Post- Op day 4

I would have blogged my day to day stay in the hospital. But it was a largely negative experience so I will just give the highlights and talk about going home.

This surgery was rough. I was brought in to pre op in a group (likened to prison) where I was separated from my mom. I was not happy and neither was she. I’ve been so used to getting surgeries done at Children’s Hospital, where they bend over backwards to accommodate you and here, it was like you were just a nuisance to have. I get to my bed, still verging on panicking and then a nurse comes over and probably tried to make it better and empower me, but just made me feel like I was a baby. She was basically telling me that since I’m an adult, you can’t have your mom there for you all the time and you just need to man up and do things on your own because if you don’t succeeding won’t happen. Awesome. Thank you, perfect stranger for shitting on my life while jabbing me with the largest needle In the world  (no joke everyone was stunned at the size of it ). When they wheeled me away, they promised I’d be sedated, but I wasn’t. I wasn’t even that out of it. I was totally aware and totally freaking out. I panicked and made them stop because I was having a really hard time wrapping my brain around what was happening. Luckily, after like 5 minutes of protest they let me take a break. Then I was out. I woke up to another delight of a woman who once again treated me like I was incarcerated and was a useless piece of flesh. Getting in my face and telling me not to cry is a GUARANTEED way for the opposite to happen. She wouldn’t let me eat ice or see my mom and I desperately wanted both. I had to beg relentlessly just to get my mom. Once I got out of recovery, things turned around a little.

I had twoish nurses the whole 3 nights and 4 days I was there and they were named Pat and Joe. Pat rocks. She was so nice and so helpful and so relaxing that she made me so comfortable and set me at ease. Joe, though a little more tough was also very helpful. He helped explain to the residents how claustrophobic and anxious I was and got them to approach with caution and be careful. He did everything he could to make sure I was okay. That’s how you participate successfully in the medical field, pre op ladies.

When the residents did their rounds, it was like a scene straight from Grey’s Anatomy in the respects that they are all blood-thirsty. Each one of them wanted the better patients, the more experience and the more OR time. It was like they were in a constant duel to up the next resident, at my expense of course. Aside from one resident (Hi Dr. Mike!) they were inhumane. After I’d tell them something hurt and try to get them to stop forcing my jaw shut passed swollen tissue, they’d keep forcing until I’d panic. They also came in groups and all came at me at once. Things near my face unsettle me as is, but things near my face that are harmful and scary are even worse. My favorite was when both my mom and Joe gave them the “get it the hell together” talk. It worked for like one round. My least favorite resident was one with no compassion, but so much idiocy. Not only did he try to force my jaw shut, but when I began to cry and push his hand away, he KEPT GOING. Then he started talking to me like I was an idiot who was brain dead. My favorite line he used was “you do need to get up and walk… your legs still work so you don’t have an excuse to be lazy”. SHUT UP! I didn’t know that jaw surgery didn’t affect your legs! Fun fact, asswipe, I had been walking all day and started walking asap My favorite thing that could not have gone worse if it tried was when one resident decided to take my stitches dressings off and started pawing at my swollen and sore face like a cat chasing a string. Then he moved to the tactic where he used his thumb the way a really old aunt would scrape food off your face. No success. So he started to pinch my face and though my eyes watered and I was in a personal hell, It worked. Dr. Mike was nice though; he never slept but was so kind and really listened to me and my mom about how to approach an anxiety ridden mess. Props, man.

Lastly, my two friends and dad and sister came to visit me and it was such a boost. Even though the last thing I want is for someone to see me with the face I have right now, it was so refreshing to have encouragement from people that I know love me just as much as I love them.

I had to stay an extra night because I was so sleep deprived and nauseated that I couldn’t consume any calories for like 3 days. But I’m home now and just as miserable, BUT I’m on the mend. I have tons of movies and medicine to keep my occupied until I have to go back to crush my last semester of college.

I’m getting my cheek stitches out and have a follow up on Thursday- so I will probably update then.

<3

How about i rearrange your face!

Tomorrow, the classic 80’s-90’s school yard threat of rearranging someone’s face is becoming my reality. That’s right! I am getting my face essentially punched in and then punched out again all in the name of taking a clean, deep breath and chewing. In a matter of 6 hours I will go from normal to drooling mess of a swollen person. Tomorrow, I’m getting upper and lower jaw surgery as well as a rhino and septoplasty.

