Kri's experience

[Guest guest]

This is a condenced version of the 6-page description I wrote up of

my two day, one night hospital stay and my first day home. If you

want the full version, let me know and I'll e it to you.

I had my upper surgery on Thursday, March 25th. He rotated my top

jaw using the front teeth as a pivot and moving the back teeth up

about 6 mm. I was splinted, but not banded at first. I wore a

splint for two years before braces, so it's no big deal for me.

The morning of surgery I went in at 7:15 for a 9:30 surgery. I

thought that I would be given a `relaxing' drug to make me less

nervous, then a twilight drug for while they put in all the IV lines

and catheter and all that, and finally a knock-you-out cold drug for

the surgery itself. When the nurse said that she was giving me the

relaxing drug, I said I didn't need it. She said, " The

anesthesiologist ordered it. You're getting it. " Turned out that

the `relaxing' drug was the twilight drug. I remember being wheeled

out of the prep room, but not the ride down the hall or anything

after that.

While we were in the waiting room, my husband had asked if you

dreamed under anesthetics. I said I'd let him know. I had a dream

in the recovery room. I dreamt that I was standing in front of a

group of people telling them about my surgery. The audience turned

into several people standing about me as I laid down, all of them

very busily and efficiently doing things that I couldn't really

feel. It took me a while to figure out that I was awake and that

the people were unhooking me or whatever. My throat felt like

things were in it, and I kept swallowing convulsively. It turned

out I was already un-tubed, and after a while I didn't have to

swallow so much. I spoke to one woman, and she understood me right

away. She said I was fine and everything had gone well. My face

was wrapped up with a whole mess of stuff, ice bags and the like,

giving me tunnel vision. I motioned for paper, and she brought it

to me. I wrote to her, " It's a good thing I'm not claustrophobic. "

We talked a little more. She said that my nurse was a man, and I

said no way. I told her to send him to the men's ward. All the

other workers laughed. The one talking to me said no, I'd like him,

don't worry about it. I asked if he was old and ugly. More

laughter, and some other people came over to join the conversation.

Everyone agreed he wasn't old, but they were slower to say he wasn't

ugly. One said that he had a beard, but wasn't sure how I felt

about that. My hubby has a beard and I love them. I gave a thumbs

up and said beards were good, but I still didn't want a male nurse.

I got overruled. At least he never had to do anything personal for

me. Since we were having such a good time in recovery, I wrote to

the nurse, " Visualize whirled peas. " She didn't get it. Even

saying it aloud, and having the other workers all laughing, she

never got it. She's probably still trying to firgure it out.

Two things I noticed while in recovery. Both of my hands were

completely free (the IV line didn't tie down that hand) and I was

able to motion and touch my face immediately. In fact, I got blood

on one hand from doing just that. Nobody tried to stop me. The

second thing was that as we talked, my mind felt incredibly clear.

I told the nurse that I felt good mental clarity, and she said, " You

may feel like this now, but you won't remember half of this later. "

I remember our conversation very well, but I couldn't tell you so

much as the color of her hair, or what she was wearing, or any of

the trip from recovery to my room. I do remember that my things

were put on the end of my bed, and one of the nurses saw a quilt I

had made to bring with me. She oohed and ahhed, and I told her to

go ahead and take it out of the bag and open it up so she could see

it. She did, and loved it so much she went around showing all of

the workers in recovery. I could hear them all exclaiming over it.

Later on my husband hung it up from the shelf in my room, so that as

I laid in bed I could look at it. During the night when I couldn't

sleep I traced the pattern with my eyes. It was very relaxing.

My next lucid thought was as I got wheeled into my room, I

said, " Oh, a private room even. " My husband and parents came in

very soon, while I was still being hooked up to things. I did my

best Roman Holiday impression for them. " So-o-o happy! " They broke

out laughing. Morphine is a wonderful thing if you can tolerate

it! I only used for about four or five hours, but I was very, very

happy the whole time. I can see how people get addicted to

narcotics.

