today was an alright day... still really swollen though. I had a day of resting basically. although i showered for the first time since Sunday and it felt fantastic! we brought a chair into the shower with us so that if i started to feel nauseous from the blood and what not i could easily sit down. i did not want to be in the shower very long and showered as fast as i could. later this afternoon i had my first post op visit with my surgeon. it seems that whenever we head to the city, we are either running late or there is bad traffic. today we were running late on the way there. made it on time (just barely) and there was strangely only one other couple in the waiting room. lucky for the other patients who are awaiting this surgery because they didn’t have to see me and i might have scared them off! the nurse called my name and i stood up and she said ,”oh yes, the pumpkin headed one”. yup, that would be me. i went back into the room and while we were waiting for the xray chair to be available, the nurse decided to take out my stitches. for some reason this scared me more than normal. they came out fine, but felt really funny. hopefully they will heal with little to no scarring. when the x ray room was available the nurse and i ventured back. she put the “vest” on me and told me to sit perfectly still for 20 seconds... i wasn’t planning on going anywhere! she said the xrays looked wonderful! then we waited for the surgeon to come into the room. he was very excited on how the surgery went and was proud of his own work. we looked at the before and after xray pictures together. what a difference! i have a chin now! my glasses don’t fit the same! but wait for it... my teeth can now touch! zippidy-do-dah! (that one was for you, mom!). he also told me that there was one plate where he couldn’t get a screw into because my bone was too thin and soft (which he also said was expected for a young woman my age) but i am going to take calcium religiously now. i need to heal! he also removed the immensely tied up elastics that he had put on my teeth after surgery and that was a strange feeling. he showed me where he wants them now and that they should be on my teeth for at least 20 hours a day (he gave me 4 hours of leniency for eating and brushing etc. but i think i will make sure they are on for much longer than that). he also told me that the elastics are crucial because my muscles will be trying to go back to their original position and without the elastics they could do that. so elastics it is! got it! dr bureau also said he would like to see me on Tuesday (so 5 days from this day) because he is going on holidays and wants to make sure everything is going smoothly before he leaves. we set up our appointment, grabbed some ice packs, and were on the road again. traffic was not good again (seems like its great when someone isn’t in pain with ice packs attached to their head). i thought it would be funny to see peoples responses to my bandaged up face but i didn’t get too much of a reaction. we got home and i was quite tired and just spent more time in this lazy boy chair. mom went home for the day (i was sad to see her go... she is certainly good for my morale and healing!) had a few more visitors today (which i wasn’t quite ready for, but tried to be optimistic anyway.) supper was once again in smoothie form (nope not getting more appealing as the days pass by). then it was time for me to take the elastics off. struggled a bit with them as it makes me very nervous and light headed. they came off rather easily. i can open my mouth enough to fit pills in now! that's exciting news! my routine is to get as much smoothie down as possible, drink fluids, take elastics off, take pills, brush teeth (i can brush the insides of my teeth now... not all the way back but the front ones at least), use the antibacterial rinse which I'm told is very important, and elastics back on! this all takes longer than you would imagine and i get tired quite easily. i fell asleep on the chair quite early and managed to climb over to the love seat in the middle of the night to get a better nights sleep. just a change of scenery or something. i still wake up every few hours at least with a very dry throat (thanks anyway mom and keith for the humidifiers!). another day done and another day closer to recovery!
Profile before.
Front before.
Front after. 25 screws in my face.
Profile after.
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