Big Changes?

Okay. I have permitted myself to post these before and after pics of my profiles.

This is the current me. Something that saddens me is the condition of the left side of my face. My OSs told me that my surgery was quite the ordeal because my bones were quite dense and it took them a bit more effort on the left side of my mandible. As an unfortunate result, the nerves were jarred. My orthodontist calls it palsy. Sigh...sounds so disfiguring. That's why the left looks droopy. I can only raise my right eyebrow and look very much like Ziana Zain making eye-contacts with the audience. The left eye-brow remains static where it is. This may sound funny but i can only 'inflate' my right nose.. hahaha.. i showed it to my brother and he giggled. Still.. i'll try to think positive and hope that the nerves will come back to life slowly.

Counting...

Had another review with the OS just now. She poked here and there asking me if I could feel the pokes or not. As usual, a horde of other docs wearing masks were right there witnessing ( i didn't use the word learning..since none of them were holding any notebooks or pens.. just looked slightly interested) the poking. Oh well..

She pronounced that I will be de-wired on the 5th. That's... 9 more days. Sigh...
She also mentioned that the one of the plates on my left will be removed. ooer.. can't say i'm looking forward to that ordeal. That means my gums will be sliced open again.

Day 11 post-wired

I would really use a full body massage now. But the thought of having to lie facedown for an hour or so isn't very appealing. I wonder if there's a back massage with you sitting down?
My chin tingles so much it almost drives me nuts.
I'm still worried about this left eye not being able close properly.

Yesterday I made some simple fish soup. Blendered the isi ikan and diluted them with the soup stock. Looked like some mashed up gray-colored paper. I thought the soup would go in and out easily through the syringe and into my tightly wedged teeth... Not really.
had to make some sucking motion to clear the debris of the fish sediments before I could down the soup. Nasib the soup was sedap... made the effort through 3 small bowls of soup. I was reminded that the soup looked like the laksa soup except that it wasn't spicy.

Finally had a cup of Red-Guara Coffee after almost two weeks going without coffee... what a difference from a morning of Ensure Choc flavor..

Last night I went out and bought some pudding from Yoyo. haha... managed to order without having too much difficulty. It was good that they had the order form to complete. Just tick what you would have. The idiot in the counter still asked something like if I wanted to drink in or take away.. D-uh? I mumbled/garbled/ lisped/goobled 'taaaapaaauu'... and sounded like a monster roaring for the villagers to run away. He coudn't understand. So, I wrote 'tapau' on the form. The girl on the cash register registered the info. Sigh..

My syringe, the mango pudding from Yoyo
sluurrrpp...

X-Ray before and after Op

Before

After.

My left jaw has two plates. I can feel the outline when i trace them with my fingers.. I thought at first my jaw was wrongly set..

Just before Op

A few days ago.. umm.. still swollen on the left side

tingly jaw

Yesterday I mashed the bubur ayam my dad made. Mashed about a bowl of it and used the syringe to suck them in and squirt slowly into mouth. Sadapnya.
Later when mum came back, did the same for the KFC mashed potato. Sadap as well.
Let's see.. had some pudding via the syringe. some calci-yumm yoghurt. Sigh... the tummy wants to eat a lot, but the mouth tires of the effort. Furthermore there's this sharp wire poking from inside the wired mouth and my tongue is really being punctured here and there I think. It has only been 8 days.
I haven't gotten tired of Ensure. I just got tired of vanilla flavored Ensure though. Thank goodness there's chocolate and strawberry flavor.
My chin is tingly!!!! It's sort of annoying and irritating sometimes. You know the feeling your legs get when their asleep after being in an unconfortable situation for sometime and then they're all numb and starts to get tingly to get 'alive'?.. that's what how my chin feels like.. sometimes they go on and on and on...
my left eye still cannot close properly..

Went for a review again today. had a mouth cleaning done. had x-rays done.
next appointment is next week.

Day 6

Starting from today, i will refer the days based on how many days i've been wired. Hence, day 6. Woke up feeling face feeling bloated and so full of fluid. Retaining fluid inside my pundi kencing all night made going to the toilet long.

Last night, i kept myself occupied playing computer games. The broadband connection here is not really good so i think i will try to post on mornings.. till i get back to Sierra of course. Reading about others who had gone through this op is good. One tip i'd like to take is to go for short walks just to take out the toxin off the body. But umm.. i look a bit lop-sided for don't know reason.. nanti takajut the orang2 sekeliling.

Randomly me

This was when i was still at SMC. The gauze in my mouth was to soak up saliva.. the towel under my chin is to soak up any uncontrolled dribble...

Now this.. already at Female Surgical Extension Ward QEH. Very shiny lips.. Liberally applied them with lip ice and Chloramphenicol (CMC). The tube into the nose was a nuisance albeit necessary.. My feeding line..

Can you p-o-u-t...?

notice the wrinkly chin..


What's that on my hand? the blood, the whatever liquid that oozed out off my left cheek..

Puffffferrr

It's been the 8th day post-op. 5th day post-wired. My face is still bloated sebelah kiri mostly. I still can't close my left eye properly. Have to use eye-drops once in a while to lubricate it. My mouth is still a bit askewed to the right when i sip. I still feel a tonne of numbness on my cheeks. My chin is still tingly. My lips are healing well from all the stretching done during op. They were awful to look at the first few days. Kasian my lips..

Went driving yesterday with a mouthmask( is that the term used?) and went in ChuaKahSeng Supermarket. Bought two Ensures, choc and strawberry flavor, some heintz baby food...some carrot juice.. some glucolin to make energy drinks into..
Last night my bro n sis made me watermelon juice, slurped 2 glasses of the juice..sadapnya..

