. 

"It didn't quite split right, which made a bit of a mess of things for awhile, but we fixed it and you'll still get that perfect bite, Don't Worry!" :) Then he was gone. Hmmm....

I distinctly remember the bright lights, the weird noises, the hot air, the cold air, the constant blood pressure checks, the nurse hand overs, the lack of sleep, my sore ear, my burning face, and the general discomfort each taking turns to press on me. Thankfully, I had good company to keep me calm and entertained. And a seemingly endless suppy of Oxycodene to send me away for a time out when it all got a bit too much. :)