The night before the operation - SARPE

My operation was scheduled for 1st of July, I was psyched up and ready for it. I was excited because after waiting for four years it has become a reality. On the day however it was cancelled due to a lack of hospital ward beds. Following this, I was extremely pissed off due to my history with my trust and I immediately felt they were fucking me around again. I tried to get hold of my surgeon that day, couldn't get through to him that day or the next few days, rather I was put through to a middle man that had no clue on what was going on either.

Very down and frustrated at the beuracratic nature of the NHS, I was strongly contemplating getting my local MP involved again, as I didn't want to face the prospect of waiting until September to get operated on due to university commitments. That and now I wanted to just get the ball moving as I have another operation on my bottom jaw to look forward too next summer. Any further delays meant that this would be prolonged. But before doing this, I made sure that I found out what my rights were in the event of a cancelled operation. In my search for viable answers,I found the following information from the NHS web-site:

http://www.nhs.uk/chq/Pages/2563.aspx?CategoryID=68&SubCategoryID=162

Armed with my rights, I decided to give my hospital a bit of time to rectify things before doing anything drastic. Luckily, my operation was rescheduled for the following week and on July the 8th I was operated on.

The night before my operation I was very nervous about what laid ahead, I had heard stories of not being able to talk, excessive weight loss, swelling, and pain pain pain during my research of the operation. That and there were risks in this operation such as losing your sense of taste or losing sensitivity in your upper jaw due to the chance of ones nerve endings being damaged in the process. I completely felt as though I was venturing into the unknown at this point.

Luckily for me, in the ward bed next to me was a guy who had his arm operated on jacked on morphine. He proved to be a great ward room mate and really helped me out more then the nurses in the hospital. He showed me around the place, offered to get me food and gave me any assistance that I needed if the nurses were not around. He reassured me that everything would be ok.

...Still the night before the operation I felt uneasy, couldn't sleep due to a mixture of excitement and fear that something may go wrong. Afterall they are operating on my face here! Throughout this period I was heavily texting a friend Luke Shaw Harvey a fellow guy who is going through the same thing, and he was great help throughout by telling me exactly what to expect as he has been through SARPE.

A BIG THANKS mate!

The night before my operation, my last solid meal was fries and a chicken burger. I joked with friends that this is the equivilent of going onto death row, where the prisoner is spoilt for choice with regards to food, prior to being executed.

For those about to go through this procedure, your blood pressure will be checked and you will be told not to eat 12 hours before your operation as this will ensure that you don't puke blood up during your operation.