Day 18 - Surgeon Visit

Hello! so today we made the hour drive to go see my surgeon for another post-op appt. it went really well! my surgeon said i was still doing a great job of keeping my mouth super clean and all of the incisions looked good. i won't go back to see him for another 2 weeks. which i guess means i am doing well!

i feel like the swelling is continuing to go down, just not at a fast rate anymore... hopefully it just continues to go away! i am ready to stop feeling and looking like a chipmunk. i know a lot of people have talked about stiffness, and i do feel really awkward smiling and talking etc because my top lip refuses to move without a ton of effort! it is the most numb. but i can feel my chin now! so my chin and my bottom lip have almost all feeling back. yay. everything else is still numb though. so my nose.. cheeks... roof of my mouth... under my eyes... upper lip... etc.

My surgeon also said that now that the pain is subsiding, i need to work on opening my mouth wider. he handed me a handful of tongue depressors and said i need to get to 35 mm. right now i am about 20 mm, he said to stack the tongue depressors and then hold them with a rubber band and put them in my mouth to hold it at the widest it can open. then, every 3 days, i need to add one more tongue depressor to slowly get my mouth to open wider. hopefully this isnt too painful!

my assortment of tongue depressors and how wide i can open, sorry the shadows got kinda dark!

let's see, my surgeon also told me to continue weaning off the hydrocodone. i can successfully make it through the day with just motrin and tylenol. so yay for that. i just take hydrocodone at night still so i can actually fall asleep. i fell asleep at 1:30 am last night... i guess that is better than 4. maybe. so hopefully tonight i can fall asleep even earlier! he said i dont need to sleep as propped up as i was before, but i just need to make sure that my head is above my heart. he said my swelling will continue to go away, so i just need to make sure i can sleep.

i want to chew. SO BADLY. on the plus side... i am really good at choking down bigger pieces of food now. i managed to eat an enchilada that my mom made last night! also, i can swallow rice whole. and i am loving stuffing right now. i am really sick of all the food i have been eating though.... anything you guys loved during your "no chew" phase??

i feel more comfortable going out in public now. even if i know i look puffy, i am to the point where i just don't care. it beats sitting at home bored! i even felt okay with eating in public a couple days ago when i went out to lunch. i just want normal! in the next few days i will start golfing again as i have missed a lot of my summer tournaments for golf... i need to get back to practicing so i can be ready for my season in the fall. plus, i miss all of my golf friends!

i know i complain a ton on most of my posts, but i did want to say that i really am glad i did the surgery. i would make the same choice to do it even knowing truly how hard it has been. i absolutely trust and love my surgeon. he has been so amazing and i have been really happy with everything. i just hope i can say that my surgery helped get rid of the jaw pain and headaches i was having. that is all i ask. i never really chose to do this to change my appearance. i honestly didn't even know how is changed people's faces until i started reading other blogs (after i agreed to surgery). im just so elated all of my teeth finally touch!!

thank you so incredibly much to those of you reading :) take care. thoughts and prayers to anyone in recovery as well.
-Katie:)