Day 9

Today was good.  I hardly used any pain meds at all.  I massaged my face a few times today and my swelling seems down a lot.  I walked on the treadmill for 2 miles at a faster pace and for about 45 mins.  I was pretty tired and light-headed after, but nothing an ensure couldn't fix.  Today was the 3rd day I've been home by myself and now that I've caught up with updating this blog with all the pictures, I'm starting to get bored and am ready to go out.  The only bad thing is that it sounds funny when I talk so it could potentially be hard to interact with people.  It's also funny that, because I'm home by myself, I haven't been talking much so when I call someone, I remember that my voice is all funny and that I'm talking through closed jaws.  Every time it's an, "oh yeah, that's right; I'm banded shut" moment  Seems like a strange thing to forget, but I guess people get used to stranger things...

The liquid diet isn't really getting to me very much right now.  The only annoying thing happens when I open the fridge and see something I would normally nosh on while putting together a meal.  I just can't eat it now and it bums me out for a second, but whatever.  It's not for too much longer.

Oh! And today for the first time, I felt in the back of my mouth near the base of my lip and I felt a connection from my lip to my gums where the stitches had fallen out!! I'm almost all put together again!  Very exciting :)

lip still big, but the middle has hardly deflated :(

I'm so excited about my teeth lining up.  It's so awesome!!!

it's getting better...right?

Day 8- starting to look normal!!!!!

As stated in the title, my swelling has decreased enough that I look human!!! I'm so excited!!  My top lip has continued to decrease and the right side is pretty much normal looking, the left is more inflamed, and due to brushing the stitches and irritating it, the middle of the lip is still very full, but definitely better!!!  I also burned it pretty badly two days ago because it reaches the soup so much before the rest of my mouth.  Now that I'm looking at it, it almost looks like a baby lip because I'm so used to seeing this huge, bulbous, red monstrosity! 

The rest of my face is also less swollen.  My left side is more swollen than my right; maybe because I sleep with my head tilted to that side, but I'm not sure.  That side also has darker bruising so maybe there was more trauma to that side.  So, basically I have no idea why it's more swollen, but it is what it is.  The swelling under my eyes, next to my nose, and down to my upper lip feels hard, unlike the sides of my face (which is swollen, but soft) where the ice packs touched.  I said I needed a ski mask!! (see video from day 2 to understand that). 

I didn't do much today.  I spent way too much money on rings on ebay.  I didn't think I'd win all of the auctions.  Rookie mistake, but I'll never have to buy rings again! wahoo

For breakfast, I gave oatmeal another try.  This time, I only used one serving and started thinning it before I even microwaved it.  I also gave up on having texture because it just takes too long to make it all go into my mouth.  So I liquified it and it was delicious.  For dinner, I had campbell's chicken and stars and it was sooooo goooddd!!!  It was like a delicacy, I can't even believe it.  I poured the can into the blender and added almost another can full of water and liquified it.  It was delicious and went down so easily!! I only have one more can of it so I must go get some more tomorrow!

Because my gums were so irritated from the last rubber band configuration, I wanted to try to prevent that from happening again.  So I did a dumb thing!  I took the cotton ends off of a q-tip and put them under the bands as a buffer between them and the gums.  I guess I did this last night so then all day today, I was having a lot of pain in that area of my gums.  Before I ate my dinner, I was in pain from it.  It wasn't intense pain, but it had been steadily increasing during the day.  I removed the cotton and it was slimy like there was a lot of bacteria on it.  I immediately knew I had not done a good thing.  The right side was a wide, open, and bloody cut and the left wasn't as bad, but it was bleeding.  I rinsed with warm water and then the peridex mouthwash, that the doctors gave me, about 7 times.  It eventually stopped bleeding so I brushed very lightly then ate my dinner.  I've brushed and rinsed with peridex 2 times since then tonight.  There is now a scab forming over where it was bleeding.  I hope I didn't mess things up too badly!

