Surgery Day

I had to be a the hospital for 5:45 am for a 7:30 start. Last surgery I had Paul wake up Victoria, drop me off, then join me later. That resulted in my being all alone prior to going back, and I didn't want that this time. Our wonderful neighbor girl babysitter came over at 5:15 and we took off.

During the drive and all, I was surprisingly unpanic-y. We got checked in, I changed to a gown, and then we sat. Everyone else had IV's and were all set to go. Not me. I sat and sat patiently. Finally the Chief Resident doing my surgery came in and then everyone came in a big swarm. The charge nurse, the surgery nurse, the Anesthiology Resident, the Anesthiologist, all at once. We went over the surgical plans and then of course, I started my usual dry heaving due to a combination of nerves and not having anything on my stomach. They gave me some Zofran and then something to relax me, and I remember little else. At all.


During the surgery they did a 3-piece Lefort on my Upper Jaw, a BSSO on my lower jaw, and tweaked my nose (for free!). Unfortunately during the surgery, my left avelolar nerve was cut in half, which may result in permanent numbness of my lower lip. Also noted was that my lower jaw does not contain spongy bone. Only hard bone. Apparently most jaws are made up of both kinds of bone, but mine is not. That is why the nerve was cut. They cut through the hard layer to the spongy layer, but since I had no spongy layer, it was easy to cut right through.

After surgery was much, much nicer than my other surgeries. They let Paul see me (I vaguely remember and only after he prompted me) in the hall when they moved me from the OR to recovery. When I woke up in recovery, he was right there. And that was soooo nice.

When I came out I was so glad I could breathe okay. That was a HUGE worry for me. Thankfully, he had not banded me shut yet, so I had much better breathing ability.
The bad part was that my throat hurt so badly from the breathing tube that even with IV narcotics, it was horrible to try and swallow anything. Waking up from that surgery was like having strep throat plus a really bad cold with tons of sinus pressure (They cut through the sinuses for a Lefort and they fill with blood) and enormous amounts of sinus drainage. In fact, my nose bled all night into the next day.

Later that evening - around 6:00 pm, maybe? My surgeon and my Chief Resident came by. They informed me about the nerve injury, but let me know everything went quite well. I remember being quite loopy and fist bumping them. How.Embarassing. He did say that on a scale of 1 to 10 difficulty, I was a 14. Glad to know that I am special!!!

I had some periods of nausea, and they gave me Zofran and phenegren. My throat and mouth were so dry that I thought I would lose my mind; I was unable to swallow and felt like I was choking. But I made it through. They had the blood clot stockings on me that would inflate and deflate every 30 seconds all night long. There were shots of heparin in my hip. I was on this ward where it was so nice and quiet. In the middle of the night a loud male patient came in. PLUS A FIRE ALARM. Sigh.

I slept on and off until 4:00 am when the phlebotomist came in and then the Oral Surgery guys at 6:00 - two Chief Residents and two junior residents. One said he had never met me, but heard a lot about me. They were quite nice and I was glad they stopped by to check on me. They pulled off the bandages around my head. At this point, I felt like my throat was going to kill me, and wasn't drinking much. I finally begged for something, I didn't feel like milk and I didn't know if the broth was gluten free. They finally found me an Ensure that was 550 calories. I lost half of it via syringe, but wow, was that good!!!

Here are some immediate post surgery pics that my husband took. I don't remember a thing.