low point pt. 2

last night after my blog post/rant, i was having lots of chills and feeling generally ill.  i woke up again today with super severe joint pain, worse than before.  unfortunately i had to get up early and go moderate a panel at work when i was having radiating pain even swallowing or talking.  i came home mid-day and slept, and then went back to work for only an hour.

the pain is really getting to me mentally as well as physically.  i actually broke down crying this evening because i'm so fed up and exhausted by it.  i'm feeling that loneliness and desperation again (that no one else can understand my woes) i felt when i was the marshmallow-zombie on halloween.  i'm also feeling like i'm falling behind at work and i wish i could be recovering faster.  i'm aware that i'm being melodramatic and egocentric about this, but yo, i'm human.

i called my surgical residents today to inform them about my substantial pain problem.  i need to keep track of my temperature because it's possible i might have an infection in the joint.  my temperature seems normal now though, thank goodness.  google provided me with the lovely info that infection can completely destroy the joint.

i decided to keep my rubber bands on because more stability = less open mouth = less pain.  i'm scared though, because i'm supposed to have my rubberband hook/screw things taken out on friday, so i won't have that support to rely on in less than three days.  never thought i would LIKE my rubberbands and gums screws, hahaha.  :)  of course though, i have to start opening my mouth sometime here, just prefer it can be with far less pain than what's up now.

for now they just advised me to take my temp, go ahead and leave the bands on, take ibuprofen steadily, use warm compresses (so glad i got my jaw bra with hot/cold packs) and massage the muscle around the joint.  it just occurred to me that the 600mg of ibuprofen i'm taking constantly would keep my temp down, right, but i guess i would have other symptoms of fever still?  hmm.

please send me positive healing vibes! hugs and thanks for reading.  this blogging outlet is really helpful to me psychologically and i'm glad i did it. :D

crabby rant

ok it happened. i knew it would eventually.  i guess i should be glad it took this long.  i am officially finally pissed off about my diet limitations.  i am totally bored of everything that i've been eating for the last month and cranky that i can't just eat whatever is around.  starting to feel freaking HOOOONGRAY!   i want huge greasy breadsticks like you can get at the pizza place in the mall.  scallion pancakes.  spinach pie.   i actually bought a jar of nacho cheese and have been trying to eat that to calm my cravings.  not working.  maybe i should try some garlic butter.      >:(         that was an angry face.

also i'm sick of my face feeling like a cross between corpse skin and a plastic mask, my lips being shriveled, paralyzed, and creepily void of color, and my joints staunchly refusing to cooperate with my mouth.

AND, since this is dragging on forever, i know people (including you, dear reader), are likely growing tired of hearing me complain about my stupid face.  i'm long past the window-o-genuine-sympathy.  in fact, I'M tired of hearing myself complain.     >>>>:((((((

frustration is...

...procuring a large pumpkin pie milkshake with delight and anticipation, and then finding it too thick, even melted, for one's pained joint to handle slurping. :(  

pain pain go away

so i am 30 days out from my surgery - incredible!  the surgeon said i could take off my rubberbands at that point, so i did yesterday.  my jaw was happily biting clack clack clack but i still have a lot of work to do on OPENING my jaw. :)

i've been sleeping propped up with pillows because that helps me have less pain and swelling when i wake up.  in general i feel more craptastic in the morning upon rising, then i feel better during the day, then at night i feel sore from the day's talking and smiling animatedly.

disaster (exaggeration) struck last night when i was sleeping.  i woke up on my side, the one with ear pain, with my jaw joint pressed against the pillow and my mouth open.  i know my mouth was open from the extensive drool evidence.  it must have been open wider than the jaw wanted because now I am having PAIN, hardcore pain, yucky yucky pain.  opening my mouth AT ALL now brings a shooting jolt to the joint which radiates out into my ear, and i have a strong continuous ache in the eardrum and joint.

i put my rubberbands back on just to keep my mouth a little stabilized so it won't open so easily, cause this shiz is a-hurtin' bad.  NO BUENO!!!! :(  gonna pop a painkiller and rock the jawbra now.

topic-change-unrelated-to-this-blog-theme: i couldn't sleep at 12:30am on black friday and was reading an nyt article about the shopping craze.  i decided on a whim to go to best buy (really close to my apartment) to check out the madness, as i've never participated in black friday in my life.  indeed, it was a total madhouse.  i actually selected a TV to purchase and got in line because mine is super old and occasionally produces disturbing exploding-spark-noises and smoke (seriously).  but i discovered the line wrapped all the way around the perimeter of the gigantic store.  it probably would have taken a good four hours or more to get out of there.  needless to say i bailed.  i found similar prices with free shipping online later.  people i talked to at the front of the line in best buy had been camped out there since tuesday!  it boggles my mind.  add to my list that i'm grateful to have the financial means not to find it worth it to queue for hours or days to save a few bucks.

