My parents were wonderful as always with all this! They watched Lila while we went to Kanas and then took such great care of her while we were in the hospital.
Poor Russ was about to have his jaw broken in a couple places and then moved forward.
He did his homework by studying this..
All ready for surgery, just waiting his turn!
I have never seen Russ so scared. I felt sad and helpless. I asked him what he was most scared about and he said coming out of anesthesia and being disoriented and not being able to open his mouth. He was also scared about throwing up with his jaw wired shut because he had thrown up last time he had surgery and coming out of anesthesia.
His nurse came in and told him that they were behind and it would be another 45 mins.
I decided to hurry and go pump in the room down the hall so that when they came to get him I could go straight into the waiting room and not have to worry about it.
I was literally out of his room for 15 minutes and ran back in to be with him and his room was empty!!! I ran to the nurses station and asked where he was and they said they had taken him back. I was so confused and just wanted to cry. I felt so bad that he was so nervous and I left him, but I thought I had MORE than enough time.
I waited in the waiting room and my amazing Dad came up to sit with me, and then his parents came toward the end. My Mom was home taking care of Lila.
His surgery was running really long and his parents wanted to get something to eat so I left my phone number with the waiting room staff and they said they would call me as soon as he was out.
We waited and waited and the more we waited the more nervous I got.
I ran back up to the room and they said he had been out but they couldn't get a hold of me.
Great, I wasn't there when he left and now I wasn't going to be there when he woke up!
I ran up to his room and walked around the corner and was so sad to see this sight.
He was moaning in pain and obviously couldn't talk- his mouth was completely wired shut.
His nurse was in there and I asked if they could give him more medication- His nurse said, "I cant, he is not in the system yet." I was furious...How could he not be in the system if he had been in surgery for hours?!
Russ kept grabbing for the throw up bag and I asked what they were going to do if he threw up since his mouth was wired shut.
This was in a regular hospital, not an oral surgeon so these nurses were dealing with all sorts of patients. In fact the guy in the next room from Russ was SCREAMING in pain from an accident that left both arms broken and a head injury.
They worked to "get him in the system" and more medicine in to help manage pain.
Over the next few hours he was in a lot of pain and very sick to his stomach.
It was so awful to hear him try and explain to us what he wanted to express. He kept grabbing for the bag so we knew he wasn't feeling well.
By this time is was early evening and the nurses changed.
Russ kept saying he was going to throw up so I asked the new nurse what his plan was since his mouth was wired shut. He said there was a pair of scissors in the room and they could cut him free to vomit. Russ started to get ready to throw up and 2 nurses were in the room and NO SCISSORS!!
I almost fell to the ground because my knees went so weak seeing the panic on Russ's face and the nurses started to panic that there weren't any scissors. They tried to look in Russ's mouth and noticed that it wasn't only wired shut, but there was a splint in place that they didn't know how to remove.
I have never been more scared watching Russ look so worried and wondering if he was going to suffocate.
He ended up throwing up, and was truly my hero. While all the nurses were arguing about where the darn scissors were and how they were going to get him open I watched his face go from panic, to calm as he reach behind him and grabbed a little sucker-hose-thing (Like at the dentist) and put it toward the back of his mouth and end up bring up 250 ml of blood.
It was truly a blessing we later learned because the surgeon last minute decided cut a piece of his splint right before placing it in place and wiring him shut that left a tiny space for him to get the vacuum thing in.
Most patients don't have the splint Russ had in so in the case they did throw up they would have space to get it out, but Russ had his mouth wired shut and then a mouth guard type thing in place.
He did great, I was so proud.
I was originally going to go home and take care of Lila through the night but he was still getting really sick and vomiting so I told him I would stay the night with him.
He was so sweet, and asked for a pen and paper and wrote " What about Lila?"
I thought it was so sweet that he was in such bad shape and still worried about our baby.
My mom sent this sweet picture to him.
My sad view for the night :(
The next morning he was doing a little better. His nurses (Amazingly they were all men) wrote him this goal before we could go home. We ended up there most of the day until he could keep some fluids down.
That's a lot of medication for this patient.
He was in pretty good spirits toward the end of the day after he got all that blood out of his belly!
The poor guy had to eat (drink) by putting fluid in a syringe, putting the tube toward the back of his molars where the surgeon left a little space and slowly push the syringe. You should try clenching your teeth closed as tight as you can and try swallowing. Its scary.
Finally on our way home!
Russ's diet for the next 6 weeks.
Want to see what they did?!
Here is before, you can see Russ's over-bite and how his back molars don't match up?
This was causing his lower teeth to hit his top teeth and wearing his bottom teeth down and causing pain.
After! The back molars line up!
They broke his jaw in a couple places, moved it forward and screwed it shut, you can see all the screws.
He ended up losing 8 lbs in the first week and 16 total.
He was off of work for a couple weeks. When I came home from work one day I noticed some brown stuff on our wall. I asked him what it was, and as best he could explain without opening his mouth to talk he told me how he had chocolate Ensure in the syringe and it got stuck so he was pushing really hard with the tube in his mouth when the pressure build up popped the tube out of his mouth, went all over his glasses, behind our couch, on our table and up on the wall which he hadn't noticed.
I laughed forever and he flipped me off, haha.
My usually happy hubby was miserable at his follow up.
A Couple weeks later we went in to the Dr and they temporarily took the splint out for him to be able to eat mashed potatoes and anything he could eat without chewing.
There was a Chinese restaurant across the street from his surgeons office so Russ got a little ambitious and asked if we could go over and get some noodles.
He was SO SO excited to get some food in him.
We got over there, ordered the noodles, he cut them up and realized he couldn't get his mouth open at all. I was so excited to see him so excited again and then just watched the excitement drain out of his face as he realized he couldn't do it.
Needless to say I was eating Chinese food at work for the rest of that week.
A few more weeks went by and he got better and better at eating. Finally they gave him the go ahead to try whatever he could. Eventually that splint was out for good! I could finally talk to him again and understand him! It was so nice.
He still had to go to the Dr once a week to make sure it was healing correctly.
Lila would come along for the ride- she loved the waiting room!
I was super proud of him for how he handled all that. It wasn't fun, he got so dang skinny, but he did awesome. Im so glad to have it behind us. One more year of braces and we should be good to go!
Wow!!! What an ordeal and it sounds AWFUL!!! So sorry Russ had to go through all that. :(
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