I saw my first stitch fall out today!  At least I think it's a stitch.  TJ told me the stitches would fall out a week to 10 days after surgery.  At day 8, I can see that my top lip looks very different underneath.  Early in recovery, the stitches looked very dark and weaved continuously across my upper lip.  Today, the stitches looked light, far apart, and there seemed to be less of them.  On the underside of the apex of the still swollen middle lip, I can see a place where my lip is still healing and I can see...it's hard to explain...  I guess it looks like 3 small slits in my lip before where the stitches are.  I'm not sure what these are from, but it could be from the first time I brushed.  I had no idea where my stitches were (although I should've guessed they'd be there, but I didn't even think of it) and brushed like normal under there until I realized it hurt...a lot!  I kind of remember a pulling sensation and I may have dislodged the stitches from that site so it's still not healed in that area.  I'm not sure if that's even possible though.  My top lip also started to be enormous the day after that so that could be from that or from the natural increase of swelling over the first few days.  It was and still is hard to gauge where I should be brushing because I'm numb in all of that area, but oh well. 

I'm getting tingly sensations in my upper lip.  While it is annoying, I know it's good because the nerves are coming back to life.  It's such a strange feeling.  My upper lip also feels itchy sometimes and it's annoying because I can't itch it!  I try, but because it's numb, it doesn't help at all! Today i had the least bloody and clogged nose in this whole process.  I think I only used hydrogen peroxide and q-tips twice today and it was for much less time and I used fewer q-tips than ever before. 

Today I had a really intense workout!  To speed the healing and de-swelling process, it's good to take a walk every day.  I didn't feel like going out and walking by myself so I went on the treadmill.  I walked a mile and felt like such a granny, walking on a treadmill.  The even more embarrassing part is that at 0.6 mile, I started to get tired and was getting some pain in my face where they broke the bone.  So as I was walking on a treadmill, I had to start motivating myself to finish the mile.  So unreal!  This anesthesia is tough stuff!  I remember when I came back from the hospital, I had to climb the flight of steps up to my friend's house and I was wiped after!  So at least I'm better now.  Walking on the treadmill was pretty nice though.  I wasn't moving very quickly so I had my laptop in front of me and was just playing on my comp and walking. 

I hardly used any pain meds today.  I took my ibuprofen a few hours after I got up and then later at night after dinner because I remembered that it's an anti-inflammatory; I want to be anti-inflamed!! haha.  Before today, this was unheard of for me.  I was taking my meds around the clock because I would have intense pain when they wore off.  Yesterday I would be able to last an hour or two after they wore off and then I had to take it. 

Just a little tidbit that happened earlier:  When I was taking photos of my profile for today, I thought to myself, "okay that's the closed mouth version, now I have to do open."  But then I realized there isn't an open!!!  My bite fits together now- so exciting!!! :) :)

Everything seems to be progressing well and I'm about to update with the pictures from the past week.  stay tuned! :)

my lip is kind of bird beak looking

my bite is so fantastic!!!! :) :)

the dark line at the base of my lip is the stitches

the TADs and the sliced gums from the rubber bands

smile!

Day 7

Today I didn't do much.  I stayed home and relaxxxedddd, it was nice.  I took a nice shower, slept late, and ate mushy food.  I started mixing my vanilla ensures with juice and it tastes really good and gives extra nutrients! 

The swelling in my lip is quite a bit better today.  Not anywhere near normal looking, but way less out there.  It's strange how it heals.  There are two creases in my lip that are a lot flatter and separate the rest of my lip into 3 swollen pockets.  It looks veryyy funny.  The right side is a little less swollen than the left.  The "pockets" in the lips kind of get in the way when I slurp in my food.  Sometimes I'll be slurping and catch my lip, but because I can hardly feel it, I don't realize it and I keep slurping on it, but it doesn't come in.  It gets a little confusing haha.  

