Day 167 - Deja Vu

Hi there everyone! I'm happy to say that this post finds me feeling tons better than the last one. I will confess though, this recovery is worse than the first surgery. For the jaw surgery the nerves had been mercifully bruised which allowed for limited feeling of whatever damage had been done. That is not the case with a rhinoplasty. You can feel it all and man does it hurt!

I went into surgery around 7:45 in the morning. My original surgical team was there again, and they were all super excited with the results of the double jaw surgery and genioplasty. They even taped up my before and after pictures on the walls of the OR. They said that they don't typically get to see the end result of that surgery first hand, so it was exciting for them to see how their hard work had paid off. I felt really special :)

My anesthesiologist, Dr K, went through the same procedure as last time, acquiescing my request to be knocked out with gas before they poked me with any needles. This time I have a better memory of going under. I took too deep of a breath at one point which made me want to cough or sneeze, but I didn't. The next thing I knew was a loud buzzing in my ears and a tingling vibration in my face and that  was it.

At 2:30 the surgical team woke me up. Again, I have memories of this, which is different than with the first surgery. I felt burning hot, significant nausea and a good deal of pain. Dr K gave me some nausea medication and they got all of the blankets off of me. They wheeled me into recovery to try and get my body temp under control. I'm not sure if I was on good pain medication at this point or if I was just too nauseated to feel anything else, but pain wasn't an issue yet. They started to get my body temp down by hooking up a cold air ventilator to the bear paw gown which helped tons. Then they gave me the strongest anti-nausea meds that they could which felt like a such a blessing. Those knocked me for a good two hours and I woke up to feeling sick and pain again. It took several doses of mediation to dull the pain and nausea again, and this pattern of sleeping then waking went on until about 8pm. They got my nausea under control one more time (thankfully I never threw up) and then I was set to go home. Mom took me home, and we made me as comfortable as possible on the couch.

The next couple of days have been spent on that couch, and thankfully the nausea has been taken care of. Between the Zofran and food in my stomach before other medication I haven't felt too queasy since about 4 this morning.

As I said the pain with this surgery is more significant, but as long as I stay on top of it with the narcotics or Motrin and don't allow it to get too strong, it's not so much of a problem anymore. Compared to Friday night I'm positively dapper and fit as a fiddle. Definitely feeling more like myself. I even got by with only one dose of Lortab today, and Motrin was sufficient to take care of any other pain all day. Yippee! As with last surgery, the sooner I can stop the heavy pain medication, the better.

Right now my biggest complaint is the pressure from the swelling and the packing. The packing will be removed on Tuesday, and I'm worried about that hurting, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. Friday the stitches come out and from there it's back to the old waiting game. And as miserable as all of this sounds, it is tolerable, and it does end! Discomfort doesn't last forever and that's what anyone recovering from surgery needs to remind themselves of. I've also noticed that things are worse if I wallow in self pity. If I just take a deep breath and remind myself that things get better, my current state is definitely more tolerable.

Again, thank you all for your kind words. I cannot stress enough how much support and encouragement from others helps out after surgery. It really does make things a lot easier knowing that there are people out there rooting for me. You guys are the greatest, and I appreciate what you do for me so very much! I'm sorry for the long update but I feel that you guys deserve the entire truth so that any decisions you make can be more informed. Be well everyone and Happy 2012!!!