Surgery day

I got up at about 6am on surgery day as I had to leave the house at 8.15am to get to the hospital for 9.30am. When we (me and my mum) got to the hospital we were shown to my bed.  It was just going to be me and one other patient in our room, and the other patient was having the same op as me (she was actually in her op when we arrived).

We spent a lot of time waiting around, I'm not sure why they ask you to get there by 10am when your op isn't until 1.30pm!  Some nurses took my blood which turned into a right fiasco!  Basically one of them threw my blood that she'd just taken in the bin along with the needle.  Instead of just taking another sample, she decided the best idea would be to turn the bin full of contaminated waste upside down to try and get my blood to come back out of it!  I think she then realised how bad it was that she was tipping contaminated waste all over the floor, and that if there was other blood in there it could get confused with mine, so in the end they just did another sample, which is what they should have done in the first place!  As you can imagine, this did not fill me with confidence!  Then a little while later another woman came in and said that there was a problem with what was written on my blood sample so she had to another one!

Anyway, a while later they told me to change into my gown and stockings.  This is when it started to sink in that I was actually about to have my surgery!  They brought a trolley up to my room to wheel me down on, but even while I was getting on the trolley there was a problem about my date of birth and my notes being lost!

They wheeled me down and my mum had to say goodbye to me before I went in.  I started to get a bit tearful then but managed to hold it in!  Then they took me into another room where I had to wait before I was taken in for my anaesthetic.  I was waiting in there for ages, which added to my nerves.  This man came over and was like 'So you know about the operation you're having today?' and I said 'Yes', to which he replied 'You're having your kidneys out'.  For some reason I laughed, but in hindsight I do not think this is a funny joke!  Then my surgeon and another woman came over to have a final look at my teeth.

I was finally wheeled into the anaesthetic room.  They seemed to take ages wiring me up to things, and I could see into the operating theatre which was making me nervous!  But obviously they finally put me to sleep...

The next thing I remember was people telling me that I'd had my operation and it had gone well while I was being wheeled into the recovery room.  They sat me up, and straight away I felt sick.  I started heaving which obviously felt weird with my new jaws.  I feel like I was heaving for ages, but I don't know how long it went on for.  But I don't think I was actually sick once.  My nose was bleeding and they shoved this pack up there, which was quite painful.  After I'd heaved for a while they told me to try and sleep, so I did and I felt a bit better, and kept dreaming that I had my laptop in the recovery room with me!

A while later a new nurse called Agnes (more on her to come later!) came over and wheeled me up to my ward, where I was reunited with my mum.  I actually didn't feel too bad.  I wasn't really in any pain, it just felt weird.  I could talk enough to communicate with my mum.  While my mum was still there, one of my bands snapped!  We told the nurse and she said that she wasn't allowed to do anything so we'll have to wait until the doctor comes up.  But as you can imagine I was so worried about my jaw not being properly supported that I didn't want to wait!  Eventually a doctor came up, and he said it was ok that my band had come off, and that it wouldn't make any difference if they put one on now or in the morning.

So the lack of bands is why my mouth is hanging open so much in these pictures.  Just writing this post has made me feel exhausted, so I will have to do the next posts in a while... sorry to keep you in suspense lol!  Here are my surgery day (Day 0) pictures.  I've got a pack (i.e. a nose tampon) up one of my nostrils which is why it looks so big...