So it's been exactly one week since my surgery (when I first wrote this post, but now it's two weeks since my surgery, ha), and I'm feeling MUCH better.
A little recap of the healing (and surgery) process for your entertainment:
Day 1
The night before my surgery it was really difficult for me to fall asleep - understandable, I guess. When we got to the hospital, they weighed me and measured my height (158.5 FUCK YEAH MOTHERFUCKER I'D ALWAYS THOUGHT I WAS 157!!!!!!) and then did administrative stuff with a nurse who was such a fucking CHARACTER omg what a gb i love her i want to go back and get her flowers or something!!! Met anaesthesiologist, he was a good laugh (i swear all anaesthesiologists i've ever met have been super good sports and really hilar?) and then went up to another ward that was less friendly-looking to get all my iv injections in. After that, I got carted into the operating theatre and my mum came with (cuz i asked her to for moral support) and as I was lying there getting my oxygen mask strapped on I think she freaked and was like "OK VICKY LOVE U MUMMY'S GONNA GO NOW" and gapped it hahahaha.
Anaesthesia is a funny thing. The nurses/anaesthetist had been talking to me and I'd been replying, and as the anaesthesia went in, I tried to say something but although my brain was still working I physically could not speak and it was like the connection between my brain and body had split and I'm pretty sure in those 2 seconds my last thought before I went totally out was either "what the fuuuuck" or "MURAKAMI".
Next minute, I'm awake in a hospital room and my mum and brother are on the seats next to my bed.
The surgery took 10 hours (2 hours longer than expected) and yes, they had to use my pelvic bone, as they had predicted.
That first night was a total raging BIIIIIIITCH and I was so uncomfortable and had very little ability to talk. I basically could not sleep for the whole night and I remember getting really pissed off at my inability to sleep since I needed my body to heeeeaaaaallll!!!! There was a blood pressure pump thingy strapped to my arm and it would go off periodically in the night and squeeze the living shit outta my arm - not that it woke me up at all since I WASN'T FOKIN SLEEPING!!!! Honestly that wasn't even the worst parts of my night. I couldn't sleep in any position but on my back due to the three drains of blood coming out of my goddamn body - one on my pelvis and two on either sides of my neck, meaning I couldnt turn my neck without having a very scary tugging sensation and risk disconnecting the tubes from my body and having my blood just, idk, fountain out?? sorry, graphic. i'm not really squeamish about blood and it's odd that instead I was getting some heavy vampire diaries vibes from the litre kathmandu-like bottles at the end of those drains that were filled with about 5cm of blood each. sorry,...graphic??
anyway, the nurse came in multiple times throughout the night and I obviously could not express myself coherently so I had to type things on my phone and then show them to her and it was shit like "can i get another pillow please" and "can you give me some sort of drug that helps me sleep" (I was pretty desperate) and "sorry to bother but is there an electrical outlet? I need to charge my phone please" etc etc. There was a movie on but it was a shitty one that I'd already watched at mei's with paul rudd and jennifer aniston (and it hurt my brain to watch such a bright screen) so I had no relief from my insomnia. At one point I heard a popping sound and my mouth filled with blood and I was like sHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT MY DRAINS ARE OUT THIS AINT GOOD and rang in the nurse and she was like gurl chill ur drains are fine and i was like mmkay sis
so yeah, rough night.
Day 2
I finally got some sleep at around 6am and was woken up by the nurse at 7:30am and I was like erhghghghhg but not actually tired.... huh.
My friends are fantastic, did you know that? Like, they are the BESTEST friends in the world!!! I was in the shower when Izzy first came at 11am, and the poor thing had to wait for 30 minutes as I moved at snails pace trying to cleanse myself. She brought me beautiful flowers and a card and the black shorts from mirrou that i asked for (and that i wear all the time now). Then Faizah came, and so did Jade who brought lovely flowers as well! And Sophie and Cathee who brought flowers and Charlie who brought a Tropical tank (gb) and Breaking Bad S1, and Josh and Sueyeon who brought a Christmas pot plant (lol ma homie) and Steph who made me 2 FRIGGIN MIX CDS OMG KINGSY I CANNOT GET OVER UR ALTERNATIVENESS IT SLAAAAAAAAYS! Hm who else came...? I hope I didn't miss anyone out. I'm writing this on the 26th because I suck so now I can't remember anything...Oh, right, my brother and Amy came and they brought me a Berry Tank and another pillow (if you're staying in a hospital, tip: take your own blankets and pillows omg) and some more comfortable clothing.
I got quite tired and eventually everyone left, and I had a nap until later in the evening, when my mum came. I hobbled over to visit Victoria who was on the same floor as me but in a different ward, and chatted with her for a while. Her recovery seemed to be much more bed-bound than mine, which probably isn't very fun. Went back to my room and had dinner while The Hunger Games was on TV which I thought was very coincidental and super gr9 for me. Meilin came to visit, then Joanna and Mei came together as well. SO MANY PEOPLE VISITED ME WOW I FEEL SO SPECIAL :B
Doctors and nurses said I had to stay for another night in the hospital, sigh.
Day 3
I got discharged in the morning and then had to go to the surgeon's office to get checked up on and take photos and etc. Got home, slept a lot, was hungry and uncomfortable.
