After a blissful day at the Piccard Clinic (I want one of those beds for home!) I went back to the apartment we were staying in for seven days of rest and chocolate milkshakes. Before I was discharged though I had to get cleaned up. Its a bit odd having someone who you only met the day before help you have a bath and wash your hair, but I suppose it’s a credit to the nurse and how nice she was that I didn’t feel that weird about it. The strangest part of the morning was actually having all of the cooling packs, straps and bandages come off. The nurse removed them all and then told me to go into the bathroom and get ready for the bath. The feeling of walking into that room and seeing myself in the mirror was something I’ll remember for the rest of my life; I was almost nervous to look up and see my reflection. When I did, I couldn’t recognise myself. My nose, forehead and eyes looked totally different, with none of the heaviness of before, whereas my chin was so swollen that it was hard to tell if there was any bone in there at all.
After the bath, I sat waiting for my Mum to arrive. Dr Bart came in to check on me, and he seemed quite excited when he saw my nose. I was a bit disappointed to be leaving the clinic so soon; it was really peaceful and warm there and the staff had been so nice with me. But I had to be on my way, and my Mum and I got a taxi across Antwerp to our base for the rest of the trip.
The first few days were spent pretty much entirely in bed, punctuated only by the regular application of huge cooling packs to my forehead and chin. I had to wear a chin strap and a nose moulder; the latter was especially uncomfortable and made my skin glow an angry red. But with my mum for company, and my laptop and kindle, the time passed quickly enough. The bulk of my swelling went quite quickly but I still had a fair bit of heaviness around my chin when I went back to the clinic for me first check up four days after my surgery. This was with Dr Bart’s assistant (I think she was a surgeon, but if she wasn’t she certainly carried the air of one) who was very friendly and seemed happy with my healing. After a few days indoors I was keen to stay out for a while so after the checkup we got a taxi to Ruben’s House in the centre of Antwerp, which was fascinating (being an artist I get a bit geeky when I get the chance to visit the haunts of the greats). The outing did make me realise that I wasn’t up to spending more than a few hours out of bed. A small flight of stairs left me needing to sit down so I could try not to throw up in the middle of Ruben’s personal gallery.
Two days later I was back at the clinic to have my stitches out, and the day after that we flew back to Manchester and I was reunited with my telly. After a day of trains and airports I was exhausted. The day had given me an idea of how much life would change from now on; whether it was my own confidence going up or just people no longer having that doubt when they looked at me, I seemed to be interacting with the public a lot more than I used to. I even had a guy carry my bags at one point! Inevitably there were a few odd looks due to the compression straps I had to wear, but these didn’t bother me.
That’s all I’m going to say about FFS for a bit now. Since coming home my face has started to settle down, feeling has slowly begun to return and my eating has improved. Its going to take a while for everything to sort itself out, especially my chin, so the next time I write about it here will be a few months down the line when I can talk about the effects a bit more, and with a bit more reflection. There’s still a way to go, but it is getting better. 🙂
Amy x
A Circular Square 