Surgery--Again

Chin up for two days. Ouch. Did the docs offer advice on sleep. You need some. Don't worry about sleeping on the wrong side. You roll over, and you'll wake up.

Glad this is over. Now get better. That's an order. Also, send that surgeon back to my hospital where he belongs.

Good to hear from you.

Hi Vonny,

Good to hear that it is all over with. Did they say anything about using ice packs to help with the swelling?

I had to sleep with my chin up for a night or two also. What I did was roll up a towel and tucked it under my neck while laying on my back. That helped keep the chin up and kept me from rolling over on my side in my sleep. It probably will have a bit of seepage until the incision starts to heal a bit. Just wear an old shirt for a couple days to catch any stray drips.

Hope they gave you some good pain pills. You probably won't need it for long, but when you do, they are a blessing to have.

How are you able to see the stitches, no bandages covering them?

Get some good sleep when you can, even if it means sleeping in your recliner for a night. Your body will need it for a quick recovery.

When you feel up to it, let us know what the doctor had to say about the whole thing.

You must be joking - best one I've seen in a long time!

No advice given on sleep - or perhaps there was, but so much going on that perhaps I missed it. The sister gave me an 'after operation' list of do's and don't and all it said about sleep was that anyone who'd had head or facial surgery had to lie propped up on at least two pillows until the stitches were removed.

So, Boida....this Pig Heaven excursion. Nosey wants to know with whom and what you are going to eat.

Please?

Hi Butrflynet,

Just been re-reading the information sheet I was given after surgery - nothing about ice packs though.

Thanks for letting me know about the seepage being likely for a couple of days. I thought it had stopped last night, but after I'd applied cream this morning it started again - only a tiny bit, but worrying.

Good idea about the towel - I'll try that tonight.

The wound isn't dressed! Wow, shocked me too. It is big - covers quite a big section of cheek where they removed the skin for the graft, and almost the entire side of the nose, where it was grafted. Last thing I'd expected - or wanted to see so soon! I was given antibiotics, and a cream to prevent infection to be used twice a day from day after op. I have Co-Dydramol tablets which are Paracetamol based - use them for pain from my leg usually, but have been told to use for pain from the facial surgery. Pretty strong, but pain relief only lasts for a couple of hours.

Did you have any facial bruising? I have a big black eye! The area immediately above the wound, under the eye, is black and swollen. Going to have a real shiner - look as if I've had an argument with a truck!

Main thing is that it's been done - hurrah! Fingers crossed they've excised all of the tumour and that the graft has taken. I'll find out more in a week when the stitches are removed.

Blimey! You look pretty rough, bruise wise, after any facial surgery and you have had a fair bit done. Grafts look awful, so I bet you had a shock, poor thing!

Hope pain is under control?

I've never had a black eye before - must admit, it worries me. Big black half crescent under the eye - very swollen above. Is that usual?

On a more positive note, the surgeon said that he'd cut the V shaped notch of skin for the graft into the 'smile' line of the cheek, and once the scar fades, it should blend into that pretty naturally (in one or two years - yikes!)

Black eyes are pretty bog standard after anyone messes with your face.

Good news re the scar....you'll be able to wear concealing make up when you heal up, I would think, until things settle down.

A friend of mine had sun spots lasered and an eyelid lift a few days ago....she looked as though she had been terribly beaten up the first couple of days...awful. She already looks waaaaaaaay better after just five days.

Your friend had the sort of thing I expected when I first learnt I had a skin cancer. Pity it could't have been as straightforward as that - my face looks like a badly sewn patchwork quilt now - some very fancy blanket stitch!!!

I'll ask about concealing make-up when I go for my final appointment in six weeks' time. I'd heard of it for burn victims etc, but hadn't thought of it for myself. Good idea - would give me more confidence if I had something like that.

Nosey, I had dinner with Nextone. I had sliced chicken with mushrooms and asparagus. The asparagus was perfect. Cooked but with some snap. The sauce was delicate and good. Nextone had pork in garlic sauce. An old favorite of mine, but now too spicy for me. She also had some kinda corn soup. She said it was delicious. It smelled good. It was great to see her. We're long-time pals, and neither of us gets out enough.

Vonny, Things sound about right. Ooky stuff, discomfort, and concerns. I had two black eyes after my brain surgery. Looked horrible. They faded. I'm glad it's over and that you're on the mend. Now we gotta wait for the doctor's report.

Not gonna tell you to cut yourself some slack. But I'm hoping that you're getting enough rest.

Hang in, kid.