Days 4-5
Basically these days (and Day 3) sucked quite a bit because the hunger was hitting me hard and I was having actual dreams of eating cheeseburgers and/or getting toffee stuck in my teeth, SO BASICALLY LOTS OF DREAMS ABOUT FOOD. Watched a lot of TV and who knew that fast food restaurants took up such a large proportion of TV advertisements daaaaamn.... I also had to eat with my syringe for all these days and had a really small appetite for everything due to the syringe/the food looking like puke and tasting like ass/the drugs hindering my appetite. Woke up every morning with the world's worst headache that rendered me paralysed in my bed until my mum came in with the panadol. Took like, 3 naps a day and was absolutely smashed by 11pm everyday. It wasn't a good first 5 days guys hahaha it really wasn't.
Days 6-7 and onwards
By this time I'd come off the antibiotics and was totally skipping ibuprofen because that shit nasty (it's the liquid version and it tastes like dead people drenched in sugar). By day 7 I stopped panadol too (because I could) but before that happened I had worked out a nice method of syringing the panadol and putting it on my bedside table the night before, so that in the morning I just had to syringe it into my mouth and go back to bed and 20 minutes later when I woke up I wouldn't have a pounding headache. Should've worked that out before the pounding headache became bearable (but my thinking abilities were not quite all there on Days 1-4). I think this was around when I read/finished reading The Circle as well (since before this point it physically hurt my brain to stare at words for too long).
I think by the 7th day I discovered I could actually sip from glasses which changed EVERYTHING and meant I needn't use the syringe anymore, which was such a relief since those syringes are annoying as fuck. I will add that I still at this point (on the 14th day -- yes I'm posting incredibly late) I still don't have much feeling on my upper lip (because the facial nerve has been stretched it ranges from about 3-4 weeks to 3-4 months to fully come back...). So, because I don't have much feeling on my upper lip, whenever I sip my liquids I can never tell that I'm rocking a full on soup/liquidised chicken breast, peas and rice/smoothie moustache because I can't feel it there. I'm a very messy eater now :(
The swelling has gone down a lot on my face. I'm able to hobble/walk (in fact I've made it around St Lukes for shopping twice) but I look like a full retard when walking... I have to stick my ass out and turn my leg in it's all quite an experience, i'll tell you that.
On the Menu
The hospital gave me a whole box of fortisip which basically tastes like up&go but has a gazillion minerals and nutrients except after two years of having up&go every day at school I've become really against the taste of up&go so the fortisip, combined with my lack of appetite that first week, made me want to throw my guts up. Needless to say, I've avoided the fortisip.
I've been making fab smoothies which has been like, the highlight of my day and my favourite still is my berry smoothie (frozen berries eg blackberries, raspberries, strawberries + fresh strawberries + banana + one scoop vanilla ice cream + milk + honey) but I also sometimes have a banana smoothie as well or a vanilla blueberry smoothie which is just a lot of ice cream and milk and some blueberries to make me think i'm being healthy.
According to Dr Surgeon I am able to eat soft solids (pastas, rice, noodles, tender chicken, fish) now which I think may be a bit of bullshit because even when I take the rubber bands out (more on that hell later) I still can't really chew. I can move my jaws in the up-and-down motion of chewing except my food just doesn't really... break down like it should in one's mouth. Not sure if it's because the chewing just isn't powerful enough yet or if I've just completely lost the ability to chew. I can eat salmon after tenderising it/mushing it up into smaller pieces, and I can eat jelly like things like steamed egg (asian thing, dw, it's nice).
General Hygiene
For the first like, week I wasn't able to brush my teeth because I hadn't been given rubber bands and hadn't been taught where to put them either. I had to use mouthwash and on the first few days I had to syringe that shit in and due to the lack of feeling in my mouth and soreness of jaw/neck area, I couldn't really keep the mouthwash in my mouth (let alone swirl/gargle) and it would just dribble out lol. Also had to get syringes of water to wash out my mouth. It was a pain in my ass ok.
Finally got rubber bands and on the first night it legitimately took me 90 minutes in the bathroom to 1. brush my teeth and then 2. put those 7 elastic motherfuckers back on. Brushing my teeth was actually terrifying because I didn't know if my toothbrush was brushing against my stitches (I have a lot of stitches in my mouth duh) and undoing them, and I couldn't really open my mouth wide so I had to do everything super tentatively. AND THEN ACTUALLY PUTTING IN THE RUBBER BANDS MY GOD. I have 7 in total - two in the back going from outer bottom to inner top on both sides, then two in the back going from outer bottom to outer top, then two at the front going from bottom canine to upper canine traingling to upper incisor, and then one right in the middle with hooks at the top and bottom of my gums/mouth/idk connected to god knows where in my mouth tissue that restricts any food from entering my goddamn body.
That first time doing the rubber bands was actually really good for me because having my hands all up in my mouth for 90 minutes meant that I actually knew where all the stitches and that I was reassured that my face/jaw wasn't so fragile that it'd break with any small movement.
The second night the 90 minutes had been reduced to 60 minutes, and by the third night I had cut it down to 20 minutes hallelujah (and that's about where I'm still at now).
I've lost 5 kilos so far since the surgery (two weeks) due to the liquid diet! Jenny Craig can suck my dick. (Pretty sure it's all from my boobs though, wah)
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| Day 13 - swelling has decreased TONNES but is still there |
