I am back from my jaw surgery. I had a lower jaw advancement/BSSO (approx 7 or 8 mm), and my wisdom tooth in the top right hand side of my jaw was taken out (I don’t have one on the left side).
Short Version:
Well I had my surgery yesterday, Tuesday Oct 7th. I was in theatre at 8am and being woken up in recovery at 9:55am. Everything went well, according to my surgeon I have less than the average swelling, which is good. The nurses were all wonderful. It is now 6:00pm and I have been home for about 6 hours.
Detailed Version: (sorry this is so long but I didn’t want to forget anything)
After not having much sleep the night before, I woke up at 4:30, and got ready to go to hospital. We arrived at the hospital early at about 6:15am. I was soooo hungry I started feeling sick, so I had to take a walk in the cool fresh air before we went into the hospital. I checked in, and was taken to my room to relax for a while before my surgery. My surgery was first for the day, at 8:00am. The nurse got all my details, and gave me a gown to put on and asked me to hop into bed. The next nurse came in and asked some more questions, then took my blood pressure and temperature. About 20 minutes to 8:00am I went to the toilet, and the nurse asked me to get under the warm blankets that she had put onto the bed, so I would be nice and warm when I went to theatre. A few minutes after this the anaesthetist came to have a chat and I told him I was worried about being sick after the anaesthetic. He told me that this usually only occurs in about 15% of cases, and that they would give me some anti-nausea medication to reduce the chance of me being sick, as they don’t want the patient to be sick, either!
A few minutes after this I said goodbye to my mum and sister and I was wheeled into the 'holding bay' before going into theatre. The anaesthetist put the needle in my arm that the anaesthetic would go in to, and also for the drip as well. I was then greeted by lots of different faces that would be there during my surgery, including the nurse that I met at my last appointment with the surgeon. I was then wheeled into the theatre at 8:00am, a very bright and sterile environment, but lots of friendly faces. I had to scoot over to the cold operating table with my warm blankets still over me, and feel the edges of the table with my hands to make sure I was in the middle. Then the anaesthetist put morphine in my drip, making my body feel really heavy, and a few seconds after that I had a mask put over my mouth and nose and he said to ‘have a nice sleep’.
After this I remember waking up and hearing everything the people around me were saying, I was in recovery and I had woken up at 9:55am. I found it very hard to keep my eyes open, I wanted to look around but every time I tried everything kept moving. Then somebody told me to turn my head (it was on one side) and to close my eyes and have a little sleep. The next thing I remember was going back to my room, I looked at the clock and it was about 10:20am. I already had a beautiful bunch of flowers in my room, they were from my orthodontist, how sweet! I slept on and off for a little bit until 11:00am, when my mum and sister came to see me. They left at about 12:30 because they thought I would get more sleep if I wasn’t trying to stay awake for them. So I did get some sleep on and off, but it was really weird, as I would feel like I had slept for half an hour or more, and I would look at the clock, and it would have only been 5 minutes!
The nurses then cleaned me up, and were going to put me in my pajamas, but then when I leant forward I still had blood oozing out of my mouth, and they didn’t want to make more washing for my mum, so they just put me in a fresh hospital gown. After some more sleep I had some water, out of a small glass, and I mastered that very quickly, which was good. I also had some apple and orange juice. At about 4:00, some small tubs of yoghurt, jelly and ice cream were given to me. Not so much success with these, I eventually got them down, but had to suck them off the spoon to get them past the elastics in my mouth - I’m sure this would be really funny to watch!
