Day 2 dawned bright and early at 5:04am... Well, I was up and writing (badly because of the darkness) at that time anyway! My night time dose of antibiotics had again made me cry just because they were so painful to inject. The pain subsided quickly though and I slept well except for being woken for obs at 2:10am. I slept with my headphones in so I could listen to downloaded shows on iPlayer but the headphones gave me earache. I felt absolutely disgusting when I woke up so I took a trip to the toilet and took an antibacterial wipe bath, applied some deodorant and put my hair up a bit better.
My drains were due out "first thing that morning" according to my surgeon so I was very excited to get that over and done with then have a proper wash and put clean pyjamas on. My teeth were still aching a bit but nothing too painful. I had a sore throat so I had some Ibruprofen syrup to try and alleviate that pain.
At 7:10am I had a strawberry Fortisip and I realised that the more Fortisips I drank, the less I liked them so am steering clear of them as much as possible from now on. I started drinking water normally from a cup today and it was so much easier and quicker than using the syringe. By 7am I'd already managed to drink 2 cupfuls! Managed not to cry when the nurse administered my morning dose of antibiotics but it still hurt like hell.
At 11:40am one of the surgery team came to remove my drains. I was glad he had finally arrived as I was beginning to think I'd have to put up with the tubes in my neck for the rest of my life but I was also really scared it was going to hurt. Firstly he clipped the stitches that had been holding the drains in my neck, it was a horrible sensation but not particularly painful. Then he had to rip all the surgical tape off that had been holding the drains against my neck and chest - that HURT! Then came the actual removal of the drains themselves... It was absolutely disgusting. He put some little clips on the tube to supposedly cut off the vacuum but as soon as he started pulling the drains I could feel where they were in my mouth and I thought I was going to be sick. It seemed like an absolute eternity as he slowly pulled them out and the sound of them sucking their way out was the only thing I could hear. It felt as though my head was being pulled inside out because the vacuums hadn't really been disconnected at all. I cried a little but more through feeling nauseous about the whole process because in reality it didn't hurt very much at all, just felt vile. It was absolute heaven to be free of the tubes and bottles though so I played a documentary on my iPad and just listened to that for an hour to take my mind off my queasiness. I've put some photos of my drainage sites (ooer) below to show my swelling a little better without all those tubes in the way.
At 1:45pm I had my next round of antibiotics and it really hurt again, couldn't stop myself from crying no matter how hard I tried. I managed another tomato build up soup though and had already finished one jug of water, which was apparently very good progress. When the nurses brought round the lunch trolley I was given two little tubs of ice cream but once they had melted I could only manage one of them through my syringe before it made me feel a bit sick.
At 2pm Mom arrived with fresh pyjamas and I finally got to have a proper wash and put fresh clothes on, which made me feel so much better. I managed to brush my teeth for the first time too using an extra soft toothbrush and although my cheeks were too swollen to brush anything other than about 8 of my teeth at the front it still felt really good. The disgusting taste was hard to shake though, which is unsurprising really considering how much you take it for granted that you can just brush your tongue and the inside of your teeth whenever you want to. Already I'm counting down until the day that the wires come off so I can give my teeth a proper thorough brushing!
At 7pm I ventured down to the hospital shop with Mom, Dad and Rich (my boyfriend). It was a fair distance from the ward to the shop as they are at opposite ends of the hospital and 2 floors apart so after walking slowly down to the shop and buying a bottle of squash I resigned myself to being wheeled back to the ward. The wheelchair journey was awful though as every little bump hurt and I was glad to get back into bed once we got back to my ward at about 7:40pm. I stopped off at the Maxillofacial department, where I have all my appointments with my orthodontist, on my way down to the shop and took the photo below.
At 10pm I felt really queasy, stiff and had a headache. There weren't very many nursing staff on so they checked on us a lot less often and I didn't like to call them too often in case they were really busy. I asked for some painkillers and was given dissolvable paracetamol as those were what I would be sent home with but they tasted horrible and made me feel even more nauseuous. I asked for a hot water bottle to put on my stomach as that always helps at home but I was told that they're dangerous so the hospital doesn't have any. I kept applying ice packs wrapped in pillowcases (beautifully modelled below) to reduce the swelling and bruising and I really think this helped but it was a bit uncomfortable.
After that I settled in as best I could to try and get a good night's sleep. Again I slept sitting up to minimise any swelling.
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