Week 8

A little late on the update, my apologies!

I can't believe that I officially passed the 2-month mark! It feels like the surgery was years ago, it's so odd.

So, I still don't have an answer to the fatigue/anemia thing. I'm seeing my doctor this week, so I'll update on that next week. I'm still feeling tired, but I'm taking iron supplements. I recently switched to Slow Fe because I was having some pretty bad stomach cramps a few hours after taking the normal iron, and I read somewhere that Slow Fe helps. I'm happy to report that it is absolutely true! I don't get any cramps anymore. I'm also taking vitamin C right after; apparently it helps with iron absorption. I'm hoping to see results within 6 weeks. Crossing fingers!

Other than that, this week has been pretty uneventful surgery-wise. I'm seeing my orthodontist for the first time post-surgery tomorrow! Maybe we can get these surgery hooks out of my mouth. I haven't had many sores from them but my lips keep getting stuck on them when I try to talk while smiling, so I sometimes avoid closing my lips fully when I form words. Hello mumbling!

Last week, I was very depressed about how none of my friends are seeing a difference in my face. I'm no longer too bothered by it, thankfully. I guess I just had to come to terms with it. I'm moving on; it seems like a waste of energy anyway. I want to focus on learning to appreciate my new face, as I personally do see a difference, and like I said in the last post, most days I'm struggling with thinking I don't look good anymore. What doesn't help is that I've had quite a bit of acne in the past few weeks.

This is actually something I wanted to mention a while ago but never found the time to write a proper post about, so let's do it now. Basically, after the surgery, my skin was INCREDIBLY oily. However, it was completely clear. I actually thought the skin on my face was unexpectedly glowing. I now think I may know the reason: steroids. They gave me a shot of it after the surgery, and I think it stays in your system for a while. It may be why my face was so clear despite all the oiliness. My skin eventually got less and less oily, but the acne didn't start until maybe week 5. I did struggle with folliculitis in the early days after the operation, but I was able to clear it with the use of zinc soap. This time, the zinc soap isn't working, and it's pretty clearly just normal acne. The zits are especially bad on my jaw line. It's slowly getting better, but it's quite annoying. If you're having acne too, don't fret: I've seen it happen in a lot of jaw surgery patients on the Web. This too shall pass... But it sure isn't helping with my self-confidence, ugh!

Also, my hair got suuuper oily at about week 4. Before the surgery, I could wash my hair 2 times a week and it was fine. A little oily on the third day, but nothing a pony tail couldn't fix. However, for about 2-3 weeks when my hair got extremely oily, it was bad. I thought it was the shampoo, so I switched, but nothing helped. My hair would get oily by the evening. Thankfully, this is completely gone now! I'm back to being able to wash it twice a week and have nice second-day hair. Yay! Hopefully it's a sign that the acne will follow the same path and my face will get back to its "one or two pimples a month" state.

One last thing I wanted to mention: my speech. After the surgery, when I still had all the bands keeping my mouth closed 24/7, I noticed that I had a lisp when saying "s" and "z" sounds. When I was allowed to remove the bands during the day, it got noticeably better, but I still have a slight lisp. I feel like it's because the tip of my tongue doesn't know exactly where to position itself when I make those sounds and misses the mark every time. I want to work on that, although I don't exactly know how. Honestly, I've always felt like my enunciation was not great in English, and even in my native language (French), so I'm considering going to a speech specialist once I'm fully back to normal life. I figure since my mouth has a whole new configuration, maybe it's the perfect time to get everything else corrected, speech-wise. I'll let you know if I decide to go through with it.

Pain
No more pain at all!

Swelling
I'm pretty sure the swelling is decreasing, and I'm now convinced I still have some because I looked at pictures from a few weeks ago when I thought I didn't have any, and I looked totally swollen on them. So obviously my face is changing enough that I see a difference LATER. I'm expecting that in a few weeks, I'll look back at today's pictures and think "holy crap, I was swollen on the cheeks." Still trying to get used to my face. Still undecided whether I like it or not... I don't HATE it, like I said last time, but I definitely don't think I look "cute." Again, just repeating myself, but I know this is normal and everyone goes through that. It takes a while to get used to your new face, no matter how small the changes may be.

