Day 5

Didn’t sleep at all last night. Went to the hospital at 7:30am to have my rubber bands replaced. Spent a large chunk of my day passed out, spitting up phlegm, or attempting to eat. I’m so hungry, but I’m scared to eat because of the phlegm. Aunt and uncle came by today, and aunt told me that I still have some of the anesthesia in my system, which is why I’m still coughing up the phlegm.

Morale is higher today as some of the swelling has noticeably been reduced, but I still have a long way to go. I can feel tingles in my bottom lip, which make me hopeful in having feeling return to them in a few days. I can’t decide if I want to make my cheeks slimmer or get feeling back in my lips first. I’m really hoping that the worst is behind me, but after reading some of the other jaw surgery accounts, you’re not really out of the woods until you hit around Day 10. I keep trying to remind myself that it’s one day at a time, and not to rush my thoughts. For someone with my temperament, this is proving difficult.

Also, I’m slightly concerned that I’m going to start having ear pain, as I can feel a slight pressure in my left ear. Worrisome. 

Day 4

First full day at home, if you can call it that. Couldn’t sleep last night, so I spent a lot of today sleeping. I also spend a better part of today spitting up the phlegm that’s congealed in my throat. It’s not attractive, and I’m scared that I’m going to bust open my stitches. I don’t think I could mentally handle a complication right now. 

Morale is higher today than yesterday, partly because I’ve discovered an online forum as well as dozens of other blogs that chronicle their own journeys with jaw surgery. The splint (wafer, mouth guard) moved twice today, freaking me out. Going to the hospital again tomorrow to see why it keeps moving. A part of me is hoping that they’ll take out the wafer and just leave the bands. Not getting my hopes up that much, though, by reading the experiences of others. Feeling a bit more optimistic as I think my swelling has gone down some today after my 3 hour afternoon nap.

Day 3

Last day at the hospital.

Got my IV removed in the morning, which was joy. But then I discovered that my mouth guard is going to be in place for 1.5 months. The thought of eating like this is daunting. 

When I got home, I had difficulty getting down antibiotics due to the thickness of the liquid. DILUTE EVERYTHING WITH WATER. To the MAX. 

I'm absolutely starving but I can only drink thinned liquids. Really depressed about the state of my face, the state of my life. To think that only a month ago, I was a contributing member of society. Low morale today.

On top of all this, liquids keep going down the wrong pipe, and I can't enough cough because I'm banded shut so tightly.

The only evidence of my prim & proper self are old photos.
I don't even remember what it's like to put on makeup at this point.

Day 2

I recovered from my fever, and began to drink more liquids. At this stage, I would say that people should bring you juices when they visit you in the hospital. They taste really good.

A girl left the hospital and went home to BUSAN (which is a good 2 hour train ride from Seoul and that's using the bullet train). Before she left, I discovered that she had surgery for purely aesthetic reasons, and I hated her. But she had these really big eyes so I couldn't hate her for long. Also, she gave me pumpkin juice thing in this plastic bag. It tasted great. I'm easily won over by food.

Hello Kitty girl kept snoring. I roamed the halls at night and passed out during the day when she's watching TV or on the computer.

I now have to write out everything I want to say. My Korean skills are quickly improving out of necessity.

Got banded in the morning, so now I can't spit phlegm out when I want to. It's a total battle.

Day 1

After a horrifying night in ICU, I was moved to the regular rooms in the hospital. I had to share a room with three other girls. One was a full day of recovery ahead of me. The other two were girls from my ICU. The girl with the duck pillow, I think, had her face bones shaved to have a more slimmer looking face. The girl with the Hello Kitty everything had the same type of underbite as me. At some point during the recovery, her younger brother came to visit her and she would throw ice packs at him when he did or said something she didn't like. This made me want to laugh but the stitches and the swelling made it too painful.

Hello Kitty girl snored like my dad - she could move walls. I swear to God at some point I saw her bed shake from her snores. If you have the opportunity, take the single room. I signed up for it too late, and got stuck with no sleep for the first few days post-op. Though I don't know if the single helps that much as the discomfort is really unbearable the first few days. Sleep seems to elude all post-ops.

That night, I ran a low grade fever, and had to get pumped with various meds. I felt like crap, and every time a nurse asked me how I was doing, I wanted to punch her in the face. Except I felt too weak to bring up my arm.

This was also the first day with my bite splint.

Pre-Op/Day of Operation

In a little more than 12 hours, I’m going into surgery. When I put it like that, it sounds daunting and absolutely frightening. I’ve tried not to think about it, avoiding the idea like a summer cold. The less I think about it, the less I’ll be afraid of that time – that’s been my train of thought thus far. 

This is an entry from my journal for Aug. 9. Looking back, so much of what I wrote was a colossal mistake. For one, I should have fully researched everything that comes with jaw surgery. If I could do it again, here are the things I would've done:

1. Get myself started on a dose of anti-depressants. I'm really shocked at how crazy your mood swings can be post-op. 
2. Read about other people's experiences with the liquid diet. I knew that this was a part of the healing process, but I don't think I fully understood what this meant. Reading liquid diet for 6 weeks is one thing, but really experiencing is another thing altogether.
3. Read about other people's experiences with pain. I braced myself for a certain amount of pain, but the discomfort is OVERWHELMING. More than the pain itself, it's annoying to not be able to talk, sleep vertically, eat your favorite foods, have a throat the size of a golf ball, cheeks like a chipmunk for WEEKS... 
4. Talk to other people who have had the surgery, preferably people who are undergoing the healing process or going through the same stages as you. There are tons of forums out there which provide really great support groups. 
5. Buy acne cream, or stock up on your usual facial regime. Some people are lucky enough to have reactions from the steroids and meds they pump into you post-op, and get really fantastic breakouts of pimples. As if you didn't feel like a teenager with the braces, nature decided to send you another reminder.

