Pain day... what the hell did I do to myself?

Before surgery. Still me.

I arrived at the hospital at 10:15am like I was told. I was hungry and freaking out. I knew I was going to be miserable but I had no idea what I really was in for. I taken back to pre-op around 11am and waited for-ever... Finally around 12:00pm I was wheeled back to the OR. I had talked to the doctor and the anesthesiologist and was given a little dose of 'guts' in the form of a med to help me not run from the halls with my ass hanging out of the gown. Dr S said the surgery would be about 4 hours and I'd stay about 23 hours. I was thinking that wasn't very long but he's been doing things differently than most of the blogs I'd read so who knew? Dr S also mentioned that even though my insurance denied my nasal surgery he was still going to do it and just not 'worry about it'. While that's nice of him, I really didn't want the nose surgery in the first place but this was not the time to break it to me. I wasn't able to get that point across before but I kept thinking about the account audit that was in my future once my insurance found out about it. Great, now my work brain was going crazy as well.

My favorite part of the hospital stay- the socks

I don't remember being wheeled back to the OR but I remember arriving there and the docs wrapping me up before surgery. I thought it was wierd then, now I know it was not good. I was use to being laid on a table with my arms out straight to each side during surgery so when they started taking both arms and tucking them beside me and wrapping me up with some binder I was not comfortable. Little did I know how uncomfortable this would really be.
I woke up in the recovery room in so much intense pain I cannot even explain it. My jaw hurt... A lot... but that wasn't the problem... it was my shoulders. At the time I didn't put two and two together and remember the pre-surgical wrapping but I do now. I had been wrapped up for hours during surgery so tightly that they ended up pinching my nerves on both shoulders. I was hysterical with pain. I couldn't even move my arms and that was really scaring me. However, it was at this time I began to 'crash'. I'm sure it was a combination of the pain in my jaw, shoulder and airway being swollen but my sats dropped majorly. The post-op people were swarmed around me like I was dying... I guess because technically I was. I had a tube still in my nose that was helping me breathe that went all the way down to my lung. I guess being normally intubated isn't possible through your mouth when your jaw is broken and wired back together. Holy cow, this was horrible. I knew I'd be miserable but this was beyond what I'd imagined. The next thing I knew I was in the ICU. I had been moved to the ICU sometime after they had gotten me to start breathing again and was on 100% oxygen. I was not breathing on my own so I was now in the ICU. My shoulder was in so much pain I couldn't do a thing for myself without unbearable pain so the ICU docs brought in the xray machines to take pics to make sure they didn't dislocate my shoulders during surgery. It was horribly painful but I knew it was only a pinched nerve. I've had it before, I knew. Sadly once the xrays confirmed it wasn't broken, the fact that I was in more pain in my shoulder was quickly ignored by everyone but me. I couldn't hold onto a cup or pull my own hair out of my face. My arm wasn't even comfortable just hanging at the side. No matter what I did I was in excruciating pain. My mouth hurt a lot, but my shoulder was way worse. After things had died down a bit I finally got some info from C that the surgery actually ended up taking over 5 hours and it was now after 9pm. My mom was calling trying to get info on when he would pick up the boys so he had to go. I was left in the ICU with my nurse for what I was hoping would be an uneventful drug-induced sleep. Again, I was wrong.
Here I am just out of surgery in the ICU: