My surgery was successful and all went as predicted. I was in ICU from Monday PM until Fri AM. They kept me asleep until Wednesday. Someone must have told me but I was too doped up to understand how to call the nurse or press the morphine button. Some time Wed I found out that I had been pressing the Oygen monitor on my finger thinking that it was for pain relief. I was finally coherent enough to ask for the nurse's call button. That is when I found out that the pain pump was right there in the sheets and the call button was on the pillow above my head. My daughter-in-law told me they had to lightly restrian my hands because I was trying to get to my face. I remember a nurse telling me that I was going to get infected if I kept trying to hurt myself. From the fog I remember thinking that he was being mean and yelling but now I realize that I was too doped up and in pain to communicate that I needed something for the pain. I let the doctors know that I could not find the pain pump until the third day and they agree that there should be a large legible poster on the wall showing how to use it.
Adding to my distress and confusion was the non-functioning clock on the wall. It took a while for me to realize that time really was passing and I was not completly hallucinating.
Funny moment: The 5 year old grandson tried to follow his mother from the waiting area into ICU down the hall. When a nurse told him he could not come into the area, he told her he was 16. I guess he knew that you had to be 14 to visit patients so he exagerated a little to be safe.
The nursing care was excellent and I am now home recovering. Home health nurse came out today and will be back Friday. She said that I will be visited be an occupational therapist and a physical therapist. Before I left the hospital a physical therapist told me how to get up and down the stairs on my backside. I remembered what she said about starting to go down the stairs but when I got up the stairs easily, I forgot how she said to stand up and turn aroud to go in the hall. Somehow my dear one was able to help me but it was not easy for him. I had thought that I could stay downstairs for part of the day but found out that the walker is too wide to get into the powder room. The equipment company is sending out a narrower one tomorrow.
I had a wonderful visit Sunday evening from another OCF member. "Splenda" who lives on the North Shore came with her husband.
Malka

Malka, I can't believe that you are home already! I am going to want to hear all about every single thing. I'm pleased that you haven't had any significant problems, though I am really annoyed that the hospital would allow you to not know how to call for help, and that you had a non-functional clock. arghhhh!! That's very disorientating to a patient. Anyway, the big issues seem to be behind you. Can you tell anything about how your jaw is going to look? and function? Is it wired shut? How about your leg. what is the therapy schedule for that? When is it predicted to be back to normal. Splenda did call to give me your good report. She was delighted to see you up and doing so well. Write more when you feel like it. XO

Glad to hear you are home! I find I heal much faster if I am at home rather than in hospital, plus the conditions for serious infections don't exist at home like they do in hospital!

Malka:

Ive been wondering how you were doing. Glad you are home and feeling up to posting. Hope you get stronger and feel alittle better everyday.

Pete: you are 100% correct. My husband likes to quote a Spanish saying:"the wine may be bitter, but at least it's my wine."
The machines for vital signs at TU must have been programmed by the same person who writes the awful cell phone rings. They chirped and binged 24 hr a day. the nursing staff were wonderfully efficient and cheerful but those machines were awful.

Colleeen: I had no jaw wiring, just a nasal tube for feeding for a few days and then a very soft diet. Now that I am home my family is feeding me delicious food on my schedule. For a while it took a great deal of energy just to finish off a yougurt or jello.
Even swollen it is very apparent that my chin is back to the center of my face. The plastic surgeon said it should take 6 mounths to a year to heal. I am wearing a boot on the leg and using a walker. Tuesday I will see both doctors and hopefully will get rid of the Frankenstein tracks. I think that the boot will be on for a few weeks. I am taking the "Scarlet" approach - worry about that tomorrow.

I was surprised this time around because my ICU seemed to be one of two well-lit private rooms instead of a big one filled with everyone's machines in alarm that I had last time. Also, they weren't hooking up O2/pulse alarms like they did last time (Could that be a result of the yellow wristband I printed up at home that said "Patient has Bradycardia -- Adjust alarm thresholds accordingly" ?) I had earplugs in my gown pocket but they must have changed it because I never saw them again.

And I complain about the cold!!

Why didn't they ever ask you "how's the pain?"

I hope your recovery is fast.

The problem wasn't with the nursing staff. They were wonderful. In ICU one nurse took care of two patients. Each in a separate room. Much of the time they were in and out of the room but I was not coherrent enough to express my needs. Then when I found the pump I was additinally incoherent from that. I had prepared a list of comunication needs, had a dry erase board I never used and wrote most messages on index cards. I have terrible hand writting(once accused of learning to write in the dark) and some of what I tried to communicate did not make much sense.

Sadly, I suspect they become quickly used to some patients not making any sense coming out of the fogs, to say nothing of those of us who can't even talk. I find that sometimes drawing a P on my forehead with a finger and then holding up a couple of fingers gets the message across.

Learned to write in the dark...that's cleaver. Man we have so many cleaver people on this site. That's a great benefit to everyone's healing IMO.