Day 1: Let me sleep!

I had slept on and off throughout the night in intensive care and by very early the next morning the place certainly was a hive of activity.  I always seemed to have someone poking or prodding me - either taking my blood pressure and other stats, putting antibiotics or fluids into one of the three lines in my arm or moving me around.  Of course they were only doing their job and making sure that I was well, but it was still really tiring!  To help ease the discomfort though I had my handy self-administered morphine, which I could press every 5 minutes giving me 1ml morphine each time.  Good times!

At some point early in the morning I was moved from my bed to a reclining chair before I was finally able to sleep for a while.

My surgeon came to see me mid-morning and told me that the operation was a great success and that they achieved all they wanted to.  If I remember correctly he said my upper jaw was moved both upwards and backwards 5mm in each direction, my lower jaw was extended forwards 11mm and my chin was repositioned outwards and downwards.  He also said that I had some bone loss in one area of my jaw and he used bovine bone which my body would accept and fuse with my own bone.  His parting words to the team were that they could remove both the gastric tube and the catheter.  While it was not a very pleasant experience having either of them removed, I'll spare you those gory details and just say that I was happy once it was over!

I think one of the most surprising things for me on this morning was that I could talk pretty well and had a good chat with surgeon, albeit with slurred speech and a lot of drooling.  Prior to my surgery I had read blogs where people couldn't speak for weeks, but here I am talking there very next day.  A big reason though will be that here in Australia, they generally do not wire your jaws shut and just use elastics to guide your bite.  While the elastics restrict movement to allow your jaw to heal, they do not completely stop movement.

After lunchtime I was transferred to a ward where I had a private room and I got to have my first liquid meal of fibre milk, clear consommé and water.  I also looked at myself properly in the mirror for the first time - it was not a pretty sight.  Everything was swollen and bruised - my face, cheeks, lips, neck and my arms where the lines were inserted.  On the inside everything was swollen too including my gums and throat - of course this is to be expected after major jaw surgery.

Sing to me, my angel of music!

I was feeling very weak so lots of rest and sleep were in order.  Having to wheel around a drip and grapple with five sets of lines each time I wanted to use the bathroom was tiring in itself.  Later on that afternoon Frankie came to see me in hospital followed by my friends Gerry, John, Jack and Daniel.  They brought me a lovely robe and lots of magazines to keep me occupied.  After another liquid meal I bedded down to try and sleep off the discomfort.

D-Day: Jaw surgery time

I'm writing this post six days after my surgery but backdating it to October 16th (the day of surgery) to preserve the record.

I woke at 4am on the morning of my surgery feeling fairly calm as I had been all week, but unable to sleep any more.  As I showered and got ready to leave to leave though, the nerves really started to take hold.  The gravity of what I was about to go through came crashing down around me and the end of two years of treatment and planning was finally here.  All I wanted to do was have a cup of coffee but as I had been fasting since midnight all liquids were a no-no.  I got my things together for the quick 20 minute drive to the Prince of Wales Private Hospital and headed out into whole new day.

The good thing about having a 6am check in time was that it was quiet.  There was no traffic on the roads and the hospital itself didn't have hordes of people so actually felt quite serene.

I made my way up to surgery check-in where I filled out some forms, paid my insurance excess (of course!) and signed various waivers about surgery.  I then met my anaesthesiologist who re-iterated the information he gave me over the phone the previous week and generally just wanted to ensure I was feeling okay and had all of my questions answered.

Finally I met with a nurse to talk about my health and and was given some rather attractive compression socks and a gown to get changed into before I was asked to wait in the patients lounge.

What an attractive gown!

Nervous grin

From here everything moved pretty quick.  I was asked to leave the patient lounge after only a couple of minutes and climb up onto a trolley.  At this time I said goodbye to Frankie and was wheeled through to the operating theatre holding area.  I got to speak with my surgeon Dr. Tsakiris and with the team that would be looking after me during surgery.  My anaesthesiologist then popped in to give me some pre-surgery sedation drugs (felt like I'd had a few glasses of red wine) and advised there was a slight delay on the surgery as they were waiting for someone else to recover first.  Twenty minutes later I got more of the sedative and that's the last thing I remember until I woke up after surgery.  Even though I had apparently been conversing with the team right up until having the general anaesthetic - I have no memory of those moments.

Waking up after the surgery was not great, but not as bad as I thought it was going to be.  I had no nausea and as the drugs were still in my system I had no pain - but I did of course feel very uncomfortable.  I remember trying to talk to one of the nurses and wondering why I could not get any sounds out.  In the end I reverted to a pen and notepad to communicate.  Things were a little bit of a blur from here.  I'm sure I spoke with my anaesthesiologist as I seem to remember him saying 'you'll have an attractive smile in no time', but that easily could have been a dream.

After recovering from anaesthetic I was taken to intensive care and this was when I first felt the gastric tube that was inserted during surgery (and still there).  This was really thick and went up my nose and down the back of my throat all the way to my stomach.  I remember trying to swallow and feeling it there and I can honestly say it was one of the weirdest and most concerning things I have ever experienced.  I suddenly noticed all the lines and cables around my body when Frankie arrived to see me and I suddenly felt very emotional.  I kept asking myself 'why did I do this?' but the realistic part of me knew this was a natural reaction and it would be worth it in the end.

From here I slept on and off for until morning and lost all concept of time.