While you were sleeping...

Day 0 continued

 

So when I woke up I was strangely really bossy. "What time is it? Take this tube out! Get my friends! Call my mum! My arm hurts!" This must, unfortunately, be what I am like on drugs. The tube I was referring to was not the main intubation tube but a mini one that they insisted was helping me breathe, but I insisted harder that they take it out. My jaw didn't hurt at all, but my arm really hurt, I guess from some kind of drip, or the position it had been resting in for about 6 hours. My friends came soon, and I continued to boss them around, ordering them to put my glasses on, which they were understandably reluctant to do because of the bandages around my head from the pinnaplasty on my ears. I'm not sure what to make of this sudden assertiveness....some of my friends would argue that I'm a right bossy cow on a regular day, whereas others would be surprised because usually I'm a massive pushover and don't like upsetting people by demanding too much. Well, I guess we know which personality wins when uninhibited anyway!

 

I spent the night in the recovery ward, which wasn't particularly pleasant, but I loved it because I felt really well looked after. There were two other patients in there who were quite noisy. I'm sure they were distressed/drugged up/ in pain, but I did feel a bit miffed I couldn't get in on all the wailing with my jaws banded together. It was a tough night - my back really hurt and I felt really nauseous when they gave me some kind of drug through my drip, which resulted in me throwing up over myself. I'm sorry to say this was mainly blood! So when the nurse arrived to take me back to my room in the morning, I looked like an extra from a Saw movie. I spent the night sucking blood out of my mouth with the magic suction wand, and chatting to a few people on facebook with my phone, which I am eternally grateful to my friends for bringing down for me. It wasn't a fun night, but it wasn't painful. Jaw surgery really isn't. I felt achey and weird and sick at points, but that's pretty normal having been under for six hours or so. Here is a picture from that first night:

Me in the recovery ward! A little startled. The swelling has not kicked in yet...The bandages are not related to the jaw surgery - they're because I had my ears pinned back at the same time.