Open-Mouth Surgery

It’s been quite a day for Alan and me, and I’m very tired… though probably not nearly as tired as Alan is. We were both up at 4:30 this morning so that he could go to his PT formation at 6:30. After that we went over to Evans Hospital for his 7:30 check-in at the Oral Surgery Clinic. We got him checked in and a nurse took him into pre-op to start an IV, after which I was able to sit with him for a while. The doctors and nurses and anesthesiologist took turn asking them same questions over and over and finally, the anesthesiologist took him to the OR and I said good-bye for a couple hours. While he was in surgery, I went to Clothing Sales and the PX to do a little Christmas shopping. Being in the Army is a lot like being in college in terms of Christmas shopping. Everyone wants a shirt or a hat or a sticker representing Ft. Carson.  After that I went back to wait the clinic to sit in the waiting room and read and text with Zach. It was crazy crowded when I got back there, too. The orderly came and got me at about 12:15 and sent me down to the pharmacy to pick up Alan’s many many prescriptions, then brought me back into the recovery room.

Alan looks terrible, to be honest. His cheeks are very puffy and he has two blue strings taped to his face that are attached to pieces of gauze packed into his gums. It makes him look a little like the Joker, which he didn’t find all that funny. They took out all of his wisdom teeth, plus four extras. For some reason, he has … had… 36 teeth instead of 32. He also had two small toothlets embedded in his sinus cavity and a mass that the surgeon thought might be an odontoma. So he made an incision under his upper lip, cut away the bone to access the cavity and removed the toothlets and part of the mass. It isn’t an odontoma, as it turns out, but appears to be a kind of abnormal bone growth. He says it looks like normal, healthy bone, but they have to send it out for testing to be safe. He also couldn’t remove all of it because it’s apparently quite extensive. Then he put a mesh plate over the hole he made to keep the soft tissue from getting in. Honestly, as he was describing all this after the surgery, with Alan sitting there all swollen and groggy, I started to get a little woozy and had to sit down. I didn’t even like looking at the IV in the back of his hand. It’s weird, because I’m really the least bit squeamish about blood, just surgical procedures, apparently.

We stayed quite a while in the recovery room because when Alan sat up to get dressed his nose started bleeding pretty badly. So we had to work around that and wait until it had slowed a bit. The surgeon said it’s normal and I expect that once the clots have formed a little better, it won’t happen every time he sits up or changes position. Right now he’s passed out on the couch with percocet coursing through his system. He also has two nasal sprays, decongestant (because he can’t blow his nose), mouth wash, percocet, motrin, and some seriously heavy-duty antibiotics that may cause serious fucking intestinal misery. Can’t wait. And he’s on a soft diet and isn’t allowed to use a straw. The nurse at Evans was really sweet. I think I’ll have to check the paperwork for her name so that I can send her a card or something. I’ve read that lots of Army nurses aren’t so nice, but maybe that’s the ones who work in Maternity.

So now Alan has the rest of the week off work and no PT, field, or range work for at least a week. He has a follow-up appointment on Tuesday to see how things are progressing and evaluate if he needs anymore convalescent time. Sgt. Schulz seemed to be expecting as much when I told him and made me promise to call him if we needed anything. He is really such a nice guy and he’s always looking out for Alan.

In some random bits of totally unrelated news, I think I’ve made my first real-life friend here in Faulk’s wife, Charlee. She’s really sweet and I like her. There was a squadron holiday party last night and we went out to eat after the guys were released because we didn’t want to wait in the crazy food line. Also, last night I wore jeans a size smaller than the ones I’ve been wearing. Hurray! They were a bit of a tight fit, but they didn’t have what I wanted when I went looking for jeans on Sunday, so I took a chance and it worked out. I’m also wearing a new sweater in a large, a size smaller than I’ve been wearing. Hurray again! I’ve been pretty good about working out this week, so hopefully that’ll begin to show a bit more. I didn’t get to work out today and I probably shouldn’t tomorrow if Alan is still feeling so beat up and battered. I’m not supposed to leave him alone for 24 hours. Fortunately, I have plenty to do inside. I left the cleaning of the bathroom and kitchen for tomorrow, so that I wouldn’t have to leave Alan. It’s also supposed to snow a couple inches tonight and another 6 during the day tomorrow, so I supposed it’s just as well that I can’t really leave the house anyway.

Anyway, off to play nursemaid to my cut-up hubby. Poor thing. He feels so bad that I have to do all this for him. It’s funny because when he’s just a little under the weather, he’s always whining and asking me to make him food or go get him things. I guess it’s only fun when you’re not really an invalid.

~Liz