I get easily hungry. Thank goodness I'm not craving for solid food.. yet.
My sis and her fiance went out with me mum n bro for the wedding photoshoot. I asked them to buy some Yoyo drinks, lots of puddings, some more juices...

home

After 8 days being cooped up in the hospital, i am finally discharged.
8 days of minum susu ensure only. Eating plain rice porridge with chicken soup (the grain mashed of course) was so delicious.. Now I understand how it is eating through a syringe.. i had actually used a straw to suck in the orangey-colored bubur.. then i remembered the syringe.. whooyoo...
then it was half-boiled eggs through straw... also sedap..
then when i almost was finishing the eggs, i felt a mild sense of nausea... not good dis.. with teeth wired shut...nausea is a no no..
got to get a hang of it.. this eating through a syringe thingy..
anyway..
glad to be home..
glad me mum was around to help.

6th day post-op

Remind myself to remind myself... (very austin power-like) that all the blog-posts i read concerning jaw surgery will not really be as luxurious as how I recuperate from this op. Not in the US of A, or Canada or where any other western country..
This is in Sabah, Malaysia. and recuperating in a government hospital isn't very comfortable but.. ok la..bagus already dis.. nasib ada..(the forever positive thinking of malaysians).

Ok.
My feeding regime is to have 200ml of water to every 3-half scoops of ensure, every 3 hours. I was nodding off when my alarm clock beeped at 3 am this morning. But woke up I did. Fed myself through the tubes. The other patients were making sick noises of their own. Let's see, it has been 9 days being away from my own bed. Can't miss that.

After the feed, I went back to sleep. Woke up sometime before 6am when me mum came round. My face felt more bloated than ever with a firm and insistant throbbing of pain coming from my gums and general jaw area..
Still feeling numb on the lower part of my face. still feel like a chipmunk, like as if i have something tucked and hidden in insides the cheeks for future references for chewing purposes. The lower lips gets tingly once in a while.

Mum fed me with the crushed painkillers.. plain panadol with celebrex.
Kena tebuk lagi my right hand for the i.v. drip.
I have another review with the doc later in the day to remove the janggut-like sutures on the sides of my face.
Good news. My sis is coming from Labuan to take care of me for a few days. Raay!!

the vein where the iv tube on my left hand was in swelled up last night so it was discontinued.. quite a tricky bisnes going to the loo with an iv drip in your hand oo..

my new iv tube..'installed' this morning. pink means..2nd or 3rd largest needle..

Operation Obelina

Punya bangkak itu bibir...

The small yellow tube is for the drainage of any liquids from the op

So..

i've had the operation!
Came quite a surprise. I was just waiting for the 15th to come but the date came a week earlier.
Received an SMS from nurse Maslaan asking me to call the dental specialist as it was urgent and that there's an opening for op 'tomorrow'. That was on the 7th on last week.
I was all kelam kabut want to urus this and that. The nurse said I had to go down for a blood test then and there. Oh well..
I managed to inform me mum.
I had me surgical hooks in (didn't think it would be umm.. painful)
Checked into SMC. Nice... had visit from my partner.
Mike Lima and Lima Mike came to cheer me up.. still in their baju kerja. SOooo sweet of them.
Had the i.v. drips punya tubes inserted into me.
Had a visit from the attending anastethetist. some Q n A.

8th may.
My operation day.
The nurse asked me to get prepared and wear the surgical dress.
By 8 am I was already wheeled into the OT. All naked under the sheets... tidak paduli suda. When I saw the mask being lowered onto my face.. i thought. This is it. And went into deep sleep.
I didn't know it but the surgery took a long time. By 8pm i think.. baru i came to and felt myself being wheeled into a room. Felt the pain hit. Saw me mum and slipped into deep sleep again.

Ahahah.. for those of you who don't know who Obelina is...

Ta-daaa... a cute monster with big lips (from Nickelodeon's Aahh Real Monster cartoon).

O'rings gone, wire in

Had an appointment at Luyang Clinic today at 2.15pm. I arrived early to hopefully get a parking right in front of the building. I got one. Yay! It was still lunchtime so I walked across the street to get some lunch from one of the Kedai makan there. Food wasn't so nice actually but on an empty stomach, anything is edible.

My appointment was supposed to be at 2.15pm but my number was called sometime around 2.05pm. I went in and saw the new doctor. Umm... ok.

I am supposed to have another impression done on my teeth today. So I confirmed that with the doctor. I gently (I was tempted to just bark out the order..she sounded too uninformed) said that Doc Devi would take out the o'rings and archwire before making an impression. The new doc consulted the nurses whether that was the usual procedure and thank goodness they said yes. So, after a while, she proceeded to take out the o'rings.
I have to say, she has this annoying habit of clicking her tongue and suddenly humming unidentifiable songs when the going gets tough for her. It happens quite often too. As she was trying to ease out the archwires from the back of my upper molars, she 'tsk'ed and lapsed into her brief hummings and saying things like.. ' susa la..' D-uh..
Sigh.. to not be discouraged by all these.. I will not divulge so much anxiety over this doc's inexperience.. After all, it's the surgery that's going to be important.. kan?

So, had my impressions done, had the archwires replaced, had wire ligatures instead of o'rings wound around the brackets, and had a brief q & A with Doc Fatimah.
I have another appointment with her next week for a 'wafer' session with her. And if my surgery date is confirmed by 12th next week, she'll be putting in the surgery hooks. She will have some discussion with the two oral surgeons who are going to perform the surgery on me. And my length of time being warded in SMC depends on the progress of my healing. I'd probably be out on MC for about 3-4 weeks... Umm...
Crossing my fingers and toes again.. I'm excited and half anxious about this surgery but one thing's for sure, I want to get through this.