Sunday, June 29, 2014

Day 10 - Pain pills, the basic essentials, and plans!

Pain Level: 2, though it was something like 4 or 5 last night - I don't really know if it's the surgical hooks or the stitches anymore, but they stung so much last night that I had to take another painkiller. I'm also starting to feel the aches of sleeping in the incline position for the past couple of days. My upper back is starting to feel a little sore.
Swelling: I think I can see a little bit of a shadow of my cheekbones now! Just a hint.
Other weirdness: Ears still feel blocked....though it feels less blocked than yesterday. (Does that make sense?) 
Mood: A little wary about the pain in my upper lip. Hopeful that it will be a restful, but productive day.

Last night was probably one of the heights of my pain so far in the past ten days. Somehow the back of my upper lip stung SO much I just had to take another painkiller. I did find my dental wax sometime in the evening though and I tried to put them on the hooks, but instead of making life happy again, the pain got worse. I'm not sure if it's now a combination of pain from the hooks and the surgical stitch right above my front teeth, but putting the dental wax in - even though it probably only pushed my lips outward by a single millimeter - made it hurt so much worse. So I took them out and took the painkiller.

My "happy" pills
Antibiotic - Augmentin
Painkiller - Paracetamol Codeine
For Swelling - Arcoxia
 I was only prescribed three types of pills - an antibiotic, painkillers, and one for swelling. They only gave me the one for swelling for a course of the first five days, and the antibiotics were prescribed for two weeks (to be taken twice a day), and the painkillers (to be taken three times a day, two tablets at a time). I'm not quite a person who enjoys reliance on medication, but understand the importance of them, so I'm really disciplined with my antibiotics and the pills for swelling. I thought the prescription of two painkillers three times a day was a little bit of an overkill though, so I have been limiting it to one in the morning, and one at night. Yesterday night was the only time I've taken two at a time. I'm still going to try to stick with the "two painkillers only a day" regime though. Please be kind, stitches/hooks. :(

I suppose the best way to overcome is to count one's blessings, so I shall! I'm just glad that I can swallow these and I no longer need to take them crushed! (Thanks to a kind soul who left a comment on one of my posts when I was so depressed about taking crushed meds. Thanks Wendy!)

Here are some "flashback" pics:
The Dark Days...
I really dislike you, pill crusher.
You were the bringer of sadness and depression. 
This has been my "bedside table" for the past couple of days.
4 syringes - for water, milks, meds (which later became for food), and gargle (which I no longer use).
Other things there is just water, nasal drops, and my lip ointment.
I think my body is getting a bit tired of sleeping propped up too and my upper back is complaining a bit. It feels a little raw today and I'm a little concerned about developing bed sores. Cosurgeonman told me that a lot of people who stayed in hospitals too long developed them. I'm determine not to let extra stuff like that befall me, so I'm going to find a new way to sleep tonight. Somehow.

Other than the similar need to sleep on an incline, I'm starting to think that my experience with jaw surgery so far has been quite different from the experiences of others that I've read. I don't mean to be rude, but the other experiences I have read seem to have been very very dramatic somewhat compared to what I have gone through so far. I somehow don't have a splint, so I don't have splint issues. Though I do feel nauseous at times, I haven't vomited at all. I don't have jaw jerks and stuff like that. I have only drooled unknowingly but once the first time I had a long chat at home about work. I was swollen, but not so bad that I couldn't open my eyes. I had bruises, but they mainly went yellow and are fading. And I didn't have to purchase a whole shopping list of items to get me through this... I mean, there are some really extensive lists out there. I think my essentials so far have been:
My happy, pink
Kodomo Baby Toothbrush
It's so tiny! :)
But has been tremendously helpful. <3

Stuff that I'm glad I bought/brought with me:
  1. Baby toothbrush
  2. Hot/cold gel packs
  3. Facial wipes (Specifically, the BioOil one which has healing properties for scars and to prevent/heal stretchmarks)
  4. My little lion stuffed toy for encouragement
I actually think that's about it. Everything else I needed (Ensure, syringes, medicated lip ointment, mouthwash...) was prescribed/given by the hospital. Or perhaps it's just my personality of "just essentials". (Although I did buy a few other things that I really have no use for now including - organic lip balm, extra can of Ensure, wet wipes, Vicks nasal decongestant.)

Hmmm... Maybe I've been blessed with a smoother journey cause of Singapore's warmer and more humid climate, or maybe it's because I just had a really great team of my ortho and awesome surgeons, or perhaps it's just that I have a very strong group of people who cover me in prayer. I should be thankful right? Okay...thank you Lord for your kindness to me on this journey. :)

I'm a little sad though that pretty much everyone on my blogroll now has stopped blogging/had their surgeries so long ago that it's now become more of a "Q&A" or informative site. I also can't seem to find anyone else who recently got a jaw surgery done and are blogging their journey too. I think it'd be fun to journey together with others at the same stage as me... perhaps blogging is so passe now that people just don't do it anymore. Ah well, it helps me cope, so I'm sticking to it.

It seems that I've started a habit of blogging twice a day - one to start the morning, and another to close the day. I do imagine that I'll start tapering off when life gets back to normality, or that I'll just be switching to other topics in life, but in the meantime this is working well for me. :)

This morning, I decided two things
  1. That I should make it a habit to write up a "work plan" every day so I keep productive in life, and
  2. That I should really research an exercise regime of some sort because I'm losing weight and I  think I'm losing mainly a lot of muscle and water... and I don't want to end up at the end of two months skin, bones and fats!
So here goes...

Plan for the day
  1. Research and decide on a daily light stretch/tone regime
  2. Drink milk and prune juice somewhere in the day
  3. Write important work letter
  4. Relook at graduate school essay submissions
  5. Organize work stuff on table
  6. <maybe> Clear personal finance stuff
  7. <maybe> Finally finish the Day 1-2 post that is 70% done
Wish me luck! :)

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