hope everyone is enjoying their t-day weekend whether you have been battling the crowds or chilling on your couch!

grateful

i was planning to write this post before i realized how timely it was.

in no particular order, i am thankful for:

my friend kate, who let me stay at her place for free while i was scary and unintelligible. i usurped her couch for almost two weeks and was a general disruption to her normal way of life, but kate didn't complain.  she even didn't punish me when i turned up the heater above 65.

my dad, who really saved me from my panic attack by calling and talking me down the night before my surgery.  that was when i thought my insurance was not going to cover it and i would have to pay it myself.  he made me feel more confident about my choice to go ahead and do it and he was willing to provide the financial loan it would take for me to pay off the costs.  he really brought me down from a ledge in terms of my anxiety and i felt very supported and loved.

my mom, who drove by herself for ten hours to baltimore and brought me homemade soup, a blender, air mattress, all kinds of practical stuff that was hard for me to bring on the plane. she waited at the hospital for eight hours for me to get out of surgery and then i refused to see her when i was coming out of anesthesia (lol i'm still not certain why i said i didn't want to see her, sorry moomoo). she did stuff according to my demands like make a chart of my medications when i was crabbing that i couldn't remember when to take them, and syringe tiny portions of ensure in my mouth.

my boyfriend willy, who told me i still looked pretty when i actually looked like a royal mess.  he was very concerned about my condition and did everything he could support me when i was in DC including just sitting next to me and holding my hand.  he went with me from arlington to baltimore and back for all of my appointments, dealing with problems at work in order to do that.  now that i'm back in el paso, he still gives me tons of attention and makes me feel better.  he also drank the ensure flavor i thought was gross but didn't want to go to waste and ate mcdonalds when i forced him to because i actually wanted it myself.

my surgeons in baltimore (dr./professor gary warburton and chief residents dr. touraj (tj) khalilzadeh and dr. hessam siavash), who are fantastic. they output great results on my difficult case and have a nice bedside manner as well to assuage my worries.

my last job, which gave me a load of delta frequent flyer miles that i used to fly back and forth from el paso to DC.  this enabled me to go through with the surgery in baltimore with my original trusted surgeons after i moved.

my current job, which is not an hourly wage on the clock, and allows me to create my own schedule.

my boss catie, who has been very accommodating, allowing extensive leave time when i'm barely 3 months into the job, and encouraging me to take it easy and adjust back to work slowly by not working full days.

my colleagues, who have picked up the slack in my absence like champs (particularly carol) and dealt patiently with my slow return to productivity.

all my friends and family (including my colleagues), who have wished me well and/or inquired as to how i'm doing.

my generally good health, which makes my healing much smoother than it could have been.

split pea soup.

halfway to mashed-potatoland

i'm three weeks post-surgery, with three weeks to go on the liquid diet.  though definitely, i'll need to move gradually into soft foods.  i took off my bands today and could barely open my mouth.  in fact i couldn't even fit my baby toothbrush between my molars to brush, i was so pathetic.  the doctor said i'll need to regain my strength and coordination because they stripped all the muscle from the bone during the surgery.  i tell you, this surgical procedure sounds more disgusting each detail i learn about it, and i'm so glad i didn't know these things before going in.

the FAQs i get are about how i'm dealing with the diet. actually, i'm not miserable, because this requires no willpower.  if it was physically possible to eat solids but i was supposed to control myself mentally, i'd be in utter turmoil.  but it's pretty easy cause i'm just like, oh well, no can do, when i think about real food.  i'm getting plenty of calories and i'm definitely not starving.  although my fridge looks pretty pitiful.

i had a eureka moment (spurred by a colleague, thank you julie) when i realized that the protruding hardware that is bugging me on my face is actually not an internal jaw-to-skull bolt, it's just the screw in my gums, which will be removed in 2 weeks or so.  so that was a big relief, i had thought it was one of the ones inside me and i might have to get surgery again to fix it.

i'm going to try to go cold turkey from ibuprofen tomorrow as i've been on a steady dose for these three weeks.  exciting news, don't you feel more enlightened? :D

mouth-breather

as my swelling goes down and i am getting a little feeling back in my face, i'm realizing that i cannot close my lips without straining quite a lot! my natural pose is with gaping mouth now.  it feels like i don't have enough skin/lips to meet together to cover my teeth.

probably related to the problem with closing my lips, my upper lip has gone from huge to almost non-existent! i am not sure if this will correct itself or not.  i read on this jaw surgery forum that when you get the upper jaw moved forward, your upper lip becomes smaller, but that is unsubstantiated and i'm not 100% sure whether they moved mine forward anyway.  certainly hope i won't be slack-mouthed forever.  here is a pic of me i just took with natural mouth position.