Oops - makes me feel very humble when I hear what other people have been through. Brain surgery - OMG it sounds terrifying. Open heart surgery - another scary one. Did your eyes swell horribly? I've never even seen a black eye close up before so have no idea just how bad the swelling can be. Poor you, you've been through an awful lot. I

Dinner with Nextone - wow, it sounds yummy. Ages since I last had asparagus.

How come I posted twice - eeeerie!!!

I recently looked up my extremely self involved 'osso and her eyes again' thread (to see if I talked about all this) and saw myself going on, after the last op, towards the end of the thread, about my red swollen face surrounding the eye, with the eye itself all nice and gummy poo. I did write about sitting up. And, I was early on quite confused if somehow all that fulgent purple billowing tissue meant something was hemorrhaging. Someone on their nursing staff called to see how I was doing, and she straightened me out, nicely, that that was normal. I didn't notice how many days later it was, not too many, and Butrflynet wrote that she saw me at the grocery store and my eye didn't look all that bad to her. So then I wrote that it changed over the length of the day, and she saw me in the afternoon (or something like that), and was worse in the mornings. Anyway, now a few years later that eyelid is still at half or less mast, but the vision has settled down to not getting worse. That eye gives my face character, Vonny. Not your ordinary old everyday look that other people have. Vive la difference!

(I should have addressed that to Vonny..)

Dinner with Nextone. Wonderful to read.

Vonny, Please, please, PLEASE stop comparing yourself to others. Humbled, shmumbled. You're going through this now. And it's as bad as it is for YOU. (Yes, brain surgery is very scary. My brain is one of my favorite organs.)

My black eyes didn't swell. My eyes sort of receded behind the blackened skin.

I ordered the dish because of the asparagus. Love asparagus. And it was great to see Nextone, a good friend and major league good kid.

I haven't worked for more than a week. A new project has arrived, and I'll get rolling tonight. Proofreading. I like proofreading.

Now, vonny, rest.

You're making me laugh again! You do cheer me up Roberta!

Can't sleep yet. I'm a light sleeper at the best of times - trying to go to sleep whilst propped up on high pillows is well nigh impossible - managed four hours last night and thought I'd done pretty well. :rol

How are your teeth now? Sound extremely painful.

Sounds awful Ossobuco, it must have been agonising. The eyes are such delicate things - hate the thought of things going wrong with them.

Vive la difference - hah, my face will certainly be distinctive after this. Like a tatty old road map with trails zig-zagging through it in black marker pen!

Well, I can be a drama queen, but to date I have always liked surgery. Knock on wood, that's so far. I once wanted to be a surgeon, silly girl at the time for various reasons, and I still like the o.r. scene. I was a lab tech (clinical and research) for fifteen years and don't have much bad to say about my experiences then.

I've had six eye surgeries and enjoyed, one way or another, every one of them. The first was a disaster, lens breaking up and cutting the retina in several places, bad mojo. But - the counterpart was that when all that was happening, the scene in my eye/brain was simply gorgeous. Better than any movie, art, I've ever seen and I've seen a lot of both.

The others were more routine, but I turned into a major scaredy cat about the overdue (because I kept putting it off) simple cataract surgery on my good eye.
My surgeon understood, went on about not being worried. When it finally happened, me not as kicked as usual to be seeing the inside of the o.r., he let me know as soon as the danger point had passed. Then he and the rest of the team started singing along with the music that had been on all along. They turned it up. I love that man (in an appropriate way).

Anyway, as others have said, in essence, own your feelings. They're ok.

I can honestly say that the thought of being a surgeon has never appealed to me! A vet, yes, nearly followed that route, but surgery on humans - no way! I think you have to be a special sort of person to dedicate one's life to the 'caring professions' - what stopped you from following your dream?

Being a woman in 1962. That year was when I looked at the Medical College Admission Test data for medical schools in the US and also at least some in Canada. Wish I'd saved that book. Almost no women accepted at all, most schools taking none, with a sprinkling of some taking 1 or 2, or one place, 5 or 6. This a few years before all that changed, but by that time, life intervened and I couldn't go back. Also, it turned out I'm not built to do that and should have paid more attention to other things I liked. I wasted decades not noticing that I liked to draw house plans as a kid.. and figure out what I liked as to what room should go where. And art -I didn't know then how much I like it.

Part of my crush on medicine was that my father had to leave medical school to take care of his mother, back in the '20's', his elder brother staying on at harvard law. And, in his later work as a film editor, he once was involved in a movie about polio for some government agency, and I watched it, at maybe eight. Made myself watch the surgery parts. Time went by, we moved, I had no local friends yet, and I read a lot - several of those bunches of books being about the history of medicine. So, as an early teen I was already hooked on "I wanna be.."

I would have thought of veterinary school (a friend did that) but I'd've spent my life sneezing.