¡He love his car, que romantico!

Red beans and rice never tasted so good

Today is day six since the jaw surgery last Friday. I’m kind of amazed that tomorrow it’ll have been a week since the surgery. For the first few days, I wondered if I could make it to a week from surgery. Fortunately, I did! The swelling is really starting to come down now. I’m still pretty swollen and fairly uncomfortable, but compared to last weekend, this is a walk in the park. I’m also getting the hang of the elastics and the splint. Part of my first check-up was adding an elastic to fix up my lower jaw a bit and how to take the plastic splint in and out for cleaning. The splint prevents my upper jaw from contracting as the incisions heal. I have to take it out a couple of times a day to clean and to sometimes to eat. I made myself some red beans and rice from a box tonight and it’s never tasted so good. I’ve had pretty much nothing but juice and protein shakes for almost a week so solid food was pretty darn good.

I got brave enough to post some pictures. You can get a sense of how swollen I still am (mind you six days after the surgery). I was much more swollen over the weekend. You can also make out some of the bruising which has mostly shown up on my neck. My face is kind of red because starting today I’m under orders to apply heat to my face a few times a day to help reduce the swelling. So my nose got a little red. I unfortunately don’t have any true before and after shots yet. I’m going to try and get those from my orthodontist as well as copies of my x-rays if I can to post. Until then, take a look at the vacation pictures from earlier posts to see what I normally look like. :)

Swelling at day 6.

It's hard to tell until I get better pictures but the point is
that my lower jaw is behind my upper jaw and centered just right.
Also with the sutures and the swelling, smiling is kind of hard and painful.
You can kind of make out the elastic for my lower jaw in this one.

1st Sugery Follow-Up

This morning I had my first surgery follow-up with Dr. Bloomquist. Things went just great and I’m healing up nicely. I got new wrap around x-rays taken which were neat because for the first time I could see all the little screws in my upper and lower jaw. I think James counted 16 of them in my upper jaw alone. I’m hoping to get an image of it to post soon from my orthodontist. Anyway, I go back in 3 weeks to see him again and until then I’ve got to keep wearing the plastic splint in my mouth and I have to run an elastic diagonally across the front of my mouth to help right the position of my lower jaw. The party never stops in my mouth! J I guess I need to get used to that though because most of the fine tuning of the position of my teeth will be done using elastics too. The pain is coming down and so is the swelling. I have a little more brusing showing up today but nothing like I expected it to be.

Jaw Surgery

Well, the jaw surgery is done! I’m home now, on my fifth full day of recovery and I’m doing really well. I thought that since I’ve got the time, I would write about the whole experience.

Thursday Night
On Thursday night, James made his famous mexi-mac and cheese for me. It’s one of my favorite dishes he makes and knowing that I wasn’t going to be eating it again for some time made me wolf most of it down that evening. I got one last workout in at the gym and our friend Tom came by and hung out for a while. Then it was off to bed and the first milestone on the way to surgery, midnight before. After midnight, I’m not allowed any food or drink. I cheated and had a small glass of water in the morning, but nothing to eat.

Surgery
My surgery check-in time was actually Noon which was kind of good and bad. Good in that I didn’t have to dash out of the house that morning over to Swedish, bad that I had to sit around that morning and stew over what was about to happen. We got to Swedish, went through the usual paperwork at surgery check-in and then I was off to one of the private rooms to change into my gowns. Once I was in the gowns, I started freaking out. Thank God, James was there with me, or there may have been a Dylan shaped hole in the side of Swedish left as I ran out of the building. James calmed me down and I was taken downstairs to the surgery center. The transporter escorting us asked me if I was ready for a nap. As ready as I was every going to be I guess. Things just got more fun from there. Next, I was waiting in a large waiting room, for the next round of torture. I had to take 2-3 large, disgusting nose-full’s of nasal spray to help with the breathing tube they were going to run down my nose. They actually asked me (I don’t know if there were joking or not) if I wanted to be awake for the putting in and taking out of the tube, I said no. Then it was time for the IV. I nearly passed out at this point, but again, I had James, he held my hand, and I made it through. I was placed on a hydrating solution and a bag of antibiotic which was refrigerated. The antibiotic really gave me the shakes because it was so cold. Then it was time. I gave James a big hug and they walked me into my operating room. This was the scariest part of the whole process. The room was freezing cold, brightly light with these spooky huge circular fluorescent lights, and a table there in the middle of it all just for me. The nurses were very nice, lied me down and got me all plugged into to monitoring machines. What happens next is a bit of a blur. They start asking me questions about what I’m going to be taking in school. I remember getting the words computer science out and then nothing. The next thing I know I’m very upset at the women telling me to breathe as I’m being wheeled to my recovery room.

