Steph

[Guest guest]

Steph,

Sounds like you had a difficult time in the hospital. My doctor

informed me that I will be able to control my own pain medicine with

the touch of a finger, so I am relieved to know that I will not have

to rely on the nurses for pain.

Wow, 7 hour surgery!! Any idea why it took longer than expected?

My surgery is expected to be around 4 hours, so we will see how

correct that is!

Each day will get better for you, so hang in there! We are all here

for you every step of your recovery!

Best Wishes,

--Caboose

5 days to go!!

> hey everyone,

>

> Since I still get so tired I thought I would send the details in

one

> message instead of individual ones.

>

> My surgery lasted 7 hours. I was in recovery for two hours and

then

> wheeled into my room for an interesting evening. Lets just say

that

> sometimes evening nursing/nursing assistant staffing is not always

> adequate. Be sure you have a family member STAY THE NIGHT with

you

> in the hospital! Poor Dan was so exhausted from waiting for my

> surgery to be over (it lasted 2 hours longer than scheduled) that

I

> felt sympathy for the poor man and sent him home to sleep.

>

> needless to say I had to call him at home and have him come back.

> The situation went something like this: I'd push the nurse call

> button... " Can I help you " " I need huuuup " . The nurse assistant

> came, I told her I needed pain meds " I huuuut, I tink it time for

my

> medssss " . She told me that I should expect some discomfort and

> disappeared without resetting my call button. Mind you the phone

in

> my room did not work...I had to get out of bed...check all the

wires

> and fix the damn phone myself to make a call. Can you imagine a

> collect call after jaw surgery?? " please state your

> name " " 'SSSEEEFFF " " I'm sorry can you repeat that? " "

SEEEEEF! "

> All this just to get Dan to be my voice to ask for more morphine!

>

> He came...god love him, and spent the night in the recliner.

>

> I was released the next morning to my surprise and delight due to

my

> rocky night. This week has been rough. in 7 days I got less than

15

> hours sleep. I kept having anxiety revolving around being

completely

> congested, having my jaws tightly banded shut and a retainer type

> fixture (called a splint) taking up a lot of room in my mouth, as

> well as a numb and swollen upper lip that I have no control over

for

> now. Lets just say that the brain plays tricks on you and you

become

> very scared that if you fall asleep you will forget to breathe or

> that there is not enough room for the air to flow. So after

several

> days of no sleep the surgeon called me in for a checking on. He

did

> some x-rays and checking to prove to me that I was okay and gave

> me " a little something " to get me through this rough patch. I got

14

> hours of sleep yesterday. Thank the gods.

>

>

> Later.

> Steph