Entry 133 - My Reconstructive Jaw Surgery Experience
11/24/19
This is going to be really hard for me to write, because I know once I start writing, I'll need to write it all down in one sitting because the moment I begin writing is the moment I’m going to relive it. I don’t know why, but that’s what tends to happen whenever I think about these memories. I felt like one day I was going to sit down and write this out, and that one day somehow became tonight. I knew it was going to be hard.
I knew while I was writing it that I was going to cry some ugly tears, but I knew I had to share my story. I know this only scratches the surface, but I hope this helps family and friends catch a glimpse of what actually happened during that time and that my story will give hope to others who are now going through various trials of their own.
I know a lot of close family and friends were caught off guard because I did not open up about what I was going through, but hopefully you can see from my point of view that it’s kind of hard to go into detail of the pain you’re going through when you don’t even understand it yourself, when you’re in the midst of a trial, and especially when you’re incredibly sensitive to people’s reactions because someone in your life said one of the most hurtful, damaging words to you that put you almost in a depressive state. So I felt like it was a good idea for my own well-being to keep my suffering as private as possible until I felt strong enough to share the details of my experience before, during and after my surgery. So here it goes.
Around September 2017, I went to the hospital on campus at San Diego State University, and I was telling them that I felt some discomfort in my mouth. At first, they said I had ulcers and I had to take these meds to get rid of them. Then I came back, and they hooked me up to an EKG and said, “Sorry, we don’t know what’s wrong, but we’ll refer you to an ENT.” I then went to the ENT and the ENT doctor said, “It looks like you have gingivitis.” Then I realized something was off and I don’t think these doctors know what it is. I knew something was wrong, but I still didn’t know what. It wasn’t until I went to the Orthodontist that they discovered the real issue.
Around Christmas, I was with Kevin my brother, Grace my brother’s wife, and Kirsten my sister, and they took me to my Orthodontist for a checkup. I was telling them of how I felt like there was some discomfort in the back left molars. They said, "Well, let’s take an X-Ray." When they took the scan, it revealed a mass growing in the back left of my jaw below the molars. Words cannot describe the terror I felt when I figured out something was really wrong with my body and I still didn't entirely know what it was.
We were told to go to the urgent care right away. So my Dad came and picked me up, and we rushed to the UC Davis Urgent Care. I still remember riding on that windy road to the hospital. I remember the thoughts that came to my mind. The terror, the confusion, the fear, the unknown. It was all so much and yet for some reason, unbeknownst to me, this was now my life at that moment. I had to go through this. There was no way out.
After waiting around six or seven hours at the urgent care, we were finally seen. They did some tests, and then they gave me a CT scan. Now I want you to try to imagine being me at this moment. You’re in a hospital bed. You have your Mom and Dad both sitting down on chairs next to you, and you’re waiting to hear the results about your CT scan.
You’re sitting there, not sure what direction this is all going to go in, but nonetheless, all you can do is wait. At that moment I was thinking of the verse, “... Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” - John 12: 23-24 Thinking of Scripture was like holding onto a lifeboat. It was the only thing that was stopping me from collapsing into a state beyond emotions of sadness and anxiety.
All of a sudden, the doctors came in, and before they said anything, they asked to speak to my Dad privately outside. The suspense was way too much. It felt like I was in some type of Grey’s Anatomy episode, but the worst part about it is that I had no clue what was about to become of my life. Could this be life-threatening? Could this be benign? Malignant? A cyst? A tumor? The suspense of not knowing what the diagnosis was, was beyond anything I could ever explain to anyone. Was I going to... Die?
Was it seriously too much for me to hear the diagnosis? Was it seriously that bad that I couldn’t listen to what was happening?? Then they went away to study the CT scans more on their own while we waited in that room. The unknowing, the fear, worry, I cannot explain to you how I felt, and I wouldn’t wish my worst enemy to feel what I felt that day. Then finally, they came back out with the CT scan, and they pulled it up. They showed the mass, and they confirmed that it was a benign tumor growing at a fast rate within my jaw and needs to be removed as soon as possible.
Fast-forward to the surgery, March 2017. I was told the surgery would take 10 hours. My job during the surgery was easy. Don’t wake up. I was thinking to myself, “Please don’t wake up, because you could probably only have half a jaw in, and that would not be a nice time to wake up.” I remember sitting there early in the morning about to go into the surgery room, waiting with my mom and dad. Each person of the team came up and prepared me for what was going to take place and during that time before surgery, I remember feeling a strange but powerful peace that fell over me.
