Day 1

My husband was with me all night at the hospital (isn't he amazing?!). At some point, he went to a quiet room down the hall set up for families, and he slept on one of the couches. He came back in the wee hours of the morning to check on me.

I was doing pretty well in the morning. Not much change from surgery day; just more peeing and bleeding from the nose whenever I bent forward. I wasn't shaking as much when I walked around so that was nice, but breathing was still difficult after walking. I could breathe enough to supply oxygen when not moving, but when walking around, I'd get out of breath and couldn't suck in enough air to fix it. But I didn't panic too much, I knew that as soon as I'd lay down again it would be fine, and it was.

The swelling was a bit worse in the morning, but not by much. I also started getting bruises as you can see.

A small green bruise on each cheek.

The nurses encouraged me to drink some chicken broth, but I've always had this weird thing about swallowing warm or hot liquid. It's like I don't know how to swallow it. It takes more effort and I was too nervous about choking on it, so I wasn't so fond of drinking broth. I drank apple juice instead.

My surgeon came in around 11am and said I could be released today if I walked around and drank more. He said I could also stay an extra night if I wanted, but I was eager to get home and was feeling pretty good. So I drank drank drank that apple juice, and walked down the same corridor a few more times. The surgeon gave the OK for the discharge and told us to meet him at his office at 1pm. We got our belongings together, and the nurses gave us a bunch of supplies: extra catheter tubes to attach to the syringe, extra syringe (big and small), and a bottle of sterile saline solution to flush my nose with.

I felt so bad for my roommate. She was having some kind of infection in her hand and when they changed her dressing, it sounded horribly painful. She was crying and screaming. We also overheard their doctor talking about how her kidney function was inexplicably low. I felt so lucky in comparison to be dealing with just a jaw surgery. She was such a sweet girl too. She offered us some food she wasn't going to eat, but my husband explained to her that I couldn't open my mouth. When I was discharged, she wished me good luck and a speedy recovery, and I mumbled something similar, hoping she could understand me. I hope she's doing OK.

After the nurses took out my IV, I was wheeled down to the lobby and waited for my husband to get the car. It was SO busy down there. There were three lanes of cars coming to pick up patients. It felt like an airport. I was eager to get in the car... My face is pretty swollen and I could feel people staring a bit. I was also getting too hot in my coat, sitting in the sun, but I didn't want to remove it. I felt tired and weak, and just wanted to be in bed.

When my husband finally pulled up, I sat in the car and lowered the seat just like my hospital bed was, and closed my eyes. There was a lot of trafic in general so it took about 20 minutes to get to the surgeon's office, but I just sort of dozed off.

The staff at the surgeon made me come in as soon as I step foot in the office, which was nice. They had me take two X-rays, which was hard. I had to stand without moving but I was visibly swaying. It took everything for me to stay upright. Finally, they let me sit in the sort of dentist chair my surgeon has and lowered it. The surgeon came in almost immediately and showed me the HUGE difference in my airway. I'm extactic about this. The reason why I decided to go through with this procedure is because I was sleep apnea. My airway is extremely narrow because my bottom jaw grew down instead of forward, constricting it. So the main purpose of the surgery was to rotate the bottom jaw and push it forward, and also push my top jaw forward. The surgeon also cut down on the lenght of the top jaw because it was too long. Finally, the septoplasty was done to fix a deviated septum, which prevents me from sleeping well through my nose. Basically, all of this is supposed to fix my sleep apnea and hopefully fix the fatigue I've been struggling with for the past 5 years.

Before: That tiny red line is how narrow my airway used to be.

After: Look at that airway! Also, look at that horrible notch in my jaw where he cut it. Ew.

I don't know why I don't have those metal bands over the cut like I see on other blogs. I'm trusting my surgeon, but yeah. It's weird. It does look like there are small pins a little higher up, so maybe it's a different way of securing the jaw? I should ask him.

