Shelby Cass’s Weblog

Maybe you’ve seen the pictures Court has posted (http://web.me.com/cidstrom/Sleep_Apnea_Surgery/Day_1.html)…maybe you haven’t. I’ll sum up for you: I look like a bull dog. really. I wonder if people look like their pets, am I simply predicting what kind of dog I will get someday?

Today is Day 4. I was surged Tuesday Dec 26, and less than 5 hours later, I found out what a really nasty headache feels like. I am also still learning how incredibly fun taking liquid medicine through a syringe can not be. I’m a hat full of party right here! Court is in the (my opinion) Godlike process of crushing my Toridol into a fine fine powder of joy that I will pull into a huge syringe and dump unceremoniously into the back of my mouth…but he just asked if I wanted to snort it instead. Seems he’s been having his own little party of one. I want in on that one!

I think one of the hardest things I am dealing with is the claustrophobia I feel with my teeth banded so tightly shut, some weird mouthpiece blocking my tongue from my teeth, and a stuffy nose from my freshly repaired deviated septum. I will drift off to sleep and wake up with a stuffy nose and the overwhelming feeling that I am drowning. I’m gunna not put that on my top 10 fave things to do in a day.

Today being day 4, I am looking forward to less and less pain and swelling, but as I gain more and more of the feeling back into my lips and laws, I am not finding that sweet painless thing I was looking for. It’s rather…um…painful. I was thinking maybe in addition to finding out that I am more closely related to a bull dog than I had ever dreamed possible, I also have opened up a whole new chapter of fun things to recollect from my porch-bound wooden rocker of senility. take for instance, that I am pretty sure I was a bit more awake than people are supposed to be when they have their jaws broken on the operating room table.

I remember thinking “Oh, this is going to be a long 5 hours” because I was numb and unable to communicate and COMPLETELY aware. Upon speaking with my anesthesiologist post surgery (he of course wanted to hear what I thought I heard/felt!) he said he administered a little “pre-cocktail” and i actually said “Oh this is going to be a long 5 hours.” So I was still talking then. But then I heard Dr. Li say let’s do this and he grabbed my upper lip and I heard what I could only conclude was an electric saw to cut the bone. I thought “Okay, Shelby, do not panic. That is probably the worst thing you can do. Breathe. ” I tried maybe communicating with my anesthesiologist…I knew there wasn’t a brain monitor, but for sure he could see my pulse and blood pressure, right? So I thought I should show him I could react to noises…I kept moving my hand, but then I realised no one would care if I moved my hand and they would just think it was a twitch or something. So I gave up and thought “Well, I don’t want to have a heart attck. Hope this goes quickly! Oh, and I really hope I forget a lot of it!” And then I heard Dr. Li say “We’re done.” And I spent a lot of time in recovery doing the recovering thing… and I am pretty sure I never want to have surgery ever again for the rest of my life. I did not like being so helpless. I thought maybe that’s how people in comas might feel…and I couldn’t bear it.

Ack. What a horrible blog entry! I just wanted to get a few things down and start posting stuff to let my friends and fam know how I’m doing, but I also want to provide some sort of reference for other people who may be having or considering having this procedure. I’m happy I did it. Even if I currently look like a canine.

Peace out!
smac

This entry was posted on Friday, December 29th, 2006 at 11:25 pm and is filed under Pictures galore, Sleep Apnea. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.