Going in for the Op

My boyfriend came to the hospital with me and we asked the nurse if he was able to wait. She didn't seem as if this was normal and said he could but we would have to wait in the 1st waiting room as the others are split male/female as people would be in their gowns. I was happy with that, as long as I didn't have to wait on my own. She took me into a room asked some questions and checked my blood pressure and temperature. My temperature was 37.8 and normal should be 37 - this wasn't good. I asked if it would make a difference to me getting the op and she just said we would have to keep checking it and hope it goes down. I was so stressed about this, what if I couldn't have the op and it had to be postponed. I didn't feel ill and knew the reason was just because I was so stressed so coming again at a different time probably wouldn't make a difference.

The nurse came and told me we could go through to the next waiting room as there were no other female patients scheduled for the afternoon. I changed into my gown and got comfy. Conversation was minimal really between me and my bf as I was too scared, but it was just good to have him there. They kept coming and checking my temperature. Everytime it had gone down but only a tiny bit and not enough to make a difference. The anesthetist came to see me and asked what he needed, then I had to go and see one of the team of surgeons I was having. All the questions were pretty much the same repeated but I suppose they have to do it! They checked my temp one last time and it was normal enough for me to have it... PHEW! :)

I was left for a while and then the nurse came in to say it was time to go down. All of a sudden I burst into tears and couldn't control myself. She gave me a few mins with my boyfriend then it was time to go. As I walked down to the theatre I couldn't stop crying, I felt stupid. I think mainly it was a culmination of all the stress leading up to it. Plus I was SOOOO scared! I got onto the table and they started hooking me up to machines. They put the IV in and away I went...

I woke up in recovery about 2 1/2 hours later. The first thing I started doing was feeling round my mouth with my tongue to see what was numb. Only the top. That meant I must have had only a lefort 1 done. I felt really rubbish, in pain and sick. They asked how I was feeling then decided to give me a concoction of painkillers and anti sickness stuff. The anti sickness worked a treat and I felt much better. They kept coming and putting an oxygen mask over me as I was coughing a bit. I hated this as it hurt the inside of my nostrils. After about 1 and 1/2 hours they rang my boyfriend and took me up to the ward. I was so lucky I got my own private room which I wasn't expecting. This was much better than having to share when feeling like that!

I waited about an hour and a half until it was visiting time and then my Mum, Dad, sister and boyfriend  turned up. This was so good to see people close to me. I've never been in hospital and wasn't liking the experience much as I preferred to be at home. I was doing quite well, managing to speak quite a bit and they said I didn't look as bad as they thought I would. I got my mum to take a snap of me before leaving. When they left I watched some tv and tried to get some rest. I didn't end up even trying to sleep until about 1am. Here is a lovely pic of what I looked like just after:

Not too swollen really!