They gave me a mask that blew wet oxygen over my mouth and nose, but

was open on the top so that I could reach down and mop up my runny

nose and drooling lips. It felt good all that day, but by morning I

was sick of it, and they said I didn't have to have it if I didn't

want. Actually, everything felt good that first day. They gave me

a suction tube I could use whenever I wanted to clean out my mouth

and throat. Because I was numb I could use it all over my tongue

and the back of my throat without gagging. I got up lots of

phlegm. The next day the numbness wore off and I could only use it

around the outside of my tongue, not the top of the back. It was

still useful. They said if I threw up, to stick the suction tube

into my mouth and just suck it all away. Didn't need to. I also

loved my catheter. I didn't have to get up and use the bathroom

once all night. I told my husband I wanted one for home so I could

sleep through the night without making trips. That wore off the

next day, too. I didn't realize the anesthetic was keeping me from

feeling things everywhere. When it wore off the next morning I

hated the catheter, so they took it out. I hated my IV, but that

stayed in. Every time they'd ask if I had pain, I'd point to my

hand and say, " This is the worst of it. " I was basically told tough

beans. When I was all numb everywhere I was willing to stay in the

hospital an extra day and have everything done for me. Once I

started feeling my hand I wanted out just to get rid of the IV. On

the day of surgery my facial pain was more pressure, which I rated a

4 out of 10, and it was very easily controlled with morphine. I

quit pressing the button at 6:30 p.m. and was fine until morning,

when I asked for Tylenol instead. I took only one pill in the

morning, and one in the afternoon, and my facial pain never got

above a 2 or maybe 3. I could breath through my nose right from the

first. A few minutes after the nurses left me alone in my room

right out of recovery, we turned on Jeopardy! I whipped my parents

and my husband at it. A few times I gave an answer that they

thought was drug-induced, only to find out that I was right.

However, I can't now tell you what a single quesiton was, or even

what the final Jeopardy! category was.

My surgery lasted 4.5 hours and went very well. I lost very little

blood and my bite was perfect when he was done with me. By the time

the doc saw me in my room, I was already sitting up drinking water

from a cup. The first time the nurse sat me up straight, I

immediately got nauseous. He put an anti-nausea drug into my IV,

and it went away immediately. I never got nauseous again and never

threw up. They said they sucked all the blood out of my stomach in

recovery. I had chicken broth and apple juice for supper. It

tasted wonderful and I was starving. The first time I put the spoon

to my mouth I turned it over to empty it, and poured soup all over

my lap. I couldn't feel my mouth and didn't know I wasn't quite

there! We got a towel for a big bib and I used both hands to make

sure that my spoon was in my mouth. Everything tasted so good (and

still does). As I was slurping and Mmm'ing over my soup, I

mentioned that I thought hospital food was supposed to be nasty.

The nurse said, " If you think that tastes good, I won't tell you

otherwise. " I ate a lot and was always hungry for more. Even so, I

dropped 6 lbs the two days (one night) I was in the hospital. I

usually weight 125, put on 6 lbs for the surgery, and this morning

when I weighed myself I was back to 125. I'm told I'll lose more.

No biggie.

Going back to that first night in the hospital, my upper lip, nose,

and the cheek around my nose was numb. However, I could feel a line

from the bridge of my nose to the tip. By morning I could feel a

little farther down the tip, and today (day 2) I can feel a little

down the sides of my nose. My upper lip is still the most numb,

which I think is good as long as those stitches are still in there.

My cheeks can feel pressure. The most odd numb part is a little bit

seems to have seeped up to the right half of my right eyelid,

dragging it down a little. It's hard to keep that eye open

sometimes. I can feel it just fine, and the left half of that

eyelid is normal, but the right side feels heavy. It's not visibly

noticeable. I'm a little bruised, and not really all that swollen.

That first day I felt what I thought was tape residue on my nose.

It got worse, and spread all over my face. I eventually figured out

that it was the steroid oil that everyone talks about. I didn't

realize it happened immediately. I was scraping it off my face with

my fingernails. Yuck! It's starting to calm down now, though, and

I haven't gotten any acne from it yet, so I suppose it could be

worse. Maybe it will come back to haunt me later?

