Is it a bird? A plane? A face lift?

Well, the time came for my maxillofacial surgery... I am now so glad that Cory and I had a wonderful time in Hawaii before my surgery. We had originally planned to have the surgery 4 days before we travelled. I would have been miserable.

Hawaii was exactly what we needed. Some time to relax & recuperate and to just get away from everything. The warm weather felt great too!

So, my surgery was scheduled for Monday morning (passed). I felt just a little nervous on Sunday evening as I went to bed, but I hardly slept. My mind was spinning. On Monday morning I woke feeling quite scared. Deep down I knew everything would be OK, and had a lot of confidence in the surgeon, but it was such a big step for me and it represented something so huge it was honestly quite daunting. I knew there was a lot of people out there thinking and praying for me, so that gave me real comfort as I got ready to face the day.

I took my prophylactic antibiotics (4 of them and they were huge) an hour before surgery and just tried to keep busy so I wouldn't be thinking and mulling everything over in my mind. Cory took me to the appointment and he was so good at keeping me from turning into a complete mess.

The nurses were great - they could tell I was nervous (my guess was by the involuntarily stream of tears running down my face that I couldn't get to stop) and they made arrangements that the doctor would put the IV in himself! The IV was a big concern to me after the last experience I had getting blood drawn for my routine thyroid test - the Dr couldn't get any blood.
Thankfully, I have to tell you that he was great. Yes, getting the IV in still hurt, but he was in the vein with no problem and he drew the 6 vials of blood without jiggling it around too much. I remember saying to him as he taped it down to my arm "humm, I'll have to come here for all the IV's I ever need in the future". (Yes, I have a warped sense of humour!)

After a little more prep work and after I'd asked him to promise he'd be able to wake me up after (again, weird humour) and after kissing Cory bye they put the anesthesia through my IV (which I don't even remember) and got to work. The next thing I remember I was waking up and Cory was there to take me home. Someone had put an ice pack on my face and I was completely busting for the 'loo'. So after some bizarre sign language to Cory (since I was so swollen I couldn't talk) he finally realised what I wanted and asked the nurse if it would be OK.

Cory had also talked to Dr Johnson before I came round. He told Cory that they had extracted the two final teeth (I had already had two taken out a few weeks ago) but also that the amount of the bone loss in the area was significantly more than they had expected. It was to the full extent of what "bottle bone" could do, and they would have probably taken a graft from my leg if they'd have known, but since they'd planned and prepared the bottle bone with my blood they went ahead.

I slept for an hour or so at home after the surgery and had a fairly relaxed afternoon and evening. I even managed to eat a little soup and Jell-O last night, so we're getting there.

There is quite a fair bit of swelling and bruising which we hadn't anticipated. I thought I'd have a little swelling around the mouth area for an hour or so, but instead my whole face is yucky - It looks like I had a face lift or went a round or two with Mike Tyson!

They didn't do the soft bone graft because the procedure was already extensive enough. They did have to put in a titanium membrane to hold the bone in place and protect it if I accidentally rubbed my nose/face a little too hard so the bone has time to settle. This will be removed in 4 weeks.