Day 1

Firstly, sorry for my delay in posting, I just haven't felt up to it until now.

So Day 1... I'll talk you through the night of Day 0 going into Day 1.  The night wasn't too bad, I managed to sleep at the hospital.  Apart from I woke up at one point and saw the nurse (this is the nurse Agnes who I mentioned in my last post) asleep in the chair in front of me!  Erm hang on, aren't you meant to be looking after us, not falling asleep?!  When I woke up the machine I was hooked up to started to doing this alarm noise - I think it was just because there'd been a change in my body because I'd woken up, so the nurse decided that this would be a good time for her to get up and leave the room... for ages!  This alarm kept going off, which was stopping me getting back to sleep, and probably the other patient too.

When the nurse eventually came back I asked if I could have some more liquid paracetamol because my jaw was starting to ache.  She said she'd go and get it, then when she came back she said 'Are you in pain?'  and I said 'It's just getting really achey'.  Now either she didn't understand my response, or she just wouldn't accept it as a valid response, as she replied 'No. Are you in pain?'  So I just said yes to shut her up so that she'd give it to me.

I fell asleep again and woke up at around 6am, at which point the nurse decided to turn the lights on, despite the fact that the two people in the room had just had their jaws sawn in half and needed as much sleep as they could get.  I asked her if I could go to the toilet, so she came over and unhooked me from all the machines, and then did her usual thing of walking out the room.  I didn't know whether I was meant to go to the toilet on my own or wait for her to escort me seeing as this was the first time I'd got out of bed since surgery.  So I got up and managed to put my dressing gown and slippers on, and then just sat on the edge of the bed.  She eventually came back in and just said 'Did you pass urine?'.  And I was like 'Uh no... I didn't know if I was meant to wait for you', and she just said 'Go'.  So I managed to hobble down the corridor to the toilet on my own.  Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I didn't have to go the toilet with her listening outside the door, but it would've been nice to have a bit of help walking down there!

The next terrible event with Agnes was when she put a new gown on my bed and bowl of water and told me to wash myself and change my gown.  I did my best to wash myself in bed, but I couldn't change my gown because all the ties were round the back.  She shut the curtain and walked off for a change.  Then when she came back she said 'You haven't done anything I asked you to'.  I wanted to say 'That's because I can't!!!'  How was I meant to untie my gown and put a new one on when it ties up at the back.  So she came over and pulled my gown down a bit and helped me put a new one on, but when I asked her to tie it up for me she just did the top tie and left the rest hanging open, leaving me in a not very dignified outfit!

She then decided she need to make the bed, so ushered me out of the bed.  When I asked if I could put my dressing gown on to try and keep my modesty considering she couldn't be bothered to tie up my gown, she just said 'Is ok' and continued to push me over to the chair.  When she'd changed my bed she proceeded to run my feet over with the wheely thing that connects you to the IV as I tried to take my dressing gown off before I got back into bed.

It came to breakfast time at around 8am and I said I couldn't eat anything, but the nurse said that I should otherwise the medicine would give me a bad stomach, so I said I'd have a yogurt.  So they bring in a yogurt, and what do they give me to eat it with... a huge metal desert spoon!!!  Er hello, I've just had my jaws sawn apart and can hardly open my mouth, do you really think I'm going to be able to put a desert spoon in my mouth?!  I did my best to try and eat it, but I just couldn't get it in my mouth and as I was trying to eat it my nose kept bleeding into my mouth.  This was the one time throughout this whole thing where I cried!  I had a mental breakdown - I was sick of the horrible nurse, and I couldn't eat my yogurt, and my nose kept bleeding and I'd had enough!  Luckily my breakdown coincided with the nice nurse starting her shift and Agnes leaving.  The nice nurse came over and asked what was wrong and I tried to explain.  I tried to get her to find my baby spoons but I couldn't find them so she went to the staff room and found me a teaspoon.  Because my bands still weren't on at this point I actually managed to eat the whole yogurt with a spoon, which I think was quite an achievement!

Anyway, that was the trauma of Agnes the nurse!  Throughout the morning lots of different people, including my surgeon, came along and looked in my mouth.  They all seemed to think it looked good, and finally somebody put my elastic bands on!  It felt much more secure when I had the bands on.  Different people kept tempting me with the possibility of going home that day, when originally I was due to stay another night. I was desperate to go home that day, mainly because I didn't want another night with the bitch nurse!  They said that it was up to the surgeon if I could go home.  He came round at about lunch time and said that I could!  As you can imagine I got very excited, and thought I would be home within a few hours.  However, it   took absolutely ages for them to get all the paperwork together to get my medication so that I could go home.  In the end I didn't get to leave until around 7pm that evening, but I was just so grateful that I didn't have to stay another night!

Throughout Day 1 I ate another yogurt for lunch, and then a chocolate milkshake and a little chocolate desert pot, either through a straw or syringe.  The drive home was quite long, and I was so scared that every speed bump was going to knock my jaw out of place!

But I made it safely home, and went to bed in my lovely comfy warm bed with my mum as my new nurse!

Here are my Day 1 pictures:

This is a close up of my teeth (and my skanky bloody nose).  You can see how my midlines are off a bit, I think this has improved a bit since then.