Numbness
Definitely getting better, but slowly. VERY slowly. I can now feel cold and hot on the numb part of my lip, and I'm getting more tingles. The tingles are definitely not annoying and it's nothing I even notice unless I think about it. I've read some people complaining about how painful/annoying it was. Although I'm thankful it's not my case, I'm also wondering if it's a bad sign. I kind of wish I had the painful kind because then at least I would feel like it's definitely all coming back. At this point, I can tell it's getting better, but it's so slow that I'm worried the feeling won't be fully back by the 6-month mark. If it doesn't, it's fine. I'm already used to it. But it would be nice to get back to 100% normal. One thing that is incredibly annoying, and I still don't know if it's related to the numbness or something else, is that whenever I brush my teeth on the left side (where the numbness is), I get an unpleasant shock-like/nerve pressure shooting everywhere feeling. So much so that I dread brushing that area. I think it's just the nerves on my gum waking up, but it's been happening for a month now. Sometimes I wonder if it's related to the gum recession on the inside of my two teeth, but the feeling only happens when I touch the brush on the outside, towards the bottom of the gums. It's also hard to pinpoint exactly what area is causing this, which makes me think it's nerve regeneration-related. Who knows? I'll ask my orthodontist. I just don't feel like going to the dentist/periodontist. I'm seeing enough specialists already, aren't I?!

Diet
Still on a soft diet. Getting quite tired of it to be honest. There are only so much ravioli/mashed potatoes/rice dish I can make. I know I could blend stuff, but I'm SO over that phase. Once you start chewing, it's hard to go back. It just makes going to the restaurant too difficult. Everything on the menu seems to have crunchy stuff in every. single. dish. I don't really want to start picking around at the restaurant, so I just eat at home. I'll try to do a roundup of the recipes I'm cycling through right now, in case you guys are also stuck in the soft diet and wondering when it will ever end. I'm seeing my surgeon Monday next week, and last time he mentioned that we might be able to incorporate chicken into the soft diet, so I'm excited. If I can chew cooked chicken, surely it opens up a lot of other options, right? I'm eating chicken right now, but only the super tender rotisserie kind that I cut in tiny, microscopic shreds and swallow almost whole.

Oh, I did start eating ice cream sandwiches! I let them sit on the counter for 10-15 minutes. They get soft enough that I can eat them. Yum!

Fatigue
Still no improvement. See the beginning of this post for more info 😏.

Week 7.5

A little midweek update: I got the results of my complete blood count, and everything looks fine except that my hemoglobin is, to quote my doctor, "slightly low." He doesn't think that it's low enough to be causing my fatigue, so I'm back to feeling discouraged about this whole thing.

Although, to be honest, I'm really doubting the opinion of my doctor. My iron is low, my ferritin is low and my hemoglobin is low. Aren't all these signs pointing to a huge, red ANEMIC flag? My hemoglobin is 11.8 g/dl, while the normal range is 12.0 - 15.5 g/dl. I know it's not that far from 12.0, but the normal range is pretty slim, so it feels like even a 0.2 drop below normal would be significant. Plus, if I compare it to past results, I was always around 13.5 in the past 5 years. That seems like an important drop too, doesn't it?

I don't know what to think. Am I hanging on to the anemia diagnosis just because I don't want to consider the fact that the surgery didn't fix my fatigue, or do I have good reasons to doubt my doctor's opinion? I guess I'll keep taking the iron supplements and hope for the best...

Week 7

Week 7 was another busy week. Thankfully, I've finished most of the projects I was working on, so I'm hoping week 8 will be a bit more mellow.

Healing is still going on well; nothing to report on that front. No pain, no new swelling, nothing. I honestly often forgot that I even had jaw surgery this week, a good sign that the worse is over and I'm starting to slip back into normal life.

However, I'm still really tired. If you've read my previous post, you know that at my last appointment with the surgeon, he said that I should be noticing a difference in my fatigue by then, since my airway is very open. I said I would ask my primary doctor for some thyroid, iron, vitamin D and vitamin B12 tests just to check, in case it could be fatigue related to something entirely new/different. Well, I got my results midweek, and it turns out that I'm iron deficient.

Usually, my doctor is pretty good at answering messages quickly and leaving notes on my results, but this time he hasn't said anything yet. It's been five days, and I've already sent him a message asking if I just needed to take an iron supplement to fix the problem, but I haven't heard back. I have no idea how badly I'm deficient, and because I'm an idiot and didn't think to ask for a CBC so that I could see my hemoglobin result (which is what would tell me if I'm actually anemic and how bad it is), I'm just in the dark right now. I know it hasn't been THAT long since we got the result, but this is so important to me right now that I'm being very impatient. I want to know if this is really the cause of my fatigue, which would mean I still have quite a bit of hope that the surgery was indeed successful, and that I just need to fix the new unrelated "issue" that cropped up because of the surgery.

I've scheduled an appointment with my GP, but the earliest he had is at the end of next week, so I guess I'll have to tap in the little amount of patience I have left. Running out of it at this point... 😌

I've just been feeling a bit down and annoyed these days. I did this surgery first and foremost in the hopes of fixing my fatigue/brain fog/daytime drowsiness, which I've been dealing with for the past 6 years now. I knew going in that it might not fix it because my sleep apnea is mild. Some doctors believe that the severity of the sleep apnea does not correlate with the severity of the symptoms, so someone like me could just be more sensitive to a mild sleep apnea and have bad symptoms vs. someone with severe sleep apnea that just doesn't get affected as much. The thing is, I figured if it doesn't work, at least I'll have fixed some of the stuff I didn't like about my face: lip incompetence, gum showing when smiling/laughing, horrible profile with no jaw line, maybe even fix those smile lines on either side of my nose. Sadly, I think I overestimated how much the surgery would change all that. I sort of expected to look really beautiful and changed after the surgery, but I still have lip incompetence, I still have gum showing, albeit less of it, I still have the laugh lines and they are more prominent. My profile is definitely a lot better though, but it's not "perfect."

I know I've been excited about some of these small changes in the past (I even raved about the reduced gum showing in my last post), but the main issue is that NOBODY sees a difference. I've asked my friends and they have all reacted the same way: looking a little uncomfortable, "humm"-ing and "eehh"-ing, saying stuff like "I guess from the side, a little bit?" or "Maybe once you get your braces off..." or "I never really examined your face that much before I guess". Even my own mother says she doesn't see that much of a difference in the pictures I sent her (she lives in Canada, so she hasn't seen me in person yet), saying "Maybe when I see you in real life I'll notice a difference?". Most of the people who said I looked different a few weeks back no longer see a difference now, so it seems to me like the "difference" they were seeing was just the swelling.

I'm just really bummed by this. Actually, I'm so downright depressed by this, I could cry. I know it's petty, and I know I didn't do this surgery to change my physical appearance, but I expected to look different; to look better. I personally do see a difference, mostly on the bottom part of my face, but most days I feel like I look less feminine. I tell myself that everyone goes through this phase of not liking their new appearance just because it's different. But I've never read on any other blogs that nobody in their entourage noticed a difference. Everyone receives comments like "Oh you look so much better," but I don't get that. I have to ask. Ugh. It's killing me.

Anytime I ask my husband, he says I look more beautiful and that he does notice a difference, but I think he's just trying to cheer me up, to be honest 😉. Or maybe he does see a difference because he sees me every day, but even then, if the changes are so subtle that nobody else notices, what's the point? If the surgery doesn't even fix my fatigue, I feel like I've gone through all of this for nothing. Maybe a better profile, but that's it. It seems like such a huge time, energy, effort, money and health investment for very little.

I'm just sad, guys. So let's hope the fatigue is caused by the iron deficiency/possible anemia, and that once it's fixed, I'll feel like a normal human being again. That would definitely make the surgery completely worth it.

Here are some pictures for this week for those of you who like to see the progress. Not sure if there is any progress, but I do think the swelling goes down a tiny bit every week. It's hard to tell!

Other than that, chewing is getting easier and easier. I have a lot more side-to-side movement and flexibility now, but I'm still 2-3 weeks away from being allowed to eat anything that isn't soft, so I'm sticking to the plan. I tried eating some noodles and fried rice from Panda Express (if you remember my Panda Express blending fail from the first few weeks post-surgery, you'll know how excited I was to try again, blend-less). I removed all of the veggies, but it was still a bit too tough. I could feel my jaw muscles getting tired and I got paranoid that I was eating something too hard too soon, so I stopped.

