Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Back at home!

I saw Dr. P this morning, he stopped into see me around 6 am. Everything went very well with the surgery, but again, he said everything was so incredibly tight that he had a hard time with it. The bones in my mandible broke very nice for him for the BSSO, but again he had some trouble with the movement because of the tightness of the skin. He then splinted my lower jaw to move onto the upper jaw surgery, which usually takes only a few minutes but it took him around 25 minutes just to get the splint in. The 18 mm is not how much he moved the actual bone, but it is how much of a movement will be percieved with the rotation. He ended up just doing a one piece LeForte I because he was worried about doing more pieces with my tissue being so tight, but that should not affect my outcome. I guess I started swelling up quite a bit even during the surgery. Today my swelling is really strong, I've been keeping ice on it constantly, I'm not sure if it's helping or not but I have nothing to loose.

Total, I have 8 plates and 43 screws. We took a picture of my swelling today, but I'll take another one tomorrow and post them then.

I am feeling pretty good as long as I keep on top of my pain meds. I have been taking in a lot of fluids, 64 oz. since I got back from the hospital around 2 this afternoon. I don't think I'll even need to use the zip.n-squeeze bags, or the sippy cup, as I pretty much have all of my feeling in my upper and lower lips. so I am just drinking from a plastic cup. It is a little numb and tingly on the sides of my mouth, but Dr. P said that's most likely from the stretching and that will come back quickly. I am very surprised at how little numbness I do have ... I was expecting much worse ... but Dr. P did say that my alveolar nurves in the mandible were very well protected so he didn't have to touch them or move them at all, which explains the lack of numbness.

I stepped on the scale and I weigh 6 lbs more than I did yesterday before going into the hospital! I am guessing it's from the IV and all of the solution they pump through your body, but I just thought that was strange. Has anyone else gained weight in the first few days?

3 comments:

Daniel said...

Woot woo! Awesome that you're back home so soon! And good news about the surgery and your nerves! I've always wondered, is it difficult to look in the mirror? Do you recognize yourself or is it really weird? You look a lot like Kelsie post-op and her results were awesome, so I'm sure yours will be too! Hang in there :o)

Katherine said...

Congrats on coming home. It does sound like your results were good. Thanks for all the updates, too. I thought I was crazy to keep checking your blog for new posts, but then, there would be another post, and I'd cheer your progress again. :) You did it!

Stephanie said...

Daniel, my face looks extremely different right now because of all of the swelling, it is too soon to tell. But yes, it is quite strange to look at myself in the mirror, it will be interesting to see over the next few weeks as my sweling goes down