And at regular intervals the nurses would come and change my icepacks in my little elastic thing around my head, oh, and apparently my hair was too clean, as the elastic thing kept slipping off!! I was hooked up to an IV for fluids, through the same tube in my arm as the one used in surgery, BUT every time I bent my arm, the machine would keep beeping! It turned out that the needle was placed too close to the inside bend in my elbow, so every time I bent it (trying to eat, touch my face, drink, etc), the drip could not continue to pump the liquid through, and so it would beep until a nurse came to fix it. Eventually, before I went to sleep for the night, the nurse put a plastic tray sort of thing under my elbow, and bandaged around it so that I wouldn’t be able to bend it. I was surprised that after all the fluids pumping through me, and all the drinks that I had (three small glasses of water, two of apple juice and one of orange juice), I only needed to go the toilet at around 6:00 or 6:30pm! But when I did, I wasn’t sure if it was going to stop!! After the first time I went to the toilet, I kept needing to go about every hour or two, the only annoying thing was the nurses would have to come and unhook me from the machines so I could go (blood pressure cuff on arm, clip on finger, and the IV). One nurse did leave me connected to the IV and I walked with it, though that only happened once.
I woke up a few times during the night, but overall I slept pretty well. I was also getting antibiotics through my IV as well. From the time that I got out of surgery, the nurses would check on me and ask if I had any pain, or to rate my pain between one and ten, but I didn’t have any! It was only at around 11:00pm that my jaw started to ache, so I was given some tablets to get rid of the pain, and another tablet to help me sleep a bit better. I woke up at about 6:00am, dozed for a little bit, went to the toilet, and then turned my TV on for a little while. I drank some more water and apple juice.
The surgeon came to see me at around this time, and informed me that everything went really well, and that he thought my swelling looked good, less than the average. He asked me what I had been drinking/eating, and seemed pretty impressed. He gave me some pages of post-op instructions, and an appointment for the first post-op checkup (Friday 17th Oct). He then said that I could go home this morning, and that he would get my scripts filled and then I could go. Then I flicked through a couple of magazines that I had with me, this was around 7:00am, and my mum and sister had just arrived as they knew I was getting discharged in the morning. They could have waited a couple more hours, but they didn’t want to get stuck in traffic. At about 7:30am, some breakfast was brought up for me, which included a jug of chocolate milk, some fruit yoghurt, some custard, some pureed apple, and apple juice! I ate all of it, except for the apple juice and puree, as I didn’t think they would mix well with the dairy.
A nurse came and disconnected me from all of the machines so I could go to the toilet and have shower, but didn’t worry about reconnecting them when I came back. The shower was a bit of a problem, though, as the hospital I went to is undergoing renovations/upgrades at the moment (my surgery was done in a brand new theatre), and the water was on ‘rations’ for a short amount of time. This time happened to be when I was going to have a shower, no water came out, and then brown water came out!! Needless to say, I did not have shower, but I freshened up with a few face wipes that I had packed in my bag. When the water was all back to normal, the nurse said I could go and have a shower, but I didn’t bother because I was going home soon and would prefer to have a shower at home. I got dressed after I ate (so I didn’t have to mess up my clothes - lots of dribbled custard and yoghurt), and then a nurse came and gave me an antibiotic tablet to take, took the tube thing out of my arm (ouch!! It looks like my arm has been waxed in that small patch, lol), and said that we were just waiting for the scripts to be filled, and that we could go and wait in the patient/visitor lounge room. So we waited in there for a little while, and after we got the scripts we went home.
I am VERY HAPPY to report that I did not experience any nausea at all, and I already have almost all feeling back, the only place that feels numb is a small vertical line between the bottom of my lower lip and my chin. I had been mostly all numb at the hospital, but since about 1:00pm today, I have had lots of tingling and pins and needles, and all the rest of the feeling has come back except for that small area I just described.
Overall my surgery experience was very good, I’m a little bit sore but have been keeping on top of my medications and resting when I need to.
Hopefully I will update this in the next few days as I recover more, and I will also have some photos to add when I get them onto the computer.
Take care everybody and best wishes to those of you with upcoming surgeries!
Emma
wisdom teeth removed under GA nov07 * Braced 8/2/08 * 2 premolars removed Apr08 * Adjustment 4 rebonding, 4 molar bands & new wire 4/7/08 * 31Jul wire change * 28 Aug last wire fitted and lower powerchain put on. 29th May moulds and x rays. 31st July Surgery date 