I must have eaten about 7 oreo cheesecakes from Chessecake Factory though! Man, I could eat those every day for eternity. Thankfully, I haven't gained any weight. I was worried that my metabolism was in overdrive since I've gained all my weight back within a week, but it looks like my body is just trying to stick to my normal weight no matter what, and just uses the extra energy for other stuff. Healing bones maybe?

Anyways, this post is already SO. LONG. I'm terrible at keeping these short. Let me do a quick run-down of the normal stats and call it a day.

Pain
No more pain at all! Some stiffness in the joints when moving side to side, and some jaw muscle fatigue after eating, but no pain.

Swelling
Same. I'm sure it's going down, but it seems to be sooo sloooow. I can't even tell if I have any left.

Numbness
Same, but now, when I drink something cold, the numb area gets even colder. Good sign! It must mean I'm getting some of the feeling back.

Diet
Same as last week. Mashed potatoes, soft fish, small pasta, cooked rice (not fried, as I found out), eggs, pudding, yogurt. I managed to eat some Chipotle, actually! I ordered rice, black beans and cheese in a bowl, and got the mild salsa on the side. I then removed all the onion pieces from the salsa and dumped it on my food. It was gooood. Oh, and I no longer need to use baby utensils. I am now back to using adult forks and spoons, yay!

Fatigue
Lots. Plus, I'm currently on my period (one week early, just to make matters worse), so it's not helping. Probably also not helping the crankiness/depressed feeling.

So that's it! I hope to have iron-related news next week after seeing my doctor.

Week 6

I just came back from an appointment with my surgeon, and it wasn't... great.

I mean don't get me wrong, everything is still healing very nicely and it all looks great! But every time we meet, he asks me how my fatigue is (the reason why I did the surgery in the first place), and I tell him I'm still tired. And every time he gives me this look like "Uh..." as if puzzled by this. And he repeats that my airway is wide open now. The last few times, he did say that sometimes it can take up to 3 months to see a difference, but when I asked him again today, he said that normally, the majority of people will see a significant improvement by 6 weeks. He said there were a few cases where it took longer, but he basically hinted that it wasn't "normal."

I tried not to cry, but I just couldn't keep it in. He seemed to feel bad for me and told me not to lose hope, that there was still a chance that it would improve. He said I should focus on getting better for now, and we'll see what happens once everything has healed up completely.

I just feel defeated right now, and terrified that it didn't fix my problem. I knew going in that there was a chance the sleep apnea wasn't the root cause of my chronic fatigue, but I still had a lot of hope. The surgeon thought I'd have a 90% chance of fixing it with the surgery, so it was hard not to get excited. I know in the end it was still worth it to do the surgery. I still had sleep apnea, and it would only have worsened over time anyway. And I do have a much better profile now, so that's nice. But yeah, I'm scared and sad right now.

I'm still holding on to the hope that this fatigue may be caused by my thyroid issues. I'll go see my GP and ask for a TSH check as well as B12, vitamin D and iron, just in case. Who knows, maybe the surgery screwed up with some of these levels and all I need is more time for my body to readjust, or some extra supplements. I have to admit, I'm almost scared of going in case everything comes back normal. Then I won't have much room for hope.

Other than that, the surgeon looked in my mouth and said my bite looked great. He then said I will be on the soft diet for another month. Another slight disappointment; I had somehow thought it wouldn't take that long to gradually start eating harder stuff, but it's fine. There are a lot more foods I can eat than during the liquid diet, so I'll manage without any problems.

Another issue: he told me that in two weeks, I can "start" doing light exercises like opening my mouth. I turned red. I was like "uuuh... I didn't know I wasn't supposed to do jaw exercises". Last time we asked him if I'd need to do jaw exercises, he said that in his experience it wasn't necessary, and that everything would get stretched out naturally as I talk and chew. But my friend who went through the surgery a few years ago told me her jaw is stiff and she wished her surgeon had told her about exercises. I looked at other blogs and other surgeons recommended doing exercises at the 4-week mark, or around the time people start chewing, so that's why I did it. I asked my surgeon if I could have screwed something up. He didn't seem happy that I was stretching my jaw, but he said it doesn't look like I did anything bad. Honestly, I don't know how he can tell without an X-ray. Hopefully I didn't cause any stress on the bones or something. Ugh.

