Blog 8 - Another Big Facial Surgery

High school finished. I had gained a placement at university to study Primary school teaching but had to defer for a year so I could have my final major facial surgery.

After many attempts at job seeking, I started an office course. Whilst doing it I secured a job in a bookstore in the city and worked there for 9 months or so and finished studying at night time. It made for long days in the city. It was so good to have money and to learn how to budget it. A life skill.

I would travel into the city on the train with my friend, taking about an hour, chatting all the way. I loved those morning train rides. Back then the trains were diesel and the carriages wooden with bench seats. You always had to wipe the seats down before you sat down and wearing white was not a good idea. So different to today!


Towards the end of the year I went into hospital to have my surgery. I was 18 years old by then and wanted to be in the adult ward. For some reason this was very important to me.

I was really scared about this surgery but desperately wanted it done. I hated looking different. I hated my face. By this time my eyes were back to being bulgy and I had an underbite. I wanted my face to be put back into place again.

Before the surgery I was given a sedative to calm me down. The lady in the next bed wanted to know all the details of what I was going to have done. All I wanted to do was go to sleep and have it all over and done with. She added to my already mounting anxiety.

I woke up in ICU not being able to see and with my jaws wired together again. Deja vu of when I was 9 years old. High on painkillers I saw demons and devils continuously. I would listen to Christian music and pray my heart out to try and make them go...but they wouldn't leave. It was like they were on a continuous loop. I could not open my eyes so they wouldn't go away. Horrific experience.

It was a relief when the head bandages came off and the swelling came down and I could open my eyes. Finally the night terrors left.

Once again I communicated by sign language and writing in a notebook. More soup, soup, soup!

I went back to the ward. When I looked in the mirror and saw my reflection I was shocked at how I looked. I looked by someone had taken to my face with a baseball bat.

Slowly the swelling and bruising went down but it took a long time to go away completely.

I went home with my jaws wired shut and walked around with a pair of wire clippers in my handbag to be used if I was choking or needed to be sick. Luckily they were never used.

Christmas lunch consisted of roast beef and roast vegetables blended up to make a soup. Not the same but yummy nevertheless.

After a couple of months I was swinging on a swing with my friend and the pieces of wire that kept my jaws wired shut, broke. I was going in to have them cut the following week so there was no need to have them fixed. I was finally free.

I went back into hospital to have the splints removed. I then had to undergo speech therapy to help re-train my tongue. It was a long slow process.

The next phase of my life could then begin.

The operation made a huge difference to how I looked. I finally looked 'normal'. My eyes were back to looking more of a normal size and my top jaw was now infront of my bottom jaw. Oh how wonderful it was to walk through the major mall in the city and finally be inconspicuous. Nobody looked at me. Nobody pointed at me. Nobody whispered behind my back. Nobody made comments. Even though my face still had some swelling and bruising I was finally invisible in the crowd. And I loved it! I wanted to sing, dance, shout, scream. It was like the weight of the world had lifted off my shoulders.

I then looked forward to going off to university to do my studies and starting the next stage in my life.

© 2012 by Jenny Woolsey

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