Anyways, afterwards, the surgeon cleaned up my nose. He basically had this tiny metal tube the size of a pencil, but much longer, that was like a little vacuum cleaner. He inserted that in my nostril and sucked a bunch of blood and clots, and it was quite uncomfortable. It wasn't so much painful as just... blergh. It's so sensitive in there, and having the flesh being sucked up that tube was NOT fun! I had tears streaming down my face. He also used tweezers so get clots out.

I have to say though, it really helped. I could breathe even better through my nose after he cleaned it.

Because I mentioned my teeth chattering and hurting when I walk around, my surgeon added a few rubber bands on my front teeth to keep them from moving too much. I was thankful for that, but it did reduce the slit where I could breathe through my teeth. It was still fine when not moving, but it made it even harder to catch my breath when walking.

The surgeon then instructed me to use the syringe and the saline rinse whenever my nose felt too congested to breathe (max every 2 hours), and to use Afrin as needed. He also encouraged me to take hot showers and said it would help a lot, but honestly, just the thought of standing in the opressive heat made me feel faint. I didn't use this trick on the first day. He also said I could start using my waterpik on the lowest setting, but I was way too weak to stand in front of the sink.

We finally went home and I got settled in bed. I put some episodes of How I Met Your Mother on TV and tried to sleep, but I couldn't. I kept waking up, trying to find a more comfortable position. I bought a wedge pillow from Target, but it wasn't exactly what I had expected. It was basically an overstuffed pillow. The stuffing wasn't packed enough that it kept the triangular shape, so it was kind of useless as far as "wedge" goes.

My jaw would also do these really painful jerking movements every time I was about to fall asleep, as if it was trying to get out of the rubber band. It would jerk forward or on the side. The pain was sudden and red hot, all along my joint to my ears and would linger for a few minutes. I think it's because in general, when I fall asleep, I tend to twitch. I guess the twitching extends to my jaw... even if it's banded shut. We texted the surgeon and he said it shouldn't be a problem so I tried to move on, but it was hard to fall asleep with that.

I took one dose of painkiller and a Zofran to try to help.

Now I have to be honest, the first night home wasn't pleasant, and I regretted checking out early from the hospital. If I could do it again, I'd stay an extra night. I think I hadn't realized how much the IV fluids were contributing to my general well-being. Without them, I started feeling shaky and weak, like I would pass out. I also had cold sweat (no fever, thankfully), and I just generally felt awful. I drank some apple juice and water, hoping it was just low blood sugar, but it was making me anxious. I kind of fell into this cycle of feeling shaky, getting nervous that I felt so horrible, and shaking even more because of anxiety. I couldn't tell what was nerves and what was a real symptom. I started feeling pretty nauseated, but didn't throw up. Again, it was hard to tell if I was feeling nauseated from the anxiety or because of a real physical problem. The effect was the same though: I did not feel good.

My face also started feeling REALLY hot, kind of like a fever but way worse. My surgeon said I would hit the peak of the swelling that night or the next day, and I think maybe I did hit it that night and that's what the hot feeling was. It was uncomfortable and made me feel feverish, but I checked a few times and had no fever. I used ice packs and it did help a bit.

Needless to say, I didn't sleep much all night. A few times I dozed off and had these uncomfortably vivid dreams. It wasn't so much the content (which I can't quite remember), but just how VIVID they were, and yet I was still borderline awake, aware that I was in bed and everything. It was weird.

I just tried to take deep breaths and remind myself that everyone has a hard time during the first 3-4 days, and that by day 5, it would be much better. I clung to that day 5 like it was my safety jacket. "Time will pass no matter what, and you'll get to day 5", I'd tell myself.

Thankfully, the hours did go by fairly fast, considering how awful I felt.

But yeah, that was a surprise for me. It wasn't the pain that was causing the problem, I just generally felt so faint, weak and clammy. I was afraid that something was seriously wrong was happening and it gave me anxiety.

EDIT: For those of you reading this, I eventually figured out that it was lack of food and water that was causing these problems. You'll see the progress in the next few posts, but if you feel like this early on in your recovery, remember to get enough calories and water; it's critical.