Day 1: Homeward Bound

It was another bright and early morning, and I was greeted by my surgeon around 7:45. He was pleased to inform me that all appeared to be going well thus far on the road to recovery, so I got to come home today, woo! My pain has still been under control all day, with liquid oxycodone  rather than morphine though. Like all of my other liquid foods, the medication is also delivered though the same syringe shown in yesterday's Day 0: D-day post. However, I must say that I am rather tired today, so I'll just make you all a lovely pro's and con's of the day list rather than a true post.

Pro's

• There is no more annoying tube in my throat.
• I can already feel my tongue and various other regions of my face.
• My nose still isn't upturned, even with the swelling.
• I kept down all of my liquid diet.
• I came home.
• We managed to avoid 80% of the potholes on the drive back.
• No more annoying hospital gowns.
• I got to take a shower!

Con's

• It's pretty difficult to make a 1200 calorie quota on liquids alone.
• My nose gets a bit gunky at times, and I'm not allowed to sneeze.
• There is some green bruising on my face.
• My face is already pretty puffy, and swelling won't peak until about Friday.
• I have to still sleep sitting upright.
• My face is crazy round at the moment.
• I can't actually brush my teeth and have to use a rinse.

So as you can already see in the picture below, there is a significant aesthetic change in my face even with the swelling. My chin and overall face is not as long as it was pre-op, and my lips do touch, they were just at one of the more swollen stages during the day when this photograph.

In the "Up Close Bands" photo, I tried to make an attempt at showing you all how my mouth is banded shut, but it was a bit of a challenge to get my mouth far enough open for a good view. 

Day 0: D-Day

Today was operation day, and aside from my bite magically fixing itself without surgery, it could not have gone any better. As I had mentioned earlier my surgeon had thought that double jaw surgery was the only way to go, guess who was wrong? That's right! While in the operating room he found that only my maxilla (upper jaw) would have to be surgically altered. What he initially did was drill a small portion of my right lower jaw, but he then decided to work on the upper jaw. Due to my congenital deformity, there was apparently a large gap in my maxilla, and once he fixed that, my mandible(lower jaw) just sort of fell into place. The surgery, which was initially set to take 4 hours minimum, ended up only being 3 and a half and commenced at 11:30. Also, I didn't come out looking like Penelope!

 After leaving recovery and being moved to my hospital room, I wasn't even encountering much pain. They had it extremely well controlled and gave me a little button to push that could release a bit of morphine every 8 minutes if I needed it. The most annoying parts of my stay in the hospital were surprisingly the tube pumping my stomach, which irritated the back of my throat a bit making it hard to swallow anything from my syringe, and frequent potty breaks due to my saline drip. Although it wasn't the most pleasant or restful night I've ever been through, it was no where near as horrific as I had imagined it to be. I owe a lot of what made that night tolerable to my nurses, who were always willing to come and help me out, so huge thanks to Kim, Val, Tina and Sandy, as well as my parents who took shifts sleeping in my room overnight. My second doctor, Dr. Maxilla P. Bearstein, also helped out quite a bit. (Thanks mom)

Day -1: The Last Supper

Well, it's finally (almost) here. Tomorrow is my surgery date and I get to wake up bright and early to go get my jaw cracked, 5:30 to be exact. I won't go into the operating room until approximately 7:30, and the early arrival is to leave plenty of time to get the anesthesia and other prep work done. Luckily we are within walking distance of the hospital and I'll get a chance to move around a bit before lying down for what will seem like forever.

My surgeon was happy to report that my model surgery, which is done with the molds made from the impressions mentioned in "As long as I don't come out looking like Penelope..."  , went very well. He also realized through the model that double jaw surgery really is the only way to go for me to come out with the best results. Surgery is set to take about four hours and end around 12 o'clock, however, it could realistically take six hours. After that I will be in the hospital overnight, and possibly for a second day, depending on how well the operation goes. I realize that in earlier posts I said I would post daily after surgery, but I have no idea how I will feel tomorrow or the day after, so don't go crazy and get all up in my grill or assume that I died if I don't start blogging as soon as I'm out of the O.R. I promise I will catch all of you up once I am fit to type.

Aside from all of the official business of tomorrow morning, I'm set to go! Even though surgery is looming, I still don't feel all that worried and the biggest qualm I have at the moment is that I might wake up starving. I can't eat or drink anything after midnight, so I've been feasting for the past few days; I'm pretty sure I ate close to a whole cake over the weekend. Don't judge. As for my "last supper", I was in bacon cheeseburger heaven.