So moral of the story: It's not because you CAN that you're ALLOWED to! Make sure to ask your surgeon before doing anything you see on other blogs. Always get the official "OK".

I'm also going to go see a periodontist about the gum recession on the inside of my two bottom teeth. I've noticed that a lot of the bottom front teeth have an open space like a triangle between them, which means my gum recessed there too. It doesn't look like it recessed on the actual bottom of the teeth though, just on that one spot between two teeth on the inside, and between each tooth in that small "triangle" spot. Hopefully it's not too bad and I won't need a gum graft...

Speaking of gums, now that my lips are a lot more mobile, I've noticed that I show more gum again when I'm laughing. I'm a little disappointed, but it's still so much better than before. For comparison, here are pics of me laughing and smiling pre-op vs. post-op:

Smile | Before and after

Laugh | Before and after

[Edit from the future: I don't look like that when I laugh anymore. My upper lip was still very stiff and thin. It looks much better now, at the one-year mark!]

Now onto the more positive things...

Pain

The cramps in my jaw joints have almost completely disappeared. It happens very rarely, only at night and only in certain positions.

Swelling

My surgeon says I still have some swelling on either side of my nose and on either side of my chin, but I don't see it that much. Here's how it looks now:

Numbness

Still numb in half of my bottom lip down my chin. I am starting to feel my gums though, which is good, although it also means I'm getting more annoying shock-like pains when I brush with an electric toothbrush. It's like it's too much for my nerves, or maybe it's the gum recession. I can't quite feel them fully yet though, but I can feel a prick when I push my nail on them, so I know it's coming back. Still getting random twitches and very very light burning sensation in the lip/chin, but nothing much.

Diet

Chewing is getting better and better every day! My right jaw joint is getting better; less pops and crunches when I chew, and almost no pain. I have a lot more lateral movements, but I've also been doing jaw exercises for this, so hopefully I didn't screw anything up even though it gave me more flexibility. My diet is a lot more varied than before: oatmeal, canned ravioli, Reese's peanut butter cup that I let melt in my mouth, tiny pieces of very tender chicken, mac & cheese, mashed potatoes, etc. I still need to find other recipes I can chew if I'm going to keep this up for another month.

Fatigue

As I mentioned above, I'm still fatigued. I need to take a nap every day; I feel extremely sleepy in the afternoon, and just generally tired during the day. I'll update on the blood tests when I get them. Crossing my fingers that this fatigue will get better with time.

Also, I know I said I would make a midweek post about different things I wanted to mention, but this week has been crazy work-wise (maybe it contributes to the fatigue?), so I'll have to delay that post to next week if I can. I'll try to squeeze it in soon.

Week 5

This week was a bit brutal work-wise, but thankfully, that had nothing to do with my surgery. Just normal after-the-holiday-rush when everyone realizes they've been slacking off and have to pick up the pace to finish everything on time.

Although I'm still pretty tired every day, I do feel like it's better than the first 4 weeks. I don't crash completely in late afternoon; instead, I just get more tired and a bit sleepy, but I can work through it.

Quick update for everything else: Still not much pain expect in my joints when chewing/sleeping on my side, but the pain is more like a 3/10 and I never need to take painkillers. The numbness is the same as my last update; same areas but they feel a little less stiff and more like they are about to wake up, so crossing fingers! Swelling seems to be down a bit more.

Here are some pics:

In other news, chewing is going much better than I anticipated. It already hurts a lot less, and I have more lateral movements than before. I'm now officially able to move my tongue between my teeth and my cheeks and even get food unstuck from my braces, which was completely impossible when I first started chewing. It's amazing how fast it's going! If you remember, my first chewing experience was very frustrating and discouraging. I thought it would take MONTHS before I could see a sizable improvement, but it only took a week.

I have to be honest, it's still not pleasant, and I still feel limited in how I can chew, but I've been doing exercises twice a day and it seems to be helping. I now rarely eat liquid stuff anymore. I go for mashed potatoes with cheese instead. I also bought some canned raviolis because I read on other blogs that it's the perfect chewing practice food, and they're right! It's big enough that you can't just swallow it whole; you HAVE to chew it a bit, and it's super soft. Also, it's yummy, which helps. Just don't wear your favorite shirt while eating it because tomato sauce will get everywhere...