While most people at a glance see “rhinoplasty” and immediately jump to an elective plastic surgery, this surgery will [hopefully] change my life. I am getting all of this done to my face so that I can finally, after a year and a half, get a full night of sleep and for the first time ever, breathe out of my nose. In addition, none of my teeth other than a back right molar touch when I bite, and when I force a bite, my jaw locks. My jaw also locks whenever I move it too much, too quickly, or infrequently. I am also a mouth-breather: the personal hell that college assholes claim to fall victim to. My retort: sorry that I breathe out of my mouth… if you don’t like it, spend a little less time tweeting about it and a little more time finding a seat next to someone with nose-breathing luxuries. However, if everything  goes according to the plan, in two months time, I will have a symmetrical bite/face, be breathing acceptably for an asshole college peer, and be underway to a half marathon… and also heading toward graduation.

Many…MANY doctors have been asking me how I am. Many family members have been asking me if I am ready. The answers to these questions are terrified and potentially. The more I think about more than an hour ahead of what is happening currently, immediate panic ensues. If I think about waking up in the hospital high, full of cotton, elastic’d shut and things surrounding my skull (thank goodness I’m claustrophobic with things near my face) and the inability to talk, I will immediately panic and tear. The only thing keeping me sane [ironically] is remembering how sedated and drugged I will be the whole time. Usually my game plan is to put off surgeries (see post about kidneys) but this time, I am going to ask for the paperwork first and then as I lift my pen off the dotted line, I want to be sedated already. I don’t plan on sticking around on this one due to many an idiosyncrasy I have that make this more of a mental terror than actual terror. The more blissfully unaware I am of what the deal is, the better off I will be, and the better off everyone around me will be. Mom if you’re reading this, have the video camera at the ready.

This is going to be one hell of a recovery, and one hell of a terrifying experience. I will probably try to write about the journey as a way to make it a little less isolating since I won’t be in school or talking for a few weeks. I feel like the things I am worrying about the most are going to fall by the wayside of the things I haven’t considered, or won’t until 5 minutes before they take some chunks out of my face. Also, I probably will end up becoming an animal like those people on survivor during week two of my all liquid diet due to the famine I’ll be dealing with.

Perhaps in my recovery and reclusiveness, I’ll do something productive and make J.D. Salinger proud. Just because I’ll be a recluse and it’ll be me and my mom for like 2-3 weeks and then just me, doesn’t mean I can’t find a thrilling and savvy solitary activity where people don’t have to see the horror of my face. Maybe ill enter the world of online gaming and make a persona. Or perhaps I will tap back into my old roots of the weird acting class I took in high school where 90% of it was miming- I’ll just add a mask. The world is my green juice! I say green juice instead of oyster because I won’t be able to eat an oyster- aside from the fact that I don’t like seafood. Green juice is the juicing world equivalent, I feel, of fine seafood.  Anyways, I’ll try to update every day or every few days- for now I am going to enjoy my last 12 hours of eating the crunchiest, chewiest foods that my back right molar can handle!

An open letter to setbacks:

Let’s be real. We aren’t strangers. But we aren’t friends either. An acquaintance is probably the most accurate term.  You’ve been around for awhile, and we’ve had some times, but I probably won’t invite you to my wedding. Allow me to explain:

You’re kind of a bitch. You make many things way more difficult than is ultimately necessary. You evoke emotions within me that I pride myself on not being familiar with, namely: devastated and slumpy. More than that, you take something that is wholly a positive thing and make the journey to it shitty. You take a potentially beautiful journey and throw a giant flaming bag of dog crap right in the middle of it. It’s just who you are- it’s your nature. I guess that’s just something that I, the recipient, have to familiarize myself with. But here is the thing about your flaming bag of smelly setback- the more I try to put out the fire, the more crap I get on my shoes. The more crap I get on my shoes, the grosser everything becomes. Eventually, if I stamp on the dog crap long enough, my shoes are smelly and ruined and no one wants to be near the smelly shoe girl. However, here is where you’re okay sometimes. If I ignore your bag of crap that you toss in my path, and keep my eye on the prize and flee from the stench, the end of the journey is amazing. And even if I try to put out the flames and ruin my shoes, I’ll get to go buy new shoes that I can use to keep moving forward, rather than ruining those too. And once I get to the finish of my journey, I’ll be celebrating the end result, looking smoking hot in my awesome shoes- and you will be a distant odor reminding me of how far I traveled to where I am. So thank you? Maybe?

If you don’t understand this tortured metaphor, setbacks suck. Setbacks also make or break us. If you give in to a setback in your way and let it totally block you, it’s done its primary job. You’re sad and lonely and stuck in a sad cycle. If you maneuver around the setback and use it as a motivational tool to keep moving forward that is just what you will do. Use the setback to test your strength and surprise yourself. Enjoy the finished product more now that you’re more than certain you've earned it. If someone doubts you, turn that negativity into “I cannot WAIT to prove you wrong”. If you want something bad enough, why let something so minute in the grand scheme of life belittle that? I know you can do it. It's not easy to leave something so devastating be, but you can do it. Empower yourself, keep the finish line and sight and enjoy the amazing outcome.