My pre-op experience basically came to this. I arrived at the hospital at 6:30am and changed into hospital clothes. I was put into a room with five beds. All five were occupied when I arrived. In total, there were around 10 people who went into surgery with me that day. There were more, I realized later on, but I just never saw them. This is the scale of operations this hospital performs on a daily basis. My own doctor had two surgeries that day. I was the second. The first girl was done in less than 2.5 hours.

I remember walking into a freezing cold operation room. I laid down on the bed, shivering from the cold. The anesthesiologist put something over my mouth and told me to take deep breaths. That was it. Apparently, I woke up post-op and tried to talk to my mother, but I don't remember that at all. The next memory I have is waking up in the ICU (this was a basic requirement of the hospital stay, NOT because something went wrong) and watching the girl next to me puke blood into a plastic bucket.

Choosing A Doctor

I met with two doctors in Seoul. The first was a private hospital in the plastic surgery mecca of the capital. The hospital was famous for jaw surgeries, like the Dr. 90210 of Korea, with multiple press junkets, TV programs, etc. He had an extensive resume and was one of the first people to begin to use a surgery first method. This is an option given to people like me, who have already had braces, to have the opportunity to have the surgery and then return to 6-8 months of braces. This meant that I would be able to skip over the 1-1.5 years of wearing braces before having the operation. I liked this option for a number of reasons, the greatest being that I would be a braceface for a maximum of a year.

The second doctor was someone recommended to me by a family member. He was much older than the first doctor, around 60+, and was a part of a university hospital in the plastic surgeon department. Retrospectively, I realize that this should've been a red flag, as this is maxillofacial surgery, NOT plastic surgery. However, I was too naive to make this connection, and after pressure from family members, I ended up choosing this man as my surgeon.

For anyone who is trying to decide on a surgeon, TRUST YOUR GUT. If you think the doctor is too old, too dumb, too inexperienced, too whatever, GO WITH SOMEONE ELSE. And DO NOT let anyone pressure you into choosing a doctor. This is YOUR surgery, and YOU are the one who will have to live with the consequences. Go with someone who instills a sense of confidence and calm about your future face.

After I returned to the States in early June, I began making plans to fly back to Seoul to prep for my Aug. 8 surgery date. I flew back in mid-July to begin work with the dentist who was NOT a part of the university hospital (even though the hospital has its own dental school). Again, this should've raised another red flag, but my naiveté won.

The day after I arrived, I plunged into dental works, aka getting braces. Got my spacers inserted, a few days later, had my back brackets put into place. That was when things started going downhill. One of my back brackets weren't put in correctly, so my back teeth wouldn't meet properly. The next day, I went to meet with the surgeon. With the operation looming less than 3 weeks away, I was expecting a more detailed explanation of the game plan for my jaw. That was when he started asking me how I wanted to have the surgery - did I want both upper and lower, was I interested in genioplasty, etc. Aside from me asking post-op questions, he had nothing to tell me save for the fact that he planned on going on vacation from Aug. 2-8.

After this meeting, I immediately called my best friend whose entire family is in the medical profession. She expressed her skepticism, which corroborated my own, and told me to discuss this again with my parents.

A few days later, I went to the dentist, assuming that they were going to put on my brackets. When I arrived, they first inserted an expander in my mouth without having told me previously that I was getting an expander. That was when I started to come to the realization that I was completely clueless about the dentist's plan for my mouth, in addition to the plans for the surgery. I was getting pretty upset while sitting in my chair, but the last straw came with the brackets.

The first day I arrived, I had discussed with my dentist that I specifically wanted to have enamel colored brackets for the top teeth and metal on the bottom. When I looked in the mirror after they placed the brackets, I saw that they put all metal. I was LIVID. When I complained that the metal brackets were not the ones I had requested, my dentist showed me the paper that showed the words "metal" written under brackets. I told him that I don't know who wrote that, but it was something I hadn't requested. The fact that his attitude was like, "They're on now, just keep them on" made me absolutely furious. If I'm paying thousands of dollars for a service, I expect for the job to be done well. That means that if I want enamel brackets and you put on metal, you go back and put enamel brackets in my mouth even if it's a pain because at the end of the day, you fucked up and this customer is NOT happy.

After more discussion, I come to realize that the dentist (the one who actually comes up with the plan for the surgery) hadn't made the measurements and graphed a chart for me yet, citing that he hadn't had enough time. He gives me more excuses by saying that this entire procedure is rushed. I heard that as him saying that he's inadequate to prep me for an operation that's now 16 days away. When I told him that I wanted to further discuss the plans for my surgery, he brushed me off by saying that he had a lot of patients to see today. I heard that as him saying that he didn't consider my status as a patient as important and that my concern for my surgery was unwarrented and an overreaction. I left the office with an internal struggle with how I should proceed.

LOTS of tears and LOTS of stress later, my uncle (with whom I was staying) showed me the website of another hospital that only performed jaw surgeries. At that point, I was torn between staying in Seoul and meeting with other doctors or just giving up and going home. But then I figured since I was already there, it wouldn't hurt to meet at least one more. I'm really glad I did, because that was how I found my surgeon.

From the first moment I walked into the new hospital, I knew this was the place. Lots of meetings later, I was finally matched with a surgeon who had an opening for Aug. 10 (two days after my original date) due to a previous patient canceling due to problems with their blood test. I was told by the head nurse that I was lucky to get Dr. Park because his surgeries tend to be shorter than the other doctors due to his experience and skill. I felt like this was just another sign, so I prepped myself for Aug. 10.