A sample of my new friends.

A few other things I chewed this week: Ritz crackers and smoked salmon cream cheese (I let the crackers melt a bit before I chew); chicken cut up in tiny little pieces with orzo, plain Greek yogurt and cooked onions (I completely regretted adding the onions; they were too tough and I had to spit them out); chewy chocolate chip cookies (I even managed to eat them without soaking them in milk later during the week!); and finally...

OREO CHEESECAKE FROM THE CHEESECAKE FACTORY!

Can you hear the angels sing?

I rewarded myself with this beauty yesterday. It. Was. Amazing. I finished it after lunch today and oh my god, I want more. It's one of the last desserts I ate before the surgery, and I'm so happy I'm able to eat more of it now.

I'll be dreaming of it for the rest of the month, I can tell.

Other than that, I'm proud to say that I accomplished a lot this week, on top of working full-time again! I cleaned the apartment, took down the Christmas decorations (sadness), spent an afternoon shopping and returning some stuff, got my finances in order. I guess this is the proof that I have more energy now!

I took this picture to prove that I went to the mall. I don't know
why I felt the need to prove it...

So even though it was a hard week because I went back to work, I feel like there was some great improvements surgery-wise, which makes me quite happy and hopeful that it will keep getting better and better.

I have a few other things I want to talk about, but this post is already pretty long, so I'll do a midweek post with a roundup of random little things I'd like to touch on, including oily skin/hair post-surgery, speech, and getting used to my new face.

Stay tuned!

Day 34

I know I said I would only post weekly from now on, but I just had to do a quick update on my chewing adventures.

Today is only the third day, but I already see some improvements, which is really encouraging! I had some egg salad sandwich without the bread yesterday, and forced myself to chew through the boiled egg pieces as much as possible. It's still a challenge: food gets stuck between my cheek and my gums and it's too far for my tongue to reach without jerking my jaw in a way it doesn't want to move yet.

The main problem is definitely still the lateral movements, so I've been doing some exercises every day, opening and closing, moving side to side as far as I can, holding it there a few seconds, etc. I have more lateral movement on the left, which makes sense. My right joint seems to be the most problematic, clicking and grinding and hurting when I bite. But the pain is actually much better now that I've been doing these exercises, so I'll keep at it.

Yesterday, I also had some Safeway tres leches cake. It worked perfectly because it's super soft and completely soaked in milk. But honestly? It was too sickly sweet and it made me feel kinda gross after...

Tres leches with whipped cream

Today, I had more mashed potatoes, and for dinner, I had leftover egg salad and this time, I ate pieces of white bread with it. It's so soft that I thought it would be acceptable, and it was. I added some cream cheese on it to make it extra tasty. I mean don't get me wrong, it wasn't fun or really enjoyable, but I'm just glad I powered through the chewing. I feel accomplished.

After dinner, I thought I would try something I read on another blog: soaking a cookie in milk. I figured that if it worked with the cake, it should work with the cookie, minus the sickly sweetness. Since I made those delicious chewy chocolate chip cookies a few days ago, I've been eyeing them with envy and distrust because last time I tried to chew one, it hurt a lot. So I soaked it in whole milk and OH. MY. GOD.

Now this was enjoyable through and through. I didn't even take a picture because I practically inhaled it. It was totally worth it. And I actually chewed it, too, but it was much easier because of how soft it became.

If you need a pick me up on your chewing adventures, try that with your favorite cookies!

On a side note, I was shopping on the Target website and saw these limited edition Haribo Gold Bears flavors. Again, it's another one of those ever popular "vote for your favorite flavor" type of things. One of the three new flavors is watermelon, and I loooove watermelon anything, so I bought a bag. And then bought the other two flavors (apple and cherry), because they were a dollar and I didn't want to miss out just because I can't chew.

Is it weird that I'm already collecting foods to eat when I can finally chew for real in like... 4 months? Nah, I'm sure it's totally healthy. I'll stash the gummy bears with the limited edition Project 7 packs of gums I've been hoarding.

Don't tell anyone.