I ate chicken soup and noodles all blended up for breakfast.  Then later on I had oatmeal blended and thinned with milk.  This was the most ridiculous thing to eat because I didn't make it thin enough at first.  So I ate some and added milk and ate some more and added more milk and so on.  It was taking forever and was such an incredible mess that I gave up on it halfway through.  I had been working on it for 2 hours...or so it seemed.  

A family friend walked in the house unexpectedly today.  When he saw me he said, "What happened to you?"  He was all confused and wasn't delicate about it, but he's kind of socially weird so I wasn't too taken aback by it.  My cousin and aunt also called me today to see how I was doing which was very nice.  They said that they could understand me which was encouraging. 

Last night, I had a weird dream.  It was a normal dream until I randomly caught a view of myself in the mirror.  My bottom teeth were out in front of my top teeth which was obviously very upsetting.  I woke up all stressed out and then realized everything was fine. :) Thank goodness!

Will post pics tomorrow.

you can see what I mean about my lips healing into different sections. 

I took a picture of my smile, but it's too ridiculous to post.  I'll get a second opinion and maybe I'll post it. 

Day 6- first post op appt

Today I went home.  I was running out of soups at my friend's house and didn't want to have to buy more when I have so many at home. Also, I had been there for almost a week!  What sweet friends I have, I feel very lucky. 

I had my first post op appt today.  Everything went fine.  When my surgeon walked in, he joked about how they beat me up.  This kind of sucked because I had said this joke the day before and was going to say it to him when he walked in; it took the wind out of my sails a little.  But other than killing my joke, my surgeon and TJ were very nice and supportive as always.  They both commented about my super swollen top lip and TJ thinks it looks unusually prominent because most of the time, both lips are very swollen so it's more balanced.  He checked the numbness in my lip and upper face; it's still just less than normal.
  

Then they wanted to change my rubber band arrangement which I was more than ready for because they've been causing me SOOO much pain.  Dr. C jerked the rubber band out quickly to avoid the snapping and it hurt so badly!!! I actually cried a little.  I'm soo not a crier either, I'll only cry if something's really wrong, but it just came out immediately as a reaction; it hurt!!!!!  TJ seemed to feel really bad and tried to comfort me and gave me tissues.  It felt okay a little bit after the initial pull.  They said the TADs aren't ideal for this reason, as they put so much strain on the gums. 

So then they repositioned them into an X shape in the front. This position is a little annoying as far as eating, but it's better than the pain from before. 

Then they did xrays and I asked for some wax or something to put over the TADs.  They tried to put these caps on them, but they were too hard to get on. They gave me wax and caps to take home so I could try to put them on.  My xrays looked awesome!!!  Everything's lined up, it's so different looking.  I'll try to remember to ask to take a picture next time.  They said the stitches will fall out soon.  

I asked if I can start flossing yet and they said to wait a week.  (I secretly may have flossed my four bottom teeth that morning because it felt like I had food stuck and I can't stand that feeling).  They laughed that I was so gung-ho to brush and floss because most patients are scared to go near their mouths.  They said another doctor in the practice had to spend an hour cleaning a patient's mouth that morning because he wouldn't touch it.  Because of my invisalign, I'm used to brushing and flossing all the time so if I don't do it, I feel like I'm doing something wrong.

Dr.C, unfortunately, said I can't start the soft diet yet.  He said I should come back next week and that normally he sees patients again after 4 weeks, but that he's keeping a closer eye on me because I don't have braces.  He mentioned that I was a more difficult case again and I said sorry haha.   Honestly, I wouldn't care right now if I had braces.  I look so gross anyways that it wouldn't add to it.  I would not, however, want them once the swelling is down or to have had then pre surgery.  He said I'd hopefully be on a soft diet after next week's appt, but that I could start thickening up my diet.  (I went home and literally shoved a blueberry muffin past my teeth and into the tiny space I can open.  Not the greatest, easiest, or fastest venture, but it tasted damn good). 