Recovery Room
I have to say that the hardest part about the first day or so after the surgery is not the swelling or the pain in your mouth, it’s the irritation left by the breathing tube. My throat was just raw and it made swallowing very difficult. I was really lucky though on the recovery room end. I had my own room to myself (my friend Andrew had to share one) and it had a nice little view of SODO from the windows. I was propped upright in a hospital bed and soon thereafter, I got to see James. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see him in my life. The runner up was the next morning when he came to pick me up. If I remember correctly, this was about 5pm Friday. I think I pretty much spent the rest of the evening in an out on morphine, anti-nausea medication, antibiotics, and anti-inflammatory steroids; that and every 8 hours or so more decongestant and more nasal spray. I don’t think I ate or drank really anything that day. I did have some apple juice, tried some ginger ale but that made me nauseas, but no food of any kind. I only had one real close point where I thought I was going to get sick. My surgeon was really amazing at what he did. I had just had upper and lower jaw surgery where (infer at will) my jaws were cut from my skull. Even so, the bleeding was very minimal. While you are in the hospital, you have access to one of those suction machines like when you’re at the dentist. This is used to suck all the blood the pools up in your mouth. Gross I know, but I was very lucky that my bleeding was so minimal. I think I did get a good snoot full of blood Friday evening and that’s what made me so nauseous. Fortunately, the nurse came with some more anti-nausea medicine and that cleared things up. I do have some pictures of me in the hospital, I’m just waiting to get them. My friends Eugene and Andrew stopped by to visit me in my room. Andrew had gone through upper jaw surgery earlier this year with the same surgeon. It really meant a lot to me to have them stop by and visit me not only to support me, but to help James take care of me when I got home.

Me and James.

Me, Eugene, and Andrew.

Day 1-3
Dr. Bloomquist came by early on Saturday morning, maybe 7am. He took a quick look at me, cut some of the elastics holding my jaw closed, and said I would be discharged whenever I was ready. I think James had me home and on the couch by 9am. I spent pretty much the next two days in and out while on the anti-nausea and Demerol that they sent me home with. By day two, I started to feel what is the least pleasant part of recovery, the facial swelling. Your face really swells up. I was (and still am) very lucky though. My bruising is pretty minimal, and my swelling seems to be getting a little bit better with each passing hour. However, if you’re thinking about jaw surgery, you should expect 5 days or so of major facial swelling, and being pretty damn uncomfortable. Fortunately, the drugs they give you manage this pretty well. I actually found that prescription level Ibuprofen worked just as good (during the day) as the Demerol. I only used the Demerol at night to help me sleep. The hospital also sends you home with ice packs that I pretty much didn’t stop wearing for the first 4 days that I was home. In fact, James went out and bought some cold compress freezer packs for me. I think these really cut down the swelling and the bruising. They stay cold much longer and deliver more cold than ice cubes. I am also taking a homeopathic remody on the advice of a couple of people called Arnica. This is supposed to help your body reduce swelling and bruising. It seems to have worked a bit for me as I’m doing really well on this end. I take it internally three times a day and apply a cream called Traumeel a couple of times a day.

Day 4
On Day 4, I really started to bounce back. I was still very swollen, but I was starting to manage the pain with just ibuprofen, and I was moving around and feeling the most like myself since the surgery. I was also starting to get my appetite back and was eating a little bit of everything liquid that I could find. On Day 4 is when I also started to notice the feeling coming back in some of the numb parts of my face. Anyone who has jaw surgery will loose some of the feeling in their face for a finite period. I still cannot feel the right side of my lower lip or the area below it down to my chin. There is a crazy tingling, twitching feeling that started about day 4 which I can only assume are the nerves starting to wake back up again and heal. It’s really funny feeling and usually not painful.