Day 32

Now that we've moved into January, I won't be able to use the date to know what day I'm on! :P Since my surgery was on November 30 and Day 1 was Dec 1st, it was really easy to keep track. Oh well, starting tomorrow, I'll mostly be calling out weeks instead of doing a daily post anyway!

Today, I wanted to update you on my first time chewing!

Last time I used a spoon to eat pudding, I realized that my utensils were far too big to fit between my teeth without scraping all the food out. It was annoying. So I bought these tiny baby utensils at the grocery store today.

They're actually kinda cute!

My new best friend.

I spent the day without rubber bands and ate my normal liquid diet in the morning and for lunch. Finally, at dinnertime, I felt ready to try chewing. Since I read other blogs, I knew it was going to be a challenge, and I knew I should expect it to go way worse than I think. When the surgeon tells you that you can finally eat soft foods, it feels like the heavens open up and angels start to sing. You kind of figure that all you have to do is put food in mouth, bite down, good to go. I was very apprehensive because my joints have been hurting off and on since the surgery, especially when I try to do lateral movements. I had a feeling it would be an obstacle to chewing.

So knowing that it was going to be hard, I went with something super easy: mashed potatoes. I know a lot of jaw surgery patients at week 3 or 4 are already stuffing soft foods into their mouths and swallowing them whole, but I'm too afraid of choking so I never tried. I stuck diligently to the completely liquid/blended diet until today. Which is why I was so excited to try mashed potatoes! I sprinkled some shredded cheese on top and nuked it in the microwave a bit. It looked like this:

And in my mouth it went.

Let me tell you folks: when you read on other blogs that chewing for the first time feels weird and hard, believe them. And actually, I'm sure you already believe them. I did. But I just did not understand how it would be weird and hard. Let me try to describe it.

First, you have no lateral jaw movement. All you can do is open and close your teeth together. But you can't feel most of your teeth, so you can't actually tell if they're touching together, let alone touching any food. The other problem is that you tongue has no idea what to do. Whatever you were doing before the surgery, you weren't paying attention; it was all automatic. After one month of no chewing and a new configuration inside your mouth, your tongue feels lost. Are you supposed to move the food here, or there? Should your tongue go there? Should it stay out of the way? Placing the food between your teeth is your tongue's job, but then it's hard to tell when it's in there, and if the food gets on the other side, between your teeth and your cheek, then it's really hard to get it out. Your jaw needs lateral movement to allow your tongue to get that food back in.

Also, I'll be honest, it hurts. I can't feel most of my teeth, yet I can feel the pain of pressure on some of them. It's the same pain as when you get your braces on for the first time, or when they change your wire or something.

And then there's joint pain, at least for me. Pain when I apply pressure on a piece of food that's a littler harder, but also pain when your jaw tries to go lateral. To me, it basically feels like the jaw is pooped out of the socket, so whenever I try to go sideways, it's like bones are blocking the movement. I'm sure it's not, but that's what it feels like. Sometimes one particular movement will make me feel like it went slightly out of alignment, and then any movement hurts until I press on the joint with my fingers and it grinds a little, then it's fine. It's not HORRIBLE pain or anything, it's just annoying.

So yeah, it feels like chaos in there when you try to chew. Food seems to go everywhere you don't want it to go, you can't keep it in check with your tongue because it's so clumsy, you keep biting up and down on nothing and sometimes you get something but it hurts, and it's happening all over inside your mouth. It's overwhelming.

Mind you, this didn't happen so much when I ate the mashed potatoes. It was so soft that most of it was smashed on the roof of my mouth and I swallowed it. I ate the whole bowl, and then I had a pudding with my tiny spoon, and that was also just smashed around with my tongue and swallowed. The texture was nice! And the baby spoon was a lifesaver. Fits perfectly into my mouth!

The problem was I tried to eat a super soft, chewy cookie that I made later during the night. I did not enjoy it at all. Even a tiny bit of crisp from the underside was too hard to handle. I just couldn't keep the food in check. I felt like my tongue was a shepherd's dog on its first day trying to herd a group of rabid sheep.

Oh chewy cookies, you used to be so kind to me.

I didn't even taste or enjoy the cookie bite; I was too focused on trying to chew it and guide it around. It didn't feel worth it at all. Now, I knew I should