To Blowfish and Beyond!: 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! :)