Surgery and First Day of Recovery

I arrived at the hospital by 5:30a.m. and got the necessary paperwork completed. I was called for presurgery prep, changing into a gown and reviewing information with the nurse. The anesthesiologist ,who has been at Stanford for over 25 years, told me what he would be doing and mentioned that he has worked with Dr. Li since Dr. Li had been at Stanford. I felt I was in good hands.

The surgery took four hours. Dr. Li said everything went very well and that he moved my jaw "a lot" and that I would be "happy". He said I should do just fine. I went from surgery to ICU. I have been applying cold packs all day and they do help. My pain on a scale of 1 being least pain to 10 being the greatest, is 7 soon after I arrived at the ICU. By the late afternoon, I was about 5 1/2. Most important is to stay ahead of the pain and not wait too long for medication. I am having some trouble swallowing my saliva but hopefully this will get better. Three things the doctor told me to do: Take deep breaths, where the chest rises up; Get up and walk; Drink lots of liquids.

I have only been able to do the deep breathing but tomorrow I will work on getting out of bed and hopefully, get some liquids down. More to come!