The first night I spent in the ICU was hell. Pure hell. I got 2 45 minute stints of sleep total because I wasn't allowed to have my sleeping pills due to my non-breathing and because of the horrible pain in my shoulder and now jaw and nose. The nurse came in every 15 minutes to do different things. I had a catheter in and that was making me very uncomfortable. I was slipping up and down the bed in the crappy ICU beds so I \had moved to the recliner chair in hopes of not being a little more comfortable in a semi-reclined position. I was attached to an EKG machine the entire time but because of my very large bosoms the leads kept getting lose and would sound the alarm constantly. The IV in my arm would also be alarming every time I would bend my arm due to the placement. I was living breathing 'beep'. C finally came back to the hospital around 9am the next morning. I was hoping he'd come by earlier but I guess getting the kids ready for school and daycare was a lot. He hung out with me while I was poked and prodded in the ICU for hours. I was still not able to drink anything through a straw so I wasn't able to leave the ICU. I also needed to get my respiration to 80's on 20% oxygen. I had moved up a long way from earlier when I was on 100% oxygen but I wasn't going anywhere until I could do better. Thankfully the new day nurse Debaney was a genius. She had rigged the most awesome syringe up for me to be able to get my meds and some liquid down my very swollen palette. I really didn't think about the whole drinking thing when I was preparing for this. I knew I'd have some numbness but didn't realized I wasn't going to be able to sip through even a straw because I couldn't feel a thing. My jaw was banded shut but was able to open enough for a squished straw but because I had a huge swollen tongue and palette I couldn't get anything sucked up. Thankfully I was still getting IV fluids but I wasn't going to get that for long. Pain meds through a syringe are awful. My normal meds through a syringe are even worse though.
I was finally able to meet the requirements of an ICU discharge around 3pm the day after surgery. However the discharge wasn't complete...just to a regular room down the hall. Uhg. I guess my 23 hour stay was going to be a day longer. I was ok with that though because I was in so much pain and my oxygen was still not stable. Once I moved to the regular floor though I lost my awesome nurse that kept me moving forward. I now had pretty much no support. I had 4 different nurses in the first 3 hours of being there and none of them had any idea what to do with me. My surgery wasn't common and nobody knew how to handle me. My 'face-bra' that had pouches for ice kept leaking so I wasn't getting relief from ice and having to rely on pain meds only wasn't doing it for me. C left me again that evening around 4pm after I couldn't stand listening to him snore loudly beside me. I just needed my own sleep. I begged my doc for Ambien for the nights sleep and was getting excited for a shower. I was so glad I was smart enough to pack my pj's even though I hadn't packed anything else. After a quick shower with baby shampoo (that's all they had) and my own clothes, the catheter came out and I was feeling a bit better. If it wasn't for my shoulder I'd be ok. My pain level was still hovering around 8 and 9 but I was doing ok. After my shower around 10pm I got some beef broth delivered to my room for dinner. I hadn't eaten in days so I wasn't about to turn up my huge swollen nose at anything... even if it was beef. I tried spooning it into my swollen lips/mouth very unsuccessfully. Dribbling everywhere, I used my syringe. It worked...and it was good! Holy cow, that makes it official... I was actually starving to death since I was willingly eating beef broth. Not that a few syringefuls of broth made me any less hungry...but it was a start. I also tried some Boost meal replacement and wasn't too bad either. It was this day, after my surgery that I noticed my lips were also completely ripped apart. I knew it was going to happen, I always get lip infections (impetigo) when anything opens around my nose of mouth and this was major. I was so bursting with swollen lips and mouth that this was inevitable. However due to some hospital policy they were not allowed to give me any antibiotic ointment. I used my trusty Mentholatum until I got home but holy cow this was bad. Infection...everywhere.
Thankfully that night I was able to get some Ambien to help me sleep. It took a literal decree from my doc at midnight but I got it and I was fast on my way to a few good hours of sleep that night. After 4 fabulous hours of crappy hospital bed sleep I woke up at 5am in major pain. The nurse was nice enough not to wake me for my pain meds but I really needed some help. I was so swollen from the lack of ice on my face and meds. My pain was at a 9 so I was going nowhere that day either. I was still being supplemented with IV morphine to make up for the major amounts of pain in my jaw and shoulder and my oxygen was getting better but I wasn't able to be without the nasal canula yet. I then started using just regular hospital ice pouches on my face in hopes of some kind of relief. They were awkward but did a little better than nothing at all. It was now day 3 of my hospital stay. My shoulder is starting to move a little better but my face was making up for lost time.
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