Sunday, June 22, 2014

Day 3: Out of ICU and recovering

I suppose it's Day 3 now and I'm so proud of myself I'm actually sitting up in a general ward... Even though it technically took 3 nurses to get me up. I haven't showered since I got here Friday morning and my hair shows it all.

All my energy this morning is focused on breathing because my nose is so congested I can hardly breathe... And I really don't want to breathe through my mouth for fear of picking up a hospital bug.

All my communications now are through pen and paper considering my face is now a pufferfish. I've been trying to control that through a lot of cold compresses and sleeping slightly inclined... Which I think has helped some. At least I think I don't look as bad as some of the very very damaged poor jaw surgery patients that I saw in my research... I felt so sorry for them! I'm just swollen all the way from my upper jaw, cheeks and neck area. It's a bit achy, but not really painful at all. Just very much numb.

It wasn't like this when I entered ICU though (which was right after my surgery). My pain score then was 7/10! I think they severely drugged me up after that and I was mostly spending my time sleeping and suctioning out blood and phlegm from my mouth. Being in ICU was the best though. They really took care of me every hour (sure, there were a few things that I feel really shouldn't have happened, but I was really well taken care of otherwise.

I haven't quite eaten for 3 days now and I've been on an IV drip of saline and dextrose to keep my organs working. I could only muster up a tiny bit of courage to drink a bit of apple juice through my syringe yesterday... But really didn't think I was up to soup.

I'll have to write in detail tomorrow or something when I'm out of here cause now all my energy is in focusing on breathing and I just discovered that the taste of blood on my mouth is from my nose.and considering most of my the inside of mouth is swollen, swallowing is such a chore too.

Okay, back to my cold compress.


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