Even though I was crying for weeks and weeks leading up to this day. Crying out to God asking Him “Why, Lord, why me?! Did you really think I was strong enough to handle this?! I must’ve given you the wrong impression because I am definitely not strong enough for this! I cannot handle this! This is beyond me!” But at that moment, I was at peace beyond my own understanding.
I didn’t know it at the time, but that was my first experience of a deep spiritual breakthrough. Up until that point, I was resisting, in denial, not believing it, but then at that moment, I finally accepted the situation for what it was and found a peace surround me by that acceptance. It was the strangest thing, and it was a catalyst for future breakthroughs that were to come.
So moving forward, I was going to be under anesthesia, while they removed my left jaw bone and replaced it with my fibula and a titanium bar. I had no clue that when I got out of surgery, that was going to be the weakest and the most in pain I’ve ever been in. As I woke up from surgery, I felt the big painkillers hit. They did a great job at that part. However, after one or two hours of my first surgery, I went back under for surgery to reconnect my jugular vein better. Amazingly, my memory before, during, and after these events were crystal clear even though I was tremendously drugged up.
Once I was transferred to the ICU, the nurse who was supposed to watch me in the ICU did not seem to understand that I was having difficulty with the blood and the spit that was getting stuck down my throat. I was coughing profusely and multiple times that day I struggled with breathing. Since it hurt to talk, I would have to rapidly write on the whiteboard that I couldn’t breathe and needed to spit in the paper bag, but she told me I was overreacting and that I needed to calm down and wait.
Because of that, I coughed out all the blood and spit it out on top of me, and it dripped down onto the chair. I was laying in my own blood and spit blood out multiple times that night. If you’re a nurse dealing with a patient who just had a ten-hour surgery to remove the left portion of their jaw and the fibula from their leg, may you please take this advice and never tell your patient to calm down when they’re choking on blood and spit and just do as they say and help them out.
So naturally, I wrote on my whiteboard and told my mom what the nurse was doing. My mom yelled at the nurse and asked for a replacement, and this is where it gets crazy. The nurse locked my mom out of the room, no joke. If I could have walked, I would’ve wobbled over to the door, unlocked it, and let my Mom back in, but sadly I couldn’t get out of bed, so I had to wait for some hours until eventually, that nurse was replaced, and I wasn’t having that issue anymore, thank God.
For the first three or four days, I could not walk, I could not get out of bed, I could not even wipe myself after urinating or going number two for most of the week. I was on high painkillers and Tylenol and Advil around the clock. My leg was stitched up, but it still hurt from the fibula being removed. There was some trouble finding the correct high dose painkiller that didn’t make me want to throw up. I was given morphine only to feel like I was going to throw up.
Then I would have anti-nausea medicine to counteract the nausea from the morphine, only to get anxious and have anti-anxiety meds rushed into my veins. It was a horrible cycle until we finally found one that didn’t induce nausea and I pressed a button every 15 minutes to administer the Dolobid painkiller into my veins.
I could not laugh because every time I did, the feeding tube would rub against the stitches attached to my nose and hurt. I also could not talk for most of the week, and so I had to use a white board to communicate with people. Surprisingly, even with all the drugs I was on, I remember this week like it was yesterday. I remember every feeling. I remember every stage.
I remember the nice nurses, the not so nice nurses. I remember the pain, and I remember the small glimpses of joy. I remember my family coming and visiting. I remember seeing their concerned expressions as they saw me in this state, and I remember thinking to myself, “What must it feel like to see a loved one in such a state as this?”
I remember sitting there wanting so badly to taste water again in my mouth (since my feeding tube went down to my stomach, the water would be directly administered to my stomach via the feeding tube). I would stare at the little baby waters and when the nurse would walk away, I’d give myself more water through my tube in the nose and would imagine myself drinking it through the mouth. Around day three or four, I finally was able to get out of my bed and walk around. I was using a walker and made it a goal to go around the hospital wing at least ten times.
I had to be careful though because I had needles in many veins on various parts of my body, so I had a monitor that someone had to wheel around when I was walking. I had one needle on the front of my hand with a plastic tube in my vein, I had one in my arm, and I even had one in my foot.
