I had asked my mum from the
moment I came up from theatre to take pictures with my phone. As I became more
swollen, bruised and active I asked her to take pictures for me to see how I
looked. I was a little alarmed when I saw myself. But it did not really hit me
until I got up to go to the toilet for the first time and saw myself in the
mirror. I felt so crappy. Standing up after 24 hours lying down was pretty
weird. As I stood up, I felt the blood rush around my body, I felt flushed and
I felt sick. I stood up slowly with the help of the nurse and I swayed into the
toilet. I felt like a monster. My face looked like a rugby ball and my right
side was more swollen than my left. I could feel my face was more central even
though it was hard to see through the swelling. My neck was very puffy and was
sore like I had been in a car accident. I had a couple of bruises around my
lower plate sites but nothing too extreme. I was lucky I did not have any nose
bleeds until a couple of weeks after surgery. But instead I had dried blood
around my nose area. Because of the pressure it puts on your upper jaw you are
not allowed to blow your nose or tamper with it much. I just wiped my nose
whenever a little blood or liquid came out of it. Additional, to the suspected
post operation scars, swelling and brushing, I had a really sore dot on the top
ridge of my nose and the nose was very sore. A blood clot had formed around the
dot on my nose and was quite uncomfortable. Apparently, this dot was where they
placed the pin in my face to line up all my jaws and it would eventually
disappear. My dot in between my eyes has not disappeared but it now looks like
a dent in my nose. Most people do not notice it once I have make up on my face
but it really annoys me as I was not expecting it to be there.
By around 7 o’clock on day 2, I
was being taken down for an x-ray to make sure the operation had gone correctly
from the inside. I was in a lot of pain around my face. But my shoulders and
back were also hurting. I remember sitting on the hard chairs outside x-ray and
wanting nothing more than to be back on the ward sitting in the bed. My head
was like a lead weight on my neck and I was struggling to support myself. My
auntie Jill was coming to visit me tonight and mum went to find her and direct
her to where we were. I walked into x-ray dreading what they were going to ask
me to do. All the other x-rays I have had, I had to bite on something or rest
my chin on something. I knew I would defiantly not be able to do that in my
state. I was just about managing to hold myself up. A lovely lady asked me to
come into the x-ray room and placed the usual ear pieces loosely into my ears.
She did not ask me to rest my chin onto the plastic shelf or to bite on
anything this time. The first x-ray was taken and then the second required me
to stand sideways near a board on the wall whilst the image was taken. I then waited
for the porter to take me back up to the ward. If everything was ok with the
x-ray then I would be allowed to go home the following day.
Available now
To find out more click on the link below:
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Lots of love always,
Steffie
x.x.x
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