23rd October 2025

 The day arrives, in what seems to have been a very long week, but I feel positive and want too get this over and done with. I will be staying in hospital overnight which is ok, I know the ward so all good!

Arrive at the Churchill Hospital for 11:00, am ushered straight through to the prep area, and see the anaesthetist who walks me through the procedure in detail.

I then see the Maxilla-facial registrar who explains in great detail (which is really good) the whole operation and what to expect. He makes it clear they will not be removing any teeth but will try and reposition them if they can, the primary objective is to fix the jaw and realign it.

This is more complex for a couple of reasons, 1. the infection I had they need to ensure this is cleared away and may have damaged the bone, 2. because I have had radiotherapy before this could slowdown the healing process and again cause infection, the last thing you want and can easily get exposed to from this is osteonecrosis so again things to be considered during the procedure

13:15 I'm off to the theatre, walk down which is always a bit intimidating, down a narrow corridor, loads of surgeons waiting at various theatres for there next "victim" 😂😂 and I arrive at theatre 3 - the theatre is setup where you only see the anaesthetists suite, they get you laid down, talk through what's going to happen, put the local in your nose and mouth so they can insert the breathing tube easier - this has to go down through my nose as they are obviously working around my mouth. They the put the sedation in followed by the anaesthetic and thats the last your remember

17:00 I come round in the recovery area, I've been here before, but its quite overpowering as there is a lot going on, a lot of people in there, nurses milling around looking seriously at screens. My recovery nurse is Anya, a lovely Polish girl who takes care of me, she tells me about where she is from and the lovely city it is and we talk about the salt mines in Krakow which she shows me pictures of that are stunning. I nurse comes in from the ward, not a very pleasant young lady after a couple of hours who happily tells me I won't be her patient but that I'll go to the ward shortly, she didn't give a shit! and I guess she was playing for time as the ward shift changes at 20:00 and she obviously couldn't be arsed to take in a new patient. the good news is I know the ward sister who is on the nightshift and she is lovely, so no lose really

21:00 Get transferred to the ward, where I am looked after by a lovely nurse Susan who actually looked after me before, she is very nice and very helpful. The one difference I have noticed this time around is the pain! loads of it FFS! but she sorts me out with codine and some other stuff (name escapes me) which reduces the pain but I can't sleep, I think its something about being in hospital with me, but I am up and about go for a pee which is always a good sign and take a walk down thew corridor without any issues

I doze on and off for a few hours, have more drugs, sit up in the chair, read my book, have a feed through my tube.

Mr Prabhu comes and sees me later in the morning, tells me all went well and its important to now move my jaw as least a possible to help with the healing, he tells me to organise for my stitches to be removed on the 4th November and to see him for a followup on the 13th and that in the afternoon around 17:00 after I have had two more rounds of antibiotics I can go home.

Carol, picks me up around 17:00, I have more drugs to take now with some heavy hitting antibiotics and pain relief, the pain has been pretty strong, far more noticeable than last time and I can feel every movement. But, the good news is my swallowing seems to be way improved as one of the drugs I have to swallow and can't crush and put through the tube.

One thing I checked on my app (My Friend in case you've forgotten 😜) was if there is a misalignment with your jaw does this cause swallowing problems and this was the answer: "when the jaw doesn't fuse properly or is out of alignment, it can indeed lead to difficulties with swallowing, among other issues. Misalignment can affect how the muscles and joints work together potentially leading to discomfort or problems with chewing and swallowing" Pretty good answer don't you think, imagine trying to get that answer through the 100+ pages you'd get shit on this from Google 😜, the nice thing though is it also tells you to discuss with your surgeon or your healthcare specialist.

So I am hoping going forward my swallowing will now improve a lot I can start to chew food and move onto the next stage of getting rid of this PEG (feeding tube) as its a real drain on your morale and spirits. I have been told not to eat or drink anything for two weeks whilst this heals, and I can't wait to get past this stage now.

Over the last few days the pain has subsided to where I am taking just paracetamol a couple of times a day which is a marked improvement even before surgery, but I am not on a a really strong antibiotic with loads of potential side effects that makes me nervous, its called ciprofloxacin, which they prescribed over the weekend based on the "bug" they found from the plate they removed, so pretty heavyweight drug along with loads of others, anyway so far so good with no effects, lets hope it stays that way

Until next time....thnaks for reading 

Moving on, with lots going on!

 Since my last post a lot has happened and adds to the reason for the sporadic posts these days.

Back to 25th September 2025

I saw Prof. winter and Mr Prabhu (maxilla-facial surgeon) and then went on to see Mr Wilson an oral dentist surgeon. They all agreed that further surgery was required to allow the jaw to realign, but also as this movement had caused a number of my lower teeth to die off they would need to be removed.

The first stage is to remove the existing plate, insert a new stronger (bigger) plate to hold the jaw in place to heal and then evaluate the teeth and what needed to be done with them

1st October

Had my follow up MRI - awaiting the latest results of this

9th October

Had the walk through of the surgery plan with Prof. winter and Mr Prabhu, which pretty much agreed as they had told me earlier, with a date set for the 15th October, so have a date and just look forward to getting this done and moving on with recovery and getting to the end of this shitty year and back into the real world.

I felt that I have missed this year completely as your mind is just focused on getting through this and trying to see the light at the end of the tunnel, with this next step I hope that I can see through the trees and can move on 

15th October

So had the call yesterday to be at the hospital for 11:00am, to which we promptly arrive about 15 minutes early, we wait, and wait, get prep'd for surgery, see the anathaetist and wait, finally they come and tell us that the surgery will have to be cancelled to to complications in an ongoing surgery, after 8 hours! its a bit frustrating but understandable, there is not much you can do when someone else is having a complications and absolutely that needs to be the priority, so yes frustrated, disappointed but have been told it will be a week later.

Mr Prabhu calls me when he is out of the surgery at like 19;30 so he has had a long day, and apologises for the cancellation but assures me that I'll be first on the afternoon list on the 23rd October, so I have a week to wait - thats OK 👍