(Whimper)

(Mamamer, you probably shouldn't read this. Look over there at that large distracting thing!)

Just before bedtime I found yet another jaw surgery blog and decided to give it a run. It was from an extremely upbeat Canadian woman, and had a sprinkling of hippie thrown in too. It was informative, had good pictures, recipes, advice; you name it. I enjoyed it. One thing it also had was links to other websites/blogs/the such, so I started to check them out.

Boy, was that a mistake.

Generally speaking, every personal account I've read to date has been fairly upbeat. Yes, they all admit, the first few says are rather hard and sucky, but its so worth it! I've never looked back! Everything is so much better! And then I ran across this particular blog.

I was horrified, but I couldn't stop reading. Surely this is just a passing thing. The anasthesia is just wearing off of the person, right? Then it all gets better? But no, it just kept going, and he was miserable, and he goes into fantastical (and I mean that in the *bad* fucked-in-the-ass way, for those who read the post about my business cards) detail about mucus and blood and drainage and ICU and beeping and blood oozing and eyes rolling in the head and complete delerium and lack of sleep and suddenly ohmygod maybe a CPAP isn't so bad after all, or maybe a tracheotemy (sp) instead...

Right now I am about 10x more freaked out than I've been to date, and I'm desperately trying to not focus on it, but a lot of the stuff this person was talking about reminded me of my experience of ICU or whatever I was in last time and I *really* don't want to go through this again and in ways it sounds even worse - probably because they're going to bust up my FACE instead of just drilling holes - and I'm totally having an oh-poor-me moment but right now I am scared scared scared and I just so wish I didn't have to do this.

(blows nose)

I'm also snivelling all over my keyboard which believe me is much less attractive than anything they're gonna do in surgery. (sniff, snarf, snarkle)

I guess on the bright side is that before I found the almost-worst-case-makes-me-look-like-a-glass-half-full-kinda-person blog and I was still reading the Pink and Sparkly Good Blog from the North (literally), I found a link to a fan-fucking-tastic list of things you should buy and do prior to your surgery to make things easier once you get home post-op. Better yet, its compiled from actual patients, not just a hospital or clinic talking in monotone voices about how you should keep the wound clean, blah, blah blah. I guess none of the stuff is wa-hoo completely novel; in fact most of it is just a list of the little things you take for granted now that you need to be aware won't be so easy after the fact. But that's the stuff I tend to forget, so its great.

Connected to that was also a pair of links for a 'post-op emotions reminder' and a bit of writing about 'post-op depression', which seem like mighty good just-in case things to have around.

Its really hard surging back and forth between "Jesus, I still have to wait 6 weeks?" and "Oh fuck, I don't want to think about this reality at ALL -- look! A shiny distracting thing!! Over there!" REALLY hard. I'd really just like to go to sleep and wake up when this is all over, but I guess that's the problem isn't it, ha ha...ha...sigh.

Ok, I think I've adequetly vomited emotionally to the point where I've talked myself down and can actually go to bed and not be spooled up. I'm thinking it might be time to start a dedicated blog for just the jaw stuff. Its been incredibly helpful (well, except for that ONE guy) to read about other people's experiences with this, and I'd really like to be able to pay it forward, so to speak. Maybe that 365 photo project too.

Ok, off to bed.