Well, I spent the last week before surgery getting everything paused with work, or at least everything I could. I also didn't cheat myself on any meals. If something sounded good, I ate it. I knew I was going to have a severely altered diet for at least two months, so I figured I might as well enjoy the last few days of normal eating. One of the things I had been told by all my doctors along the way was that my weight was not an issue with my sleep apnea. I am 6'3" and 265 lbs in the last 6 months before surgery. My ideal weight as far as I'm concerned is about 210 lbs, but I haven't seen that weight since my freshman year of college. Most of my excess weight was carried in the stomach area. But, because of my height, most people were shocked when they heard my actual weight. I am very "big boned", so I do seem to carry the extra weight a little better than most. The most important thing, I'm told, is that I wasn't carrying it around my neck. I have a 20.5" neck, but there is very little excess there. By the way, anything larger than 17" in neck size in men is also another risk factor for sleep apnea. So, a large neck, some faulty bone structure and a little extra weight all added up to an RDI of 90.
My wife an I spent the night in Rochester at a hotel and had a nice "last meal". The place was called 'Martinis' in case you are ever in town. It's in the Kahler hotel and had a short, but very tasty menu. I didn't have any of their famous martinis, but I did have a very tasty Amstel Light.
I checked into St. Mary's hospital at 6:45 the next morning and started the whole prep process. My mom was there, too. I grew up just outside of Rochester, so it was an easy drive there for her. I went through all of the various phase of preparation from changing clothes to getting IVs started over the course of the next 3 hours. I forget when it was Dr. Viozzi came out to make sure I was still wanting to proceed, but I think it was just before 10am. Up to this point, I hadn't been very nervous, so I was expecting my nerves to suffer fairly soon. I was wrong. I got a little nervous, but not even close to what I was expecting. I guess I had done some pretty good mental preparation. Things happened very quickly (for me) after that. I think I was in La-La land within the next 20 minutes.
Well, I don't remember the next 24 hours or so, so I'll fill in the little I know. Dr. Viozzi was a little concerned about the left side of my mandible because he was going to be removing a wisdom tooth there and in the maxilla just above that. He had prepared me for the possibility that I may be wired shut after the surgery if there wasn't enough bone to hold the screws. Well, the maxilla went perfect, the left mandible that he was a little concerned about went perfect, but the right side mandible didn't go so well. The controlled break went the wrong direction and instead of just splitting my mandible, it cracked straight back. At this point, he had three choices. He could put everything back and wire me shut, he could try to fix the break with plates by going in through an external incision and risk killing the bones, or he could repair what little he could without additional invasiveness and back out, wire me shut and see how my body would do in helping fix the issue. He chose the third option and I am glad he did. He said surgeons tend to like to fix things, but he figured my best chances long-term were through waiting and seeing how it would heal. He was still able to advance me the full 10mm on all four points, so that part of the procedure is done. The whole procedure took nearly six hours. At one point, Dr. Viozzi was called out for an emergency. He had just completed my maxilla, so I guess he left at a good time. He came back for the lower half in due time, but it probably added 30-40 minutes to the procedure. It seems that my procedure was longer than what many other people who have had theirs done at other hospitals, but Dr. Viozzi said it would take about that long, so it was expected.
I woke up on Tuesday because they wanted to keep me under and wake me up slowly. They were taking precautions because of my jaw being wired shut and didn't want me to wake up and panic. I had a lot of swelling, which wasn't really unusual, but Dr. Viozzi said some people react a little differently. I was one of those.
Well, lets just say I was in hell for the next three days. I had a tube running from my nose to my stomach to keep me from vomiting. (I had a little problem with nausea from anesthesia after the UPPP) I was still catheterized, still had IVs and the swelling was still pretty significant. The absolute worse thing about this was that tube in my nose. I was stuffed up and couldn't breath much at all through the other nostril. I couldn't get much air through my mouth. I have a mild case of claustrophobia, so anytime my breathing is restricted, I get a little anxious, which made me short of breath, which makes me a little anxious, which....I think you get the picture.