My husband stayed with me all night. I'm very glad he was there. I

needed little things every two minutes. I couldn't have bothered the

nurses with that much fussing, but he was glad to do it. We also

had some quiet, intimate time together during the night when neither

of us could sleep and we could just sit and talk and hold hands. I

asked him if he thought a sense of humor was a gift from God. He

said yes, and so was feistiness. I said I'm not only that, I'm

Fightin' Irish. He said he wants to get me a t-shirt of that

fighting leprechaun guy, with a jaw wrap around his head. One funny

moment – he didn't want to wear jeans to sleep, so he put on his

best pj's – black flannel with Snoopy and his water dish, and the

words, " When do we eat? " I told him not to let anyone see him

wearing that. I didn't sleep much during the night, but I must have

fallen asleep once because I woke up when my ice pack plopped into

my lap and everything tied to my head was in my face or around my

neck. I held everything up so it didn't blind or choke me, and my

husband went running into the hall for a nurse to come untangle me.

(I pushed the button but it didn't do any good.) He had to walk all

the way down to the nurses' station in those pj's to find someone.

When they did me back up, they caught my hair in the Velcro. I

didn't know it until the doc came the next day and asked if I had

any pain. Nope, not really. Negligible. He took off my wraps and

pulled my caught hair, which was firmly entrenched in the

Velcro. " Pain! Pain! Yes, I'm in pain! " It took him and my

husband together to get me loose, all the while making jokes about

using scissors. Ladies, if you cut your hair, do it BEFORE surgery!

That first night I hardly slept. I laid awake, quiet and peaceful

and not restless at all, just sitting there, occasionally trying to

get comfortable. My back and neck were unhappy. My breastbone had

ached earlier, and they told me that they tip you back during

surgery and hold you there a long time, and your chest and neck can

get sore from it. The pain in my chest went away pretty quickly,

but my neck didn't like me sitting up all night. I folded a blanket

behind the small of my back, and hung another blanket off the back

of the bed, with the end rolled up behind my neck.

The doc came back in the late afternoon and said I could go home,

but first he was going to put in rubber bands because my bite was

slipping off. My pain level, which had been about a 1 before he

came in, shot to the yelping level the moment he touched me. It

felt like he was shoving my upper lip around. He was NOT happy with

my bite. My perfect bite from the day before had shifted

significantly, so that I was heavy on my molars and my lower jaw was

nowhere near fitting into the splint. He said that my back teeth

were riding on an edge, and if I could get them over that edge so

they fell to the other side, everything would slide into place.

However, my mouth doesn't open that far and the more he pushed and

pulled, the more I yelled and begged him to go away. After much

torturous work he finally got in three sets of rubber bands on each

side, one on top of the other in a thick triangle. It wasn't what

he wanted and he was upset that I don't have enough hooks in my

mouth for him to do more. I don't have braces on my last molars,

and the surgical hooks that the ortho put on are useless. He says

that if my bite doesn't slip into place on its own by Monday, he's

going to knock me out in his office and make things fit one way or

the other. He's going to give me more hooks and hold things in

place firmly with bands. He says that pretty much what's stopping

him now is my lack of hooks and my intense pain level when he

touches my lips. He can't work while I'm writhing and yelling. I

can't hold still to pain like that. Within half an hour of the time

he stopped, my pain level dropped back down to 1 or 2, but today my

jaws are aching from being pulled around. So far they're not

slipping into place, and when I try to help them along the pain in

my joint is incredible. I don't mind being knocked out again, no

matter how long I'm groggy.

Now that I'm banded everything not thin liquid has to be pushed

through my teeth with a syringe. When I was nine years old I broke

a lower tooth, which has never needed repair. The hole is just the

right size to put the end of the syringe against and squirt

through. What a Godsend!

I took pain meds before bed, not for pain, but to help me sleep. I

did sleep well enough last night, my first night home, in a lazy-boy

I borrowed from my dad. At 2 a.m. I woke up to see my husband

walking toward me around the end of the bed. I asked what he was

doing, and he didn't answer. He kept coming closer, slowly, and I

couldn't figure out why he didn't say anything. Then I heard a

crinkling nose, and realized that what I thought was his shoulder

was a helium balloon, weighted so it will `walk' along the ground.

My cat has been playing with it, knocking the weights (pen caps)

around and chewing the ribbon. I got up and put the balloon in

another room so she could play with it without keeping me awake.

Kris