At 8am I got into my theatre gown and was given a premed whilst I watched the clock tick round to 9am.
I was pleased I was first on the list so I could get it all over and done with and not spend the day feeling starving and waiting.
They came to take me to theatre at 9.25am. I was wheeled down in my bed and taken to the anaesthetic room. The anaesthetist told me that they were just going to put me to sleep the usual way, no need for fibre optic stuff. The nurses were still attaching me to wires and stuff and the anaethetist said something about my hand feeling strange and then the next thing, that was me alseep.
This anaesthetic guy was good...No counting backwards from 10, no I'm going under feeling and I didn't even feel the anaesthetic going up the veins in my arms.
I woke up in recovery, well kind of, I remember being really desperate for a pee and somehow balancing on a bedpan and peeing for Scotland! I also didn't wake up feeling groggy or in pain, just one minute I was put to sleep, the next I was waking up. I think I was in recovery a long time. I also remember seeing an ex boyfriend of mine working in recovery! He didn't speak, but either I had broken his heart when I dumped him all those years ago, or he decided that the circumstances really weren't appropriate for a 'hey long time no see' conversation :D
Whilst in recovery I do remember a nurse telling me that she thought I had beautiful hair and asking me if it was naturally curly.
Now anyone who knows me, knows I *HATE* my hair so to have someone ask me in recovery about it just seemed pure madness!
As far as I'm aware, I was transferred to the High Dependency Unit about 4pm.
I was on oxygen (through nasal cannula), and now had 2 cannulas in my hand, one for an IV of Hartman's Solution and one for my morphine PCA.
I know my husband and kids came to see me and I remember chatting to them, I think I was more out of it than I thought I was. My husband did tell me that he had phoned the ward at 11am to ask if I was ok to be told I was still in theatre. That was ok, he knew I was first on the list but that the op would take 1.5hrs - 2hrs. He was told to phone back at 2pm. He phoned at 2pm to be told that I was still in theatre! The poor man was starting to panic now. He was told to phone back about 4pm.
Finally he phoned about 4.30pm and was told I was back on the ward. I can only imagine what that must have been like for him, having his wife 'still in theatre' for 6 hours' when the op was supposed to only take 2 hours max.
Here is my first post surgery photo, taken about 6 or 7 hours post-op (excuse the ice cream splodge, was the first thing I got to eat)
The surgeon came to see me and said that everything went well and was looking good.
After I saw the photo my husband took, I was amazed at how I was looking; the difference in my face shape was amazing! I could feel tears again. But there's a funny thing about jaw surgery, you can't cry properly because you can't open your mouth properly.
I had been worried about the morphine because I'd had a morphine injection when I was a lot younger for a migraine headache and I hallucinated with it. But fortunately this time, the morphine did it's job, no hallucinations and I think I had a comfortable night.
I wasn't in too much pain. I kept saying that it was a cold sore and the nurses and doctors were thinking I was yabbering about a cold sore as in what you get on your lips, but what I meant was that the pain was like the pain you get when something is freezing cold.
I know at one point during the night they had to stop the morphine because I was only taking 10 breaths a minute.
I was surprised at how little pain I was in, I was expecting it to be really painful, like worst pain ever. But it really wasn't.
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