Every single morning at 6:00am, some lady would come in and syringe my stomach to give me a dosage of what I believe was aspirin. Imagine you’re just sleeping soundly, only to find a huge mother of a needle about to pierce your stomach every single morning for seven days straight. Yes, it hurt like a mother, but that’s what Dolobid was for.
Then at the most interesting hours, my surgeon would come in and check on my jugular vein with this gel-like substance. The absolute worst part of the entire experience was the day I was supposed to get discharged. A doctor in her residency came in quickly and said she was going to pull out the stitches really quick.
Before I could write on the white board that I needed to reach for the controller and administer some Dolapid into my veins, she came over with tweezers and just pulled them out, then walked away. I was in so much pain that I couldn’t stop crying for a good ten to fifteen minutes afterward. That whole time, that was the worst pain I felt beyond anything else that whole entire week.
Through this experience I learned that we don’t choose our trials, but we do get to choose how we react to them. Some trials are small, some are large, some trials you can relate a lot with others, while some you might feel all alone. This one, I felt really alone. I did not know anyone around me who was going through or went through what I was going through, and that left me in a state of intense fear of the unknown.
But, it also caused me to be completely dependent and reliant on God to get me through. Sometimes our hardest trials that seem to bury us, are actually the times of most improvement in our lives that bear the most fruit. As horrible, as painful, as sickening, as dreadful, as terrifying as that experience was, I can attest the lessons I’ve learned, and my relationship with God has increased sevenfold. I left that hospital truly as a new woman. My appreciation for the littlest things still stick with me till this day.
My appreciation to be able to walk, run, drink water, smile, laugh, talk to my friends and family without needing a whiteboard, eat, are beyond anything I can explain. I am always saying thank you to God under my breath for these things because I know what it’s like having them all taken away from myself. Hopefully my past trial encourages you and gives you hope through your current trials or your future ones.
Remember, no matter how hard it may be, no matter how unbearable, how painful, know that this too shall pass. Even when there seems to be no explanation, God is there to be your healer during that time of brokenness, and God will be right by your side as you go through it, and one day you will overcome it. Rest in the peace of God. Have faith that things will be better, and keep your eyes fixed on the Author and Perfecter of your faith. May God bless you forever and always.
This is going to be really hard for me to write, because I know once I start writing, I'll need to write it all down in one sitting because the moment I begin writing is the moment I’m going to relive it. I don’t know why, but that’s what tends to happen whenever I think about these memories. I felt like one day I was going to sit down and write this out, and that one day somehow became tonight. I knew it was going to be hard.
I knew while I was writing it that I was going to cry some ugly tears, but I knew I had to share my story. I know this only scratches the surface, but I hope this helps family and friends catch a glimpse of what actually happened during that time and that my story will give hope to others who are now going through various trials of their own.
I know a lot of close family and friends were caught off guard because I did not open up about what I was going through, but hopefully you can see from my point of view that it’s kind of hard to go into detail of the pain you’re going through when you don’t even understand it yourself, when you’re in the midst of a trial, and especially when you’re incredibly sensitive to people’s reactions because someone in your life said one of the most hurtful, damaging words to you that put you almost in a depressive state. So I felt like it was a good idea for my own well-being to keep my suffering as private as possible until I felt strong enough to share the details of my experience before, during and after my surgery. So here it goes.
Around September 2017, I went to the hospital on campus at San Diego State University, and I was telling them that I felt some discomfort in my mouth. At first, they said I had ulcers and I had to take these meds to get rid of them. Then I came back, and they hooked me up to an EKG and said, “Sorry, we don’t know what’s wrong, but we’ll refer you to an ENT.” I then went to the ENT and the ENT doctor said, “It looks like you have gingivitis.” Then I realized something was off and I don’t think these doctors know what it is. I knew something was wrong, but I still didn’t know what. It wasn’t until I went to the Orthodontist that they discovered the real issue.
Around Christmas, I was with Kevin my brother, Grace my brother’s wife, and Kirsten my sister, and they took me to my Orthodontist for a checkup. I was telling them of how I felt like there was some discomfort in the back left molars. They said, "Well, let’s take an X-Ray." When they took the scan, it revealed a mass growing in the back left of my jaw below the molars. Words cannot describe the terror I felt when I figured out something was really wrong with my body and I still didn't entirely know what it was.
