Day 8

I finally got out of the house!

We went to Safeway to get some Ensure. I discovered it's not so bad when you're finally feeling hunger! Ensure is a very quick, no-mess way to get some calories at night even after brushing my teeth. I never want to eat Joylent after my teeth are clean because it leaves so much gunk everywhere. At least with Ensure, I can just swish water around and hope for the best.

Plus, Ensure has the most calories per volume out of anything I've had yet. It does have a LOT of added sugar though, so I don't want to rely on it too much.

Our Safeway outing went very well. I was strong on my feet and didn't feel like I was going to pass out. Funnily enough, they changed their self-checkout machines while I was gone. I almost thought I had been gone for like 6 months, it was weird. I was only out for a week and everything changed! Afterward, we stopped by a bagel shop so that my husband could get breakfast to go. It smelled heavenly. Did I say my hunger came back?

I started craving all sorts of food and I kept asking myself "can I blend that?" Like chips. I was craving chips so much, but I don't think it would taste very good blended. I kind of just wanted to sprinkle some chips seasoning directly in my mouth to be honest. I figured I must be craving savory stuff instead of the sweet liquids I've been eating. So I blended some canned soup and it hit the spot!

When I came back home, I took a small break to recuperate, and then I made the bed and cleaned my table. It felt great!

Much better!

I started getting a headache though, and realized that was a very common side effect of Zofran. I had been taking it every 4 hours for the past 3 days or so, so I figured it was time to taper it off. It went pretty well actually, not much nausea even when I took it every 8 hours.

Swelling was down even more on day 8!

My smile is looking a bit more normal!

I was pretty tired out that night after so much activity, but nothing a nice lay down with my cat and some Friends episodes can't fix.

Did I tell how much I love my cat?

I still had trouble sleeping, trying to find a good position and dealing with the jaw jerking that wakes me up as I'm falling asleep. I've also been dealing with this weird pain at night right at the base of my skull. It's not extremely painful, but it feels a bit stiff and swollen. It reminds me of when I get the flu and I've got a bad sore throat and a fever. I didn't have a fever or anything, just the swollen, achy feeling at the back of the skull and near the ears. I'm wondering if it's the incisions at the far back of my palate that just swell more at night. It could also be just neck pain from watching TV all day, I don't know, but it only happens at night, and it's been happening for the past 3-4 days.

I also struggle sometimes with my bite feeling a bit off, as if sometimes it shifts a bit. When I look in the mirror, it looks fine, so the difference must be minute, but it feels like a GIANT difference in my mouth. It's as if my bottom teeth are being pulled hard into my upper teeth, if that makes sense. I try to relax my jaw when it happens, bend my head to the right or the left, and it feels like things slide a tiiiiny little bit and eventually the pressure eases up.

Also, bending my head backward has been difficult. It seems to put pressure on my upper jaw, so rinsing my hair after washing is kind of hard.

I just thought I'd mention these in case any of you think it's normal. These definitely happened to me, so it must be normal?

So day 8 was a MUCH better day than the previous one. I definitely felt like I had finally turned that corner and the worse was behind me.