Two days ago, in an effort to deal a devastating blow to the oral cancer that attacked my wife’s mouth, she had a maxillectomy. In layman’s terms, 5 teeth on the left side of her mouth, along the upper jawbone that they were rooted in and the left side of the roof of her mouth were removed. She can’t speak at the moment because of the swelling. Her lips, her tongue, and her throat are swollen. Her sinuses are packed with gauze. Breathing through her nose is impossible. Breathing through her mouth is painful. It hurts to breathe, it hurts to swallow. Did I mention that she can’t speak? I probably did.
The first few hours after the surgery she didn’t have use of her right hand. That’s where the IV was, and because of her position she couldn’t use it. She can’t speak. She couldn’t move her head without causing more pain, so all of our communication was with her eyes and her left hand, which is not her primary hand. Think about what it’s like to try to communicate with just your eyes and non-primary hand. Now imagine that you’re in the kind of pain one would expect when having their upper jaw removed. Saying that is hard is grossly understating the situation.
Her mouth was really dry. Half her salivary glands were removed, she wasn’t allowed to drink water before the surgery and she was limited to breathing through her mouth. I fed her ice water from a styrofoam cup using a plastic spoon. Her head was at an angle to avoid any pressure on her left side. Her lips and tongue were swollen and touching her teeth with the spoon hurt her immensely. If the spoon touched her lips it would stick because her mouth was just that dry. I also needed to avoid giving her any ice, just the water. I wish I had practiced feeding her water with a spoon at an angle before all of this. I was horrible at it. She was desperate for water and I was only getting in a few drops at a time. Sometimes I would miss and the water would spill out from her mouth down her cheek. Fresh water trickling down and merging with the saltwater path that was occasionally being replenished with tears. This is hard.
Eventually, the nurse suggested placing a cool damp cloth on the left side of Andrea’s face. This helped a bit. But for who knows what reason, the nurse patted the cloth after placing it. My wife’s eyes widened and she let out a muffled groan. She can’t talk or yell, but this is the look I’ve only seen before in movies when someone is gagged and being tortured. The nurse giggles a little and says, “oh, does it tickle?”
So, that was just a really long explanation for why I might need bail money.