We were told to go to the urgent care right away. So my Dad came and picked me up, and we rushed to the UC Davis Urgent Care. I still remember riding on that windy road to the hospital. I remember the thoughts that came to my mind. The terror, the confusion, the fear, the unknown. It was all so much and yet for some reason, unbeknownst to me, this was now my life at that moment. I had to go through this. There was no way out.
After waiting around six or seven hours at the urgent care, we were finally seen. They did some tests, and then they gave me a CT scan. Now I want you to try to imagine being me at this moment. You’re in a hospital bed. You have your Mom and Dad both sitting down on chairs next to you, and you’re waiting to hear the results about your CT scan.
You’re sitting there, not sure what direction this is all going to go in, but nonetheless, all you can do is wait. At that moment I was thinking of the verse, “... Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” - John 12: 23-24 Thinking of Scripture was like holding onto a lifeboat. It was the only thing that was stopping me from collapsing into a state beyond emotions of sadness and anxiety.
All of a sudden, the doctors came in, and before they said anything, they asked to speak to my Dad privately outside. The suspense was way too much. It felt like I was in some type of Grey’s Anatomy episode, but the worst part about it is that I had no clue what was about to become of my life. Could this be life-threatening? Could this be benign? Malignant? A cyst? A tumor? The suspense of not knowing what the diagnosis was, was beyond anything I could ever explain to anyone. Was I going to... Die?
Was it seriously too much for me to hear the diagnosis? Was it seriously that bad that I couldn’t listen to what was happening?? Then they went away to study the CT scans more on their own while we waited in that room. The unknowing, the fear, worry, I cannot explain to you how I felt, and I wouldn’t wish my worst enemy to feel what I felt that day. Then finally, they came back out with the CT scan, and they pulled it up. They showed the mass, and they confirmed that it was a benign tumor growing at a fast rate within my jaw and needs to be removed as soon as possible.
Fast-forward to the surgery, March 2017. I was told the surgery would take 10 hours. My job during the surgery was easy. Don’t wake up. I was thinking to myself, “Please don’t wake up, because you could probably only have half a jaw in, and that would not be a nice time to wake up.” I remember sitting there early in the morning about to go into the surgery room, waiting with my mom and dad. Each person of the team came up and prepared me for what was going to take place and during that time before surgery, I remember feeling a strange but powerful peace that fell over me.
Even though I was crying for weeks and weeks leading up to this day. Crying out to God asking Him “Why, Lord, why me?! Did you really think I was strong enough to handle this?! I must’ve given you the wrong impression because I am definitely not strong enough for this! I cannot handle this! This is beyond me!” But at that moment, I was at peace beyond my own understanding.
I didn’t know it at the time, but that was my first experience of a deep spiritual breakthrough. Up until that point, I was resisting, in denial, not believing it, but then at that moment, I finally accepted the situation for what it was and found a peace surround me by that acceptance. It was the strangest thing, and it was a catalyst for future breakthroughs that were to come.
So moving forward, I was going to be under anesthesia, while they removed my left jaw bone and replaced it with my fibula and a titanium bar. I had no clue that when I got out of surgery, that was going to be the weakest and the most in pain I’ve ever been in. As I woke up from surgery, I felt the big painkillers hit. They did a great job at that part. However, after one or two hours of my first surgery, I went back under for surgery to reconnect my jugular vein better. Amazingly, my memory before, during, and after these events were crystal clear even though I was tremendously drugged up.
Once I was transferred to the ICU, the nurse who was supposed to watch me in the ICU did not seem to understand that I was having difficulty with the blood and the spit that was getting stuck down my throat. I was coughing profusely and multiple times that day I struggled with breathing. Since it hurt to talk, I would have to rapidly write on the whiteboard that I couldn’t breathe and needed to spit in the paper bag, but she told me I was overreacting and that I needed to calm down and wait.
Because of that, I coughed out all the blood and spit it out on top of me, and it dripped down onto the chair. I was laying in my own blood and spit blood out multiple times that night. If you’re a nurse dealing with a patient who just had a ten-hour surgery to remove the left portion of their jaw and the fibula from their leg, may you please take this advice and never tell your patient to calm down when they’re choking on blood and spit and just do as they say and help them out.
