1 week post-TMJ Replacement Surgery!

I'm sorry it's been a while since an update - I kinda had something big going on.  I had my surgery! On Sept 6, I got my new TMJ joints implanted.  I was a total psycho wreck leading up to it, which is why I didn't really post. It likely would have been jibberish.  But here I am! Alive! Well! 

When I woke up from surgery, it was awful.  My head was totally wrapped up in dressing, and the pain was brutal.  I don't really remember any time in recovery, although I do recall that the nurse was quite nice - until she yelled at me to breathe.  Scary. That was a foreshadowing of what was to come. Eventually I got loaded up to my room on the 11th floor, which is where my memories start.   All I remember is pain.  For about 2 straight days, just pain.  There was nothing else in my mind except that.  My mom and husband came to visit, and my mom took pictures for my son's first day of school, hung up a poster in my hospital room that they had made together, brought flowers, but all I remember is thinking - I don't care about any of this. I just want to die.  The pain was so terrible, all-consuming...I didn't care about anyone else or anything.  This lasted pretty much a week.  

It certainly didn't help that the nurses were awful with their attention to my pain.   They would not check on me, and I tried to be sparing with my call button, but eventually I was pressing it non-stop.  They would take forever to come, and then arrive with nothing and ask what I needed, as though I was going to ask for a cup of water.  "PAIN" was all I could say.  By day 2 we figured out that my IV had been coming out, and the morphine was not going into my vein.....and the nurse said "Yeah, your IV is coming out and I don't know when I am going to have time to put it back in."  ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?!!?  I was pretty much delirious from the pain from then on. Listen, I'm not one to take all the medication until I'm loopy as fuck and can't feel anything anymore. I had surgery, sure, there's gonna be pain.  But something to take the edge off. Something so I can move.  Like, nothing crazy here. Anyhow, I digress. 

I was released on Friday, and the drive home through rush-hour downtown Toronto traffic was....awesome.  Yeah, I pretty much held ice-packs to my face until I dissociated from my body. Horrible.  Friday was spent in bed, continuing to wish for death.  Saturday the same.  Saturday at around 2:30 am I felt like my breathing issues were getting really bad, especially when I woke up feeling distinctly like I wasn't breathing and with a terrible crushing pain in my chest.  My husband called the hospital, and they told me to go to my local ER.  There's a brand-new beautiful hospital less than a kilometer from my house - perfect!! I spent from 3am until around 2 the next day there, being tested with EKG, blood work, X Ray and a CT scan with dye in my veins to see what's up with my pulmonary arteries, etc.  It turns out I had a pulmonary edema with some overlying passive lung collapse - awesome.  So I went home with some breathing exercises to do and watching my high blood pressure. Thankfully, the exercises worked to clear the fluid out within a couple of days.  I still have to go for a follow up X Ray in a couple of weeks, but my BP is down to 98/66 so I think I'll be ok. 

As far as my joints go, I had a follow up with my surgeon today who is very happy with my progress. 9 days after surgery I can open to 25mm and my pain has decreased hugely in the past couple of days. He reminded me that I had major facial surgery, in case I had forgotten, since I'm looking and doing so well. It was awesome to hear, but I'm going to try not to let it go to my head since it's been 2 days of feeling good and there are bound to be some hard ones ahead.  But so far, so super good!!