random

my anesthesia charges got processed by insurance yesterday
been sleeping sitting upright-ish 16 hours a day
having work conversations and thinking critically makes me tired
can't handle a full day in the office yet
one of my hardware bolt things is disturbingly protruding under my mustache skin
i dont have a mustache, but that general area, you know
this stuff is the bomb.com

regression

like yesterday, today was rough, maybe rougher. i slept again most of the day and woke up feeling super sore, like i'd regressed more than a week. my swelling is back up particularly on the one side.  blargh whyyyyy?!?

i resorted this evening to taking one of my hardcore pain pills again and using my jaw bra.  the jaw bra is just an elastic band that has pockets in it for hot/cold packs. but what a sweet name for the contraption.

i still am numb in the center of my face, from my lower eyelash line to my chin.  the one place i have regular feeling is the lower left quadrant of my lip, strangely.  yet apparently this is totally normal, and it can take up a long ass time (like a year) for some people to get all the feeling back.  the surgeon said those big nerves on both sides were not permanently damaged in the surgery, just stretched. so i just have to be patient and in the meantime drool and have food particles stuck my face without realizing. :)  

while i've been sleeping the past two days away, my kitty cats have been chilling with me.  don't know if they are keeping me company or just digging the down comforter i had to bust out.  it's getting (relatively) cold here in the desert at night!

old el paso, symmetry

back at home!  so exhausted and sore today; i've slept basically all day.  not sure why as I was feeling decent last night.  i did just force myself to go to target as i desperately needed some mouthwash, along with bendy straws (my new eating utensils) and kleenex (nose still running and still drooling).  a little apprehensive about starting work again monday because i tire so easily, but i think i can do it and will try to take it easy.

i instragram-ed the crap out of all the photos on my phone when i was bored flying home, lol.  here i am looking a lot more normal than previously seen since surgery. taken on thursday at my last surgeon's appointment, post-op day 13.  it's pretty incredible how quickly the body heals itself.  my stitches are starting to disintegrate now.

my surgeon told me that he, his colleagues, residents, and students present their upcoming surgical cases during a weekly meeting, and everyone was all, yikes, that case is going to be extremely difficult (due to the side to side asymmetry correction instead of the normal under/overbite moving forward and back of the jaws).  glad he had the discretion not to tell me that before surgery.  he was visibly genuinely delighted with the results during my last appointment.  that made me feel pretty good!

i have to keep reminding myself that they weren't meant to fix the soft tissue, just the bite.  even though i don't see much difference from the outside, the correction made should be great in the long run for my teeth and jaw joint pain, and that was the purpose.  you can see that my lips (i.e. soft tissue) are still crooked resembling the slant of my (old) jaw.  can't do much about that, unless i want to go plastic surgery insane.

no one's face is perfectly symmetrical, of course i know that, and people often haven't noticed my crooked-ness.  i've even perused some scholarly articles during my recovery that suggest facial assymetry creates the perception of likeability and also that the generally held idea that more symmetry equals more beauty is not always true.  when i analyze my thoughts, it's interesting to me that although the surgery was not primarily for cosmetic reasons, i pinned hopes of cosmetic improvement on it.  i feel a little disappointed that while there is improvement, it is not shocking.  however, i probably would be even more psychologically upset by a drastic change anyway. :)  

i returned home with my "maxillomandibullar fixation" (screws in gums to hold my rubber bands).  do NOT google image that term or you will be sorry, trust me on that one.  i'll have to get them removed in like three weeks or so.  removal freaks me out cause they are pretty chunky (like it seems i'll have gaping holes in my gums afterwards, what happens with that??)

below you will find my awesomely orange and liquid last meal before i left for the airport.  thai iced tea and panang curry sauce.  that's right folks, just the sauce.  and it was GOOOOOOOD.

presented without comment

the pendulum swings

and now i am happy and confident again.  my appointment with my surgeon was useful in that i saw my xray and things do look decent.  of course i still have quite a bit of swelling particularly on my "lower jaw" side and i need to be more patient in seeing the final results.

the surgeon pointed out that my upper lip is pulling upward on the opposite side, i guess due to muscle reaction to the surgery.  my teeth are also little uneven themselves and when i see them in their new place, accompanied by my crooked sneer, i'm perceiving the jaws' line-up to be off when it's actually pretty good. i think also, having stared at my own face for 30 years and registering the status quo as correct, now when things are adjusted to be actually straight, i see them as crooked.

i learned i have to do little manipulations of my sneer lip to try to help pull it down and relax the muscle over the next few months. and...the sort of bad news.... i have to keep my terminator screw/nails in my gums when i go back to el paso.  not only that, but i have to wear the dumb rubberbands on said screws, circa seventh grade.

this is good though because it will continue to improve my bite (easing that tension/clenching on the one side i was freaking out about) and guide my jaw into its proper position while the bone cuts are regrafting themselves or whatever.

