Introduction
I must apologize for taking a week to get back to you. Even though everything has gone well and I have no problem sleeping, I just have not felt like sitting in front of the computer. My wife Mary posted the last posting on January 5th the evening of the surgery. It has been some experience and I will describe all the experiences below and on later blogs.
Day One the Surgery
As we all know the surgery is a piece of cake for the patient. Once they plug you into the meds, its lights out and what seems like just 10-15 seconds they are waking you back up. While they are waking you up, you have that kind of warm close feeling like we had when you were 5-7 years old and our mother would come wake us up on a Saturday morning and say, “ How are you Johnny? Do you want breakfast?”
We arrived at the Hospital at 5:30 am and we took care of all the paperwork and $100 co-pay. They have an electronic display board in the waiting room where every patient’s “patient number” is displayed along with their status, such as: “admitted” “pre-op” “surgery” “recovery” etc. It reminded me of the flight status boards you see at the airports or in the cell phone parking lots at the airports; “plane has landed” “baggage arriving” “ready for pick up”.
I met the anesthesia doctor who was very nice and he advised me that it would be just him and me….no students to train today. He also said he is a professor and has been working with Dr. Li every since Dr. Li’s first surgery many years ago. I really think things go better when everyone working together knows how each of them think and work. And frankly, I did not want a student doctor practicing on me. Again, I think the Lord has blessed me dearly.
Dr. Li told Mary and me after surgery that everything went well. That may be a “pat” answer or remark but we still believed him. After all I was breathing on my own, there were no tears in my wife’s eyes and I expected everything to go well anyways. People have asked, including my wife, at least 6 times do you feel like your airway passage is bigger. I never could feel that my airway was too small before the surgery, so why would I feel like it is much bigger now.
As far as specifics on the surgery, we all want to know how much wider is my airway? Dr. Li stated that he moved my jaws forward 15 to 17 mm. He did also tell me that MMA patients are sometimes misinformed or misguided when it comes to the MMA surgery and looking for only a larger breathing opening from the MMA jaw advancement. He said, that just as critical is the tightening of the soft pallet tissue near the airway opening which then does not collapse in the enlarged airway.
I asked if he did any other procedures on me during the surgery. I was hoping for a tummy tuck, but I know that was not going to happen. He said as soon as he dropped my upper jaw, a bunch of puss started draining out of my right sinus cavity. We all have known that I have had a chronic sinus infection and I am on and off antibiotics 5-6 times a year. Sometimes these turn into full fledged sinus infections/colds were I am bed ridden for 3-5 days. Well, he said he flushed, suctioned and scrapped the sinus cavity while he was in there. He said that if my immune system does not come back and take care of this issue and I cannot defend these infections, I may have to do something about this.
Day One the Recovery & ICU
Well, sit back because I have a dandy of a story to tell you all about my ICU stint (from 12noon until 11 am the next day). I arrived there and it was pretty much what I expected. The large room had drapes for each patient, but they are not closed, not even half closed. I can honestly tell you without exaggeration that during the 11 to 12 hours I spent there I did not sleep one minute.
Patient One across from me:
She was in her 60’s or early 70’s and seemed to moan most of the night. I think the Stanford Medical School held a class there in her cubicle once every 30 minutes the whole night with approximately 6-8 students each time. They were examining her from top to bottom. At one point I asked an orderly to close her curtain or mine to give her a little privacy. I saw a lot more than I wanted to.
Patient Two across from me:
He was in his 50’s and did not make too much noise. I could not see him very well.
Patient Three right next to me (no more than two feet):
He was in his late 70’s or more and I believe he came in after I was there. I don’t believe he was doing well because besides his continual moaning, his children and wife talked to the attending physician for over an hour and a half about a living will and whether they should resuscitate him. I felt sorry for him because unless he as deaf, he likely was hearing how bad he was doing and that they were not going to resuscitate him.
I started praying for him on and off the rest of the night. I could see his monitor readings in the reflection in the glass partitions. So unfortunately I had a tendency to keep an eye on his pulse and breathing. Also alarms were always going off on his monitor so that further brought my attention to him.
Well, some two hours, later they decided to conduct surgery on him right in the ICU. It was a procedure where they went into his neck artery and ran a probe down somewhere in his body. They were monitoring the position of the probe with a sonogram type machine. The reason I heard most of this and could not just shut my mind to it was because a student doctor was performing the surgery and the professor/doctor was running him through every step of the procedure. At one point the professor/doctor did put scrubs on and took over the surgery procedure. The good news is the patient seemed in much better shape in the morning and was talking. I wonder if I can get any college credits for hearing everything I did?
Most people that know me know that I am an optimist and am not a complainer. And I am not complaining about what took place in the ICU that night. I understand completely that is why they call it the ICU. God bless all of the doctors, students, nurses and patients.
I said this because you will hear my first complaint just below.
I am getting tired and I want to post this so I will finish up tomorrow with days two – six.
