It has been a minute since I was last on. So much has happened to me since my last entry. I finally had jaw surgery, upper and lower, on December 19 and it has been quite a journey. I waited 3 years for this, during which there were 8 postponements. Much of my braces treatments was trying to get my bite to open up but as it was, my bones are resistant to what they were trying to achieve before surgery. I had an extreme overbite and a receded lower jaw. Looking at me, you could not notice any thing was wrong.
For the first 3 weeks, I was on nothing but liquids (protein shakes, smoothies, juices, and soups . On my last weekly post-op checkup, the attending surgeon gave me the green light on eating semi-solid foods. I tried, but the food just gathers between the splint and my cheek. I did have some french fries today, though. They were delicious, lol. My doc gave me another four weeks with the splint in and my date to get it out is February 6.
It is tough dealing with it because I want to chew my food. The swelling has gone down gradually and a difference was noted daily. Now, my face just looks like I have puffy cheeks. Parts of my face are still numb, no feeling at all. Actually, the only parts that are still like this are my cheeks, my nose, my lips, chin, and along the bottom jaw where my jaw was advanced.
I did notice a bit of a difference with my nose. It seems like the tip was lifted and pinched in where the length meets the tip. Maybe it just looks like that because of the swelling, but I've been looking at this nose for over 43 years and I can tell a slight difference. It is cool, though. I do not look different and people that I have asked tell me that they do not see anything unusual. I am guessing that this was the case because of the work in attaching everything, making my nose flare a bit.
Well, that is it for now. I didn't take pics of the weekly progress like I should have. I was just dealing with a lot of stuff apart from recuperating.
|