So naturally, I wrote on my whiteboard and told my mom what the nurse was doing. My mom yelled at the nurse and asked for a replacement, and this is where it gets crazy. The nurse locked my mom out of the room, no joke. If I could have walked, I would’ve wobbled over to the door, unlocked it, and let my Mom back in, but sadly I couldn’t get out of bed, so I had to wait for some hours until eventually, that nurse was replaced, and I wasn’t having that issue anymore, thank God.
For the first three or four days, I could not walk, I could not get out of bed, I could not even wipe myself after urinating or going number two for most of the week. I was on high painkillers and Tylenol and Advil around the clock. My leg was stitched up, but it still hurt from the fibula being removed. There was some trouble finding the correct high dose painkiller that didn’t make me want to throw up. I was given morphine only to feel like I was going to throw up.
Then I would have anti-nausea medicine to counteract the nausea from the morphine, only to get anxious and have anti-anxiety meds rushed into my veins. It was a horrible cycle until we finally found one that didn’t induce nausea and I pressed a button every 15 minutes to administer the Dolobid painkiller into my veins.
I could not laugh because every time I did, the feeding tube would rub against the stitches attached to my nose and hurt. I also could not talk for most of the week, and so I had to use a white board to communicate with people. Surprisingly, even with all the drugs I was on, I remember this week like it was yesterday. I remember every feeling. I remember every stage.
I remember the nice nurses, the not so nice nurses. I remember the pain, and I remember the small glimpses of joy. I remember my family coming and visiting. I remember seeing their concerned expressions as they saw me in this state, and I remember thinking to myself, “What must it feel like to see a loved one in such a state as this?”
I remember sitting there wanting so badly to taste water again in my mouth (since my feeding tube went down to my stomach, the water would be directly administered to my stomach via the feeding tube). I would stare at the little baby waters and when the nurse would walk away, I’d give myself more water through my tube in the nose and would imagine myself drinking it through the mouth. Around day three or four, I finally was able to get out of my bed and walk around. I was using a walker and made it a goal to go around the hospital wing at least ten times.
I had to be careful though because I had needles in many veins on various parts of my body, so I had a monitor that someone had to wheel around when I was walking. I had one needle on the front of my hand with a plastic tube in my vein, I had one in my arm, and I even had one in my foot.
Every single morning at 6:00am, some lady would come in and syringe my stomach to give me a dosage of what I believe was aspirin. Imagine you’re just sleeping soundly, only to find a huge mother of a needle about to pierce your stomach every single morning for seven days straight. Yes, it hurt like a mother, but that’s what Dolobid was for.
Then at the most interesting hours, my surgeon would come in and check on my jugular vein with this gel-like substance. The absolute worst part of the entire experience was the day I was supposed to get discharged. A doctor in her residency came in quickly and said she was going to pull out the stitches really quick.
Before I could write on the white board that I needed to reach for the controller and administer some Dolapid into my veins, she came over with tweezers and just pulled them out, then walked away. I was in so much pain that I couldn’t stop crying for a good ten to fifteen minutes afterward. That whole time, that was the worst pain I felt beyond anything else that whole entire week.
Through this experience I learned that we don’t choose our trials, but we do get to choose how we react to them. Some trials are small, some are large, some trials you can relate a lot with others, while some you might feel all alone. This one, I felt really alone. I did not know anyone around me who was going through or went through what I was going through, and that left me in a state of intense fear of the unknown.
But, it also caused me to be completely dependent and reliant on God to get me through. Sometimes our hardest trials that seem to bury us, are actually the times of most improvement in our lives that bear the most fruit. As horrible, as painful, as sickening, as dreadful, as terrifying as that experience was, I can attest the lessons I’ve learned, and my relationship with God has increased sevenfold. I left that hospital truly as a new woman. My appreciation for the littlest things still stick with me till this day.
My appreciation to be able to walk, run, drink water, smile, laugh, talk to my friends and family without needing a whiteboard, eat, are beyond anything I can explain. I am always saying thank you to God under my breath for these things because I know what it’s like having them all taken away from myself. Hopefully my past trial encourages you and gives you hope through your current trials or your future ones.
Remember, no matter how hard it may be, no matter how unbearable, how painful, know that this too shall pass. Even when there seems to be no explanation, God is there to be your healer during that time of brokenness, and God will be right by your side as you go through it, and one day you will overcome it. Rest in the peace of God. Have faith that things will be better, and keep your eyes fixed on the Author and Perfecter of your faith. May God bless you forever and always.
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