John
I must apologize for taking a week to get back to you. Even though everything has gone well and I have no problem sleeping, I just have not felt like sitting in front of the computer. My wife Mary posted the last posting on January 5th the evening of the surgery. It has been some experience and I will describe all the experiences below and on later blogs.
Day One the Surgery
As we all know the surgery is a piece of cake for the patient. Once they plug you into the meds, its lights out and what seems like just 10-15 seconds they are waking you back up. While they are waking you up, you have that kind of warm close feeling like we had when you were 5-7 years old and our mother would come wake us up on a Saturday morning and say, “ How are you Johnny? Do you want breakfast?”
We arrived at the Hospital at 5:30 am and we took care of all the paperwork and $100 co-pay. They have an electronic display board in the waiting room where every patient’s “patient number” is displayed along with their status, such as: “admitted” “pre-op” “surgery” “recovery” etc. It reminded me of the flight status boards you see at the airports or in the cell phone parking lots at the airports; “plane has landed” “baggage arriving” “ready for pick up”.
I met the anesthesia doctor who was very nice and he advised me that it would be just him and me….no students to train today. He also said he is a professor and has been working with Dr. Li every since Dr. Li’s first surgery many years ago. I really think things go better when everyone working together knows how each of them think and work. And frankly, I did not want a student doctor practicing on me. Again, I think the Lord has blessed me dearly.
Dr. Li told Mary and me after surgery that everything went well. That may be a “pat” answer or remark but we still believed him. After all I was breathing on my own, there were no tears in my wife’s eyes and I expected everything to go well anyways. People have asked, including my wife, at least 6 times do you feel like your airway passage is bigger. I never could feel that my airway was too small before the surgery, so why would I feel like it is much bigger now.
As far as specifics on the surgery, we all want to know how much wider is my airway? Dr. Li stated that he moved my jaws forward 15 to 17 mm. He did also tell me that MMA patients are sometimes misinformed or misguided when it comes to the MMA surgery and looking for only a larger breathing opening from the MMA jaw advancement. He said, that just as critical is the tightening of the soft pallet tissue near the airway opening which then does not collapse in the enlarged airway.
I asked if he did any other procedures on me during the surgery. I was hoping for a tummy tuck, but I know that was not going to happen. He said as soon as he dropped my upper jaw, a bunch of puss started draining out of my right sinus cavity. We all have known that I have had a chronic sinus infection and I am on and off antibiotics 5-6 times a year. Sometimes these turn into full fledged sinus infections/colds were I am bed ridden for 3-5 days. Well, he said he flushed, suctioned and scrapped the sinus cavity while he was in there. He said that if my immune system does not come back and take care of this issue and I cannot defend these infections, I may have to do something about this.
Day One the Recovery & ICU
Well, sit back because I have a dandy of a story to tell you all about my ICU stint (from 12noon until 11 am the next day). I arrived there and it was pretty much what I expected. The large room had drapes for each patient, but they are not closed, not even half closed. I can honestly tell you without exaggeration that during the 11 to 12 hours I spent there I did not sleep one minute.
Patient One across from me:
She was in her 60’s or early 70’s and seemed to moan most of the night. I think the Stanford Medical School held a class there in her cubicle once every 30 minutes the whole night with approximately 6-8 students each time. They were examining her from top to bottom. At one point I asked an orderly to close her curtain or mine to give her a little privacy. I saw a lot more than I wanted to.
Patient Two across from me:
He was in his 50’s and did not make too much noise. I could not see him very well.
Patient Three right next to me (no more than two feet):
He was in his late 70’s or more and I believe he came in after I was there. I don’t believe he was doing well because besides his continual moaning, his children and wife talked to the attending physician for over an hour and a half about a living will and whether they should resuscitate him. I felt sorry for him because unless he as deaf, he likely was hearing how bad he was doing and that they were not going to resuscitate him.
I started praying for him on and off the rest of the night. I could see his monitor readings in the reflection in the glass partitions. So unfortunately I had a tendency to keep an eye on his pulse and breathing. Also alarms were always going off on his monitor so that further brought my attention to him.
Well, some two hours, later they decided to conduct surgery on him right in the ICU. It was a procedure where they went into his neck artery and ran a probe down somewhere in his body. They were monitoring the position of the probe with a sonogram type machine. The reason I heard most of this and could not just shut my mind to it was because a student doctor was performing the surgery and the professor/doctor was running him through every step of the procedure. At one point the professor/doctor did put scrubs on and took over the surgery procedure. The good news is the patient seemed in much better shape in the morning and was talking. I wonder if I can get any college credits for hearing everything I did?
Most people that know me know that I am an optimist and am not a complainer. And I am not complaining about what took place in the ICU that night. I understand completely that is why they call it the ICU. God bless all of the doctors, students, nurses and patients.
I said this because you will hear my first complaint just below.
I am getting tired and I want to post this so I will finish up tomorrow with days two – six.
John
thanks for keeping us informed. I never knew you were such a good writer! Love you! - katherine
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