D-Day: Jaw surgery time

I'm writing this post six days after my surgery but backdating it to October 16th (the day of surgery) to preserve the record.

I woke at 4am on the morning of my surgery feeling fairly calm as I had been all week, but unable to sleep any more.  As I showered and got ready to leave to leave though, the nerves really started to take hold.  The gravity of what I was about to go through came crashing down around me and the end of two years of treatment and planning was finally here.  All I wanted to do was have a cup of coffee but as I had been fasting since midnight all liquids were a no-no.  I got my things together for the quick 20 minute drive to the Prince of Wales Private Hospital and headed out into whole new day.

The good thing about having a 6am check in time was that it was quiet.  There was no traffic on the roads and the hospital itself didn't have hordes of people so actually felt quite serene.

I made my way up to surgery check-in where I filled out some forms, paid my insurance excess (of course!) and signed various waivers about surgery.  I then met my anaesthesiologist who re-iterated the information he gave me over the phone the previous week and generally just wanted to ensure I was feeling okay and had all of my questions answered.

Finally I met with a nurse to talk about my health and and was given some rather attractive compression socks and a gown to get changed into before I was asked to wait in the patients lounge.

What an attractive gown!

Nervous grin

From here everything moved pretty quick.  I was asked to leave the patient lounge after only a couple of minutes and climb up onto a trolley.  At this time I said goodbye to Frankie and was wheeled through to the operating theatre holding area.  I got to speak with my surgeon Dr. Tsakiris and with the team that would be looking after me during surgery.  My anaesthesiologist then popped in to give me some pre-surgery sedation drugs (felt like I'd had a few glasses of red wine) and advised there was a slight delay on the surgery as they were waiting for someone else to recover first.  Twenty minutes later I got more of the sedative and that's the last thing I remember until I woke up after surgery.  Even though I had apparently been conversing with the team right up until having the general anaesthetic - I have no memory of those moments.

Waking up after the surgery was not great, but not as bad as I thought it was going to be.  I had no nausea and as the drugs were still in my system I had no pain - but I did of course feel very uncomfortable.  I remember trying to talk to one of the nurses and wondering why I could not get any sounds out.  In the end I reverted to a pen and notepad to communicate.  Things were a little bit of a blur from here.  I'm sure I spoke with my anaesthesiologist as I seem to remember him saying 'you'll have an attractive smile in no time', but that easily could have been a dream.

After recovering from anaesthetic I was taken to intensive care and this was when I first felt the gastric tube that was inserted during surgery (and still there).  This was really thick and went up my nose and down the back of my throat all the way to my stomach.  I remember trying to swallow and feeling it there and I can honestly say it was one of the weirdest and most concerning things I have ever experienced.  I suddenly noticed all the lines and cables around my body when Frankie arrived to see me and I suddenly felt very emotional.  I kept asking myself 'why did I do this?' but the realistic part of me knew this was a natural reaction and it would be worth it in the end.

From here I slept on and off for until morning and lost all concept of time.