Face Lift Chronicles: After the Cut, Days One-Three

I've never  had surgery before, least of all on my head. The first 20 hours were the worst, with the drains (long plastic tubes inserted by needle under your scalp) in the back of my head making me feel like I was trying to sleep on iron rods; the preferred form of oblivion came in a tiny cup: morphine. It was blue and tasted like apple juice--very thoughtful. I was able to exit two-four hours at a time. They kept me off oral fluids and food because I was on the table for 10 hours (!). That was the price I paid for getting this done in a teaching hospital. If you ever decide to do this, make sure you limit the amount of time you’ll be on the table—I was told three hours, but there you have it. A machine breathed for me the entire time. In a way, it's better you DON'T know what's going to happen.
This surgery is under full anesthetic, so I had a breathing tube down my throat for the entire 10 hours, and an oxygen tube in my nose for the whole time I remained in hospital. Thanks to being under for so long, the next two days after surgery I began to cough up rubbery phlegm from deep in my lungs. The nurses encouraged it—less chance of pneumonia.
Time seemed interminable when I began to come to. I was in hospital from 6AM Monday morning until about 2PM Tuesday. The operating room nurses and recovery room nurses were outstanding--right there on the dot whenever I could find the call button to summon them. When I went to "the floor", however, it was a different story. I could hear the nurse talking on the phone: "Oh yeah. Should I pick you up or what? That sounds good. OK. OK.", and after the fifth or sixth time I hit the call button (I was covered in ice water as the ice pack on my face had leaked and burst open), she came over to the bed and said, in a tightly controlled voice, "We're busy here." Hey, I couldn't see (thanks to tape on both upper and lower lids), but I sure could hear! Apparently the nursing shortage is forcing hospitals to hire people who formerly worked as telemarketers.
Oxycodone and ice became my BFFs. I was very stoned and had long involved conversations with my daughter/nurse after she came to pick me up. She said I seemed quite lucid. A friend sent me a news clip about wallabies in New Zealand (where most legal/pharmaceutical opium farming is done). Apparently they munch on the poppies and wander in circles for hours. Undoubtedly, they were looking for walls and doors to run into, which I found with unerring frequency in my own shuffle to the bathroom and back.
Friend Jan brought flowers by that night--when she picked up the car on Monday, she checked to see how it went, found out I was still on the table, and got very worried. She was relived to see me, puffy and alive, bless her heart.
Wednesday I felt a little better. I was able to open my eyes enough to see a slit of reality.  I felt like I had a pillow tied over my face and I looked like an overweight 15-year-old Japanese boy. I never slept more than two hours without rummaging through the freezer for cold peas. I have never felt so warmly about iced vegetables. That night, I had my first Oxycodone nightmare (not much of one--I was defending myself in slow motion from what turned out to be an empty closet--I was making stabbing motions with a sharpened pencil. How obvious!). Bye Bye Oxycodone, hello Tylenol Arthritis formula.
More anon....