Yesterday was my visit to the Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon for debridement surgery. Back a few posts and you’ll remember that a tooth extract last year turned into a complicated surgery as my tooth had fused to the jaw bone and it was all infected with an abscess. 8 months on and fragments of bone were still stuck in my gum and some bone was healing and some was not, partly because not all of the infection had been eradicated. So that brought me to yesterday and more surgery!
The Surgeon had to shave off ragged bone and re-model ( all under local anaesthetic in his rooms mind you). The result is that today I have swelling the size and colour of a cricket ball on the right side of my face with about 10 stitches in my gum. Thankfully I’m not in that much pain due to the nerve drug Lyrica that I take for Trigeminal Neuralgia and Rheumatoid Arthritis. I am exhausted though and that was not just because of my surgery….my friend Rudolph (my stoma) decided to act up yesterday ( must be an attention issue) 🙂
So my husband and I were about to head for the hospital yesterday morning when Rudolph started having a party. It was not a fun party more like a nightmare situation. We managed to get to the hospital after the 30 minute drive only for him to decide it was party time again. We were already running late which is not something I ever do (my friends will confirm that) so I was frantically trying to find the Dr’s phone number to explain. How do you explain all of this is in a hurry???
It went like this:
” Hello, It’s Sam here, I am so so sorry to be running late, I am sitting in the car park with an overactive stoma and I have to get to the disabled toilet before I can come in for my surgery, oh and I can’t hurry because I have a broken leg and am on two crutches”
The Dr’s secretary was so wonderful. She simply said” Sam, that is completely fine. Take your time and come to the office when you are able”
Ahhh..I began to breathe again!
The whole situation was so ludicrous but I suddenly felt a sense of calm because none of this was in my control and there was just no point worrying or panicking anymore. It’s happened, it’s going to happen again and it was just one of those days. There will be many more like that but there are also many good days and they definitely outweigh the bad and actually the bad days are soon forgotten….I’m not sure how long it will take for this cricket ball on my face to be forgotten though!
My Medical Musings 