It lives! (aka out of surgery)

Yesterday I had surgery under a General Anesthesia to remove 5 teeth (4 wisdom teeth, and a baby pre-molar that never got a secondary tooth; but had decided it had hung around long enough ).

The day surgery saw us arrive at 12:30pm to 'sign-in' though I didn't actually get the pre-med until just after 5:00pm. So a mind numbing wait of 4.5 hours was undertaken. (Even worse was the fact that my last food and any form of liquid was 7:30am, and it seemed the only thing showing on the blaring waiting room TV was food shows. ). That resulted in a nice headache by mid-afternoon as my blood sugar levels dropped.

The surgery itself was a success, I left the operating theatre just after 7pm, and it took just over an hour in the recovery room. There I was treated to food that makes everything better (icecream and jelly), as well as a glass of apple juice and another of water.

Pauline took good care of me, and kept me company during the long wait before hand (though she ignored my pleads to head off and not blow her whole afternoon waiting around in the waiting room). Whilst I was in surgery she headed home (only 5 mins down the road) to attempt a bite to eat (that didn't happen as they called her back as she was about to commence eating), but she did have time to wash some bed sheets, feed the dogs and get ready for my return (buying/making some additional yummy goodies that I could eat/drink).

Swelling is well down (I expected to look like a bullfrog this morning, but it's quite minimal). I'll continue using ice-packs on either side of my face every few hours, to lessen it further.

It appears that besides the general, that the surgeons also applied a local to my bottom jaw, to aid in pain relief. The local worked extremely well, although it gave the sensation I had a bear's tongue and not my own for most of last night.

Since waking this morning, the local has long worn off, and I'm in relatively good spirits. I'm using the Panadine Forte for pain relief (in fact the pain is minimal at this stage -- which is brilliant!).

I came home brandishing a swag of mouth rinses, painkillers and anti-inflammatory drugs for the next few days; I should be hopefully back to full steam in a short time.

This will be a weekend of rest and time to re-assess early next week. I'll potter online a little, but it's more from boredom than a burning desire to be on the computer (I'm not much value above useless at present!).

A big thanks to all the well-wishes I've received over the past few weeks... it's great to know others are thinking of you. Thankfully this saga appears to be quickly drawing to a near and I'll be my annoying, harassing and cheeky self in no-time (so beware!).