Surgery Day - Day 01

So the purpose of this blog is to update on a day-to-day basis of my progress through double jaw surgery. However, with how I was feeling over the past 3 days, I had no energy to even blog on here until day 4. Here's a recap of the jaw surgery process on day 1.

Thursday night, the day before surgery, my parents, Dave (boyfriend) and I drove up to Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin (an hour away from Milwaukee), to avoid the snowfall that would be heading our way on the day of surgery. I know that in videos I kept saying that I wasn't nervous or scared, but nerves set in by the time we hit the motel, and it was  a little difficult to try to fall asleep because of me freaking out. I knew that surgery would go well, but my major concern was with my sinuses and whether anything good would come for them, as well as the amount of pain that I could possibly go through. Although I did freak out a lot, I was able to fall asleep about an hour later after we arrived. It was great to have Dave there with me too because he kept saying that it'll only get better and I'll have such a great face, and my bite will be much better.

On Friday, we wake up around 5am, leave at 5:30 and head down to the surgery ward of St.Agnes hospital. The nurse takes me in around 6 to do the usual paperwork and medical questions. I get my IV (which was not as painful as I thought it would be), and then my parents and Dave come into the room to see me :)

Cheesy Smile

During the waiting time, all I can remember saying is how much water I wanted, and feeling a little jealous of the coffee that Dave had.

Dr. Schmidt comes in shortly after the anesthesiologist had left to check on my teeth and to go over the surgical process once more. At this point, I just want to get the surgery done and over with, and lay in a recovery room with a lot of suction tubes and pain medication.

 

Dr. Schimdt leaves, I say goodbye to my parents, given some anesthetics to put me to sleep, and am shipped off to the surgery room. Between leaving the waiting room and going to the surgery room, I have absolutely no clue what went on.

Want to know what the worst feeling in the world is when waking up? Waking up only to discover that you can't open. It was so scary for me at that moment because I wanted to see what was around me and see my family to let them know I was okay, but the only thing that ended up happening was me crying. 

During surgery, Dr. Schimdt cut across the top and bottom jaws. He cut the top jaw into 3 sections, moved the four front teeth down and matched them with the back teeth. Then he adjusted the back teeth to match the front. Dr. Schmidt believes that with what he did, it will improve my sinus condition. He also had to remove a lot of pus from my sinus cavities because of how much infection there was up there. I also have a splint going across my top teeth to control how I bite.

By the end of the night, I slept with a washcloth over my eyes to relieve irritation from the gunk that had formed, and to also help calm me down.

Pain today: 6/10