Day 16

The night was kind of uneventful, although I did wake up early and felt nauseated, but I think it's because I was really hungry. I went back to sleep for another 30 minutes or so, and then had that Ensure-replacement smoothie with more peanut butter this time. Much better!

Here's my face for the day:

We had an appointment with the surgeon at 10:40 am. We arrived early and were taken in early, which is always nice! He answered all my questions, which I will list below with all the answers:

Q: When can I start working out?

A: No working out yet. Just hiking and light cycling.

Q: When will I see a difference sleep apnea-wise?

A: It varies. Some people see a difference after 3 weeks, for some it takes 4 months or more.

Q: Can I start talking more?

A: A little more, but still no lengthy conversations.

Q: Can I start using mouthwash?

A: Yes.

Q: Can I blow my nose?

A: Yes, but very gently.

Q: Will the notches on my bottom jaw go away?

A: Yes, it will go away in 4-6 months.

Q: My top stitches smell bad, is that normal?

A: Yes, that's the smell they have when they're dissolving.

He didn't remove the stitches himself; he wanted to let them dissolve naturally. Funnily enough, that night a few of them broke off and fell, so I'm definitely on my way to stitch-free town! The surgeon also remove all my rubber bands and asked me to open my mouth. I could open it a lot more than the week before, and it felt SO weird. Almost like the bottom jaw was about to fall off. He then put a bunch of weaker bands in a box configuration, two on each sides. I can now open my mouth with these in pretty easily, about this much:

Sorry about the piece of banana stuck on my lower tooth. Oops!

I try not to do it TOO much since the surgeon didn't really give me the clear to open my mouth willy-nilly. However, I did cheat a little and opened it when I brushed my teeth that night. I used the interdental brushes I talked about in an earlier post. I purchased some bigger ones to clean better between my teeth. So I bent one of them at a 90-degree angle and used it all around my teeth to sweep up some of the gunk on the inside. There were quite a bit on the brush every time I did it, it was kind of gross. It did feel good though, now it's not quite as bad as before, but I'll still need a really good, deep scrubbing once I'm able to actually brush in there. I don't know when that will be now... It feels like I'll just have to wait for the full month, when the surgeon removes my bands. I really, really hope I won't be getting cavities because of this. I tend to get them easily, so I'm a little scared.

This is the bigger size I got recently.

Other than that, everything is healing nicely. I'm still really tired and wish I could sleep more. I'm thinking I should take naps again to help. I've been skipping them, hoping I would fall asleep faster at night, but it doesn't really change much, so I might as well get that extra bit of sleep.

For dinner, I made risotto and my husband bought a rotisserie chicken at the grocery store. I blended that with chicken stock and sucked it up with a straw. I'm finally moving away from the ketchup bottle. Using a straw is much easier and it makes swallowing more "natural" if that makes sense. When I squeeze the food into my mouth, sometimes it feels like I'll choke on it because it's too much. At least when I suck with a straw, I swallow instinctively and it goes faster. I have to be careful though, whenever I use the bigger straws from Jamba Juice or Starbucks, I accidentally move my jaw and it hurts like hell. I think they're too big and I unconsciously move my teeth to make room. I have to remind myself to keep my teeth clench when I use those gigantic straws. I don't like them...

I kind of wanted a dessert after dinner, so I made some pudding from a Jell-o package. Eating it was a challenge... It was quite thick, so I mixed it with more milk, but them it became lumpy and was hard to drink through a straw. I switched to my trusty ketchup bottle, but the whole experience was quite annoying to warrant the time/energy expended. Maybe next time I'll try to blend it, but my blended was dirty and the sink was full of dirty dishes, and I was too tired to care haha. Oh well. Ups and downs (and I mean, this was a pretty small "down" to say the least).

Other than that, I spent the day balancing my books for my freelance business and doing my finances in general. I hadn't done it in 6 months, which is not good. But to my defense, I had much bigger things to worry about! I'm finally done though, so now it's not on my mind constantly. Yay! I also received my replacement phone, so I spent the evening setting it up and getting everything working the way I want to. I also wasted an inordinate amount of time trying to find a nice ringtone and some notification sounds. Still no luck on the ringtone though. Can't seem to find something that I like and that is intrusive enough to make me perk up when it rings. Oh well, I'm sure I'll find something.