I told TJ I watched the surgery online and he was shocked to hear that it was on youtube.  He said if I had watched it before I would have cancelled haha.  He told me about another procedure that a lot of residents faint during.  It was interesting. 

I was easily worn out today.  I went to my friend's apt and went up the elevator and walked down the hall to her door.  The building is a square with an open inside so I had to walk down two sides of the building to get to her place so it is kind of long.  As I approached my friend's door, I realized my heart was beating pretty fast and that I was tirrredddd!  It's so weird. 

I ran out of ibuprofen mid-day so I knew I had to venture outside again.  I was very nervous and put it off until 9pm-ish.  During my stay at my friend's house I was careful to only wear things I didn't care about getting bloody or covered in food.  Once I got home, I showered, put on the jewelery I normally wear, and put on a dress I'd normally wear in the summer.  Then I decided to put on some makeup because I still looked kind of dead.  I put on mascara and eye liner like I normally wear.  I gave a half-second thought to putting cover up on my bruises, but I quickly realized it wouldn't really do anything to make me look more normal.

I looked in the mirror at my hair which looked nice, at my nice dress and necklace, and then my gaze landed on my face.  It was shocking to see the "normal" me with this messed up face.  I see the silhouette of the "me" I'm used to, but with a fat, foreign face.  It's really hard to get used to this completely different view of yourself.  I'm not used to feeling ugly and not wanting to go out in public.  But what's worse than feeling ugly, which I've experienced- we've all had the awkward preteen stage- is feeling freakish.  My face is shockingly messed up and it's really an adjustment for my mind and sense of self.  (sorry I keep saying shocking, but it is!).  

So I finally got the courage to go to walmart- not even the classiest place.  I figured I wouldn't see people I know there or see intimidating people (whatever that means) and it was late so I hoped there wouldn't be many people there (wrong).  As I was walking in, there was a man sitting on a bench and I saw, out of the corner of my eye, him look up, come to attention and keep looking.  I was so nervous and self conscious.  When I walked in, kids were walking towards me and I was worried they'd get scared.  I walked briskly past them and into the shelter of the clothing racks.  I uncomfortably went about my business, very aware of how I appeared.  When I finished, I was so happy to get back in my car.

I don't know if other people have this same degree of discomfort about their appearance, but I've been struggling with it.  Notice I've still not posted the super swollen pictures (update: I started posting the super swollen pictures on Day 9).  I wonder if I think it's worse than it is.  I'll ask my friends the next time I see them.

lip is so huge :(

bruising came out

most ridiculous smile ever

Day 5 and Recap of Day 4

Yesterday was pretty much the same as the day before.  I was in a ton of pain all day because I ran out of ibuprofen the night before and had to wait for my friend to get me some after she got off work.  I felt SO SO terrible.  I could hardly stand up and walk around.  I had no idea how much of a difference the ibuprofen makes.  Once I got it I felt so much better.

Later yesterday night, I ordered chinese food and walked a block to the store to pick it up.  I felt really self conscious and was upset that there were so many people outside.  My swelling alone wouldn't be that big of a deal because it's obviously swelling, but my top lip is so enormous and unnatural looking, it makes it glaringly obvious that I don't look normal, but it isn't something that can be obviously attributed to surgery.  The lady in the chinese restaurant avoided eye contact and I worried that my friend who I walked over with was embarrassed to be seen with me.  As we walked out of the chinese restaurant, a girl and her mother were crossing the street and I didn't want the girl to see me and get scared.  Luckily they finished crossing and had walked ahead of us by the time we got to the same corner.

When we got home I blended up hot and sour soup and it looked very gross, but tasted delicious.  Eating is quite funny right now because I'm still rubber banded shut.  I tuck paper towels into my shirt to make a bib, lay paper towels across my lap to catch drips, hold onto the mug I drink from with a napkin to catch what runs down the side, and have another napkin handy to wipe my lips/chin/nose.  My top lip is so big that everything gets on it.  I have to slurp my food a bit so that it'll go into my mouth.  A lot of times the liquid will become too wide for my mouth to catch and drip down the side.  Everything's a little numb so it's hard to judge where the food is going. 

Last night i was feeling around my eyes and noticed that i could feel some of the bone on the outer part of my eye socket!  (I can feel a little bit more today!)

Today was good/frustrating because it's the first day that I looked a lot worse than I felt!  My stupid top lip is trying to take over the planet and has possibly decreased the teeny tiniest bit, if at all, from yesterday.  For the first time today, I could hold the mouthwash in my mouth and swish around without running out of breath.  (I was much too congested before.)  I swear I spend half my day with q-tips and hydrogen peroxide.  (absolute necessity!!!!)  I'm pretty bummed bc the rubber bands holding my mouth closed are ripping up my gums and shifting my teeth all over the place.  It's really upsetting, but hopefully I'll get less rubber bands tomorrow at my 1st post op appt!!  My gums are also SOOOOO swollen.  It's so upsetting because I floss and brush all the time and my gums are normally so healthy, but oh well. 

Last night, I watched the video of the actual surgical procedure I had on youtube.  DO NOT DO THIS BEFORE YOUR SURGERY!  SERIOUSLY DON'T!!!  REALLY!!  I didn't look at it before my surgery because I was too scared it would make me scared or back out and I'm SO SO glad I waited.  I want to be a surgeon so I'm not even squeamish about those things, but seriously don't look at it before your surgery.  Well anyways, I know why I'm so swollen and why I'm swollen in certain places.  It also gave me some insight into where my stitches are and stuff so that's made the brushing less painful.  I have stitches all across my top lip and it's SO hard to brush my top teeth without brushing over them which hurts SO badly.  I think maybe that's why the swelling in my top lip won't go down bc I irritate it every time I brush.

My swelling has gone down a lot...well maybe not a lot, but it feels so much better.  I don't feel my face throbbing and stretching all of the time anymore which is so nice.  My swelling seems to have moved down my face.  The top of my face is less full and I'm not sure if my lower face is more swollen due to it moving down, but it just looks way better to me.  Maybe that's just because my enormous top lip makes everything look small in comparison.

I took another shower today and it felt fantastic.  The water pressure was perfect and I was able to massage my face with it and it was just so soothing and perfect.  I didn't feel faint or anything. 

I definitely think that staying with my best friend makes the recovery a lot easier.  My other best friend comes over every day too so I think it's been helping me not get depressed.  A few times, especially yesterday when I ran out of medicine, I got really sad because I was in so much pain and couldn't stand up or do anything, but it passed pretty quickly.  My friends also have a dog so I cuddle with him and watch tv all day basically.

I've been trying to go for a walk every day so that I'm moving around.  Today I didn't go on one, but I moved around a lot more normally today.  My friends even commented that I seemed like I had more energy today.  I pretty much did have good energy today, but it's frustrating because it's hard to talk (and be understood) and it hurts to laugh.  (my TADs rip up my lips when I move them a lot).

The other day I called my surgeon's office because I was worried that I had an infection.  I talked to the resident, TJ, and he was really nice, as always, but the funny thing was that even though I was so unintelligible, the secretary and TJ could understand me perfectly hahaha!  They must be so used to hearing people through gritted teeth.  Alternatively, I called an unrelated business and the lady could hardly understand what I was saying and was really confused. 

So I think that's all I have to share about the past two days.  I'm just gonna keep on watching south park, taking my meds, and hoping my lips look more normal tomorrow!

Day 4 pictures: 

day 4

I feel like crap.  You can also see that my top lip is getting bigger. 

my lovely necklace is the cool jaw band

it's funny that my chin is looks so small because it's the only part of my face that isn't swollen

you can see the thickness of my face

I feel awful :(

this is my hot and sour soup.  one's the original soup and one's blended up...can you guess which one's which?

Day 5 pictures: 

top lip growing

These were taken an hour or so later:

look at that lip!

my smile for today