still this is also bad, because the rubberbands are TIGHT, like, teeth are clenched together tight, and i can only muster a tiny little gap between them through which i slurp things and shove pills.  the bands make me talk funny and i am limited to eating things that are super liquidized.  they want me to keep them on all the time.  i realized though to brush 2/3 of the planes of my teeth i have to take them off, so i have to clarify this at my final appointment on thursday.

yesterday i was looking for dinner at some different restaurants and i was asking them 1) do you have soup? and 2) are there pieces of stuff in the soup? crazy-lady times. it's hard to find soup without pieces besides tomato.  i settled for egg drop last night.  even still the little egg floaty bits were getting beached on my teeth and then i would have to spit them out.  fyi, i was dismayed to discover campbell's cheddar cheese soup was pretty gross. maybe that's why it's usually only used for baking.

on another topic - i think insurance may be coming through for me.  hallelu!

doubt

today, i'm feeling doubtful.  my swelling is going down, and i'm starting to be able to open my lips and look at my teeth, and see the shape of my jaw.  i'm sort of disappointed that my bite doesn't look totally straight and my jawline doesn't look much different.  

why did i get everything cut and put back together to be almost the same?  i do know of course, only time will tell if my primary reason for surgery, pain and pressure, has been alleviated.  tomorrow i have another appointment at the surgeon and hopefully he will give me some news to be more optimistic about. :)

today i also discovered campbell's makes cheddar cheese AND nacho cheese soup varieties.  who's pleased? this girl.

one week

one week since i had my surgery, one week until i go home.  look - i can sort of smile!!!

i am wearing new pajamas that i got in a surprise pajamagram from my brother jontan and his girlfriend heidi. thank you guys!

i had a follow-up appt with my surgeon yesterday.  my eardrum pain is connected to my jaw joint pain.  can't blame the poor little joint for being upset.  i have to continue to have my teeth banded shut on the robo-hooks in my gums to help suggest the right bite to my confused jaw.  i'll go back again on monday for another follow-up.

i have upgraded from eating through a big syringe to slurping blended soup through the little space i can make between my front teeth with the bands on.  i'm not super hungry but i'm injesting a decent amount of calories. after one week, not miserable on the diet front, except my brain always forgets i can't eat whenever i see food on tv or in person. i'm like NOM NOM NOM and then i remember it's physically impossible for me to eat and then i'm like, DOH.  this happens many times a day. :)

up!

now that i am parked on kate's couch, i'm starting to feel better. not miraculously, that is for sure. i'm still pretty uncomfortable due to the swelling and my inability to open my mouth.  if i miss taking my pain meds i'm in serious pain at the bone cut sites.  

but i'm in good spirits now and have more energy. today i went on a walk with my boyfriend willy (he lives in arlington) and it was really nice weather.  i feel happy again! 

 my mom has gone back to michigan. sucks she only got me for the miserable portion.  but that was the really crucial time and i hope she knows how much her care meant to me even if i was at all times either grumpy, making weird noises, or passed out.

my low point

monday morning (10/31) was probably the worst pain/discomfort i will endure in the recovery.  luckily i made this little video report to capture the moment.  i was waiting outside because the cold felt good on my face.

i seem more upbeat in the video than i actually felt.  i was having that depression, alone feeling, why me, no one understands, is it ever going to end, that desperation most people seem to get when recovering from surgery or illness.  

when i went into the doctor's clinic, i almost had a nervous breakdown when they were making me fill out intake paperwork with questions i have already answered many times.  at this point i was muttering stuff like, "am i experiencing pain???  what do you think, you just cut my face up, you idiot clinic" etc.  also, i was getting a lot of side glances and wide eyes from passersby and some questions - "what happened to her?" a lady asked my mom with trepidation.  

happily, the doctor did remove my head bandage, while warning me that my swelling was going to balloon as a result.  and he was correct.

the head bandage actually has left me with continuous pain in my left eardrum which i am (and the doctor seemed) a bit concerned about.  you can see my lips are really a mess.  i've been slathering them with bacitracin as per doc's orders.  i guess they are so hurt not only because of the post-surgery general swelling, but because during the operation they were stretched so much for so long.  yucky! the surgery was all conducted from the inside of my mouth.  the one side of my face is more swollen than the other because they did extra work (lower jaw bone shaving) on the extra swollen side.

after my doctor appointment we waited for a new prescription for pain meds (the first was liquid - i've had a hatred of liquid medicine since childhood).  i sat on display for the public to examine for a while longer.  in this picture with my mom i seriously tried to smile, but obviously that was a fail.  i feel like i look a little like the cat lady plastic surgery victim. 

then we made the one hour drive from b-more to a-town, my old stomping grounds.  i slightly enjoyed some fall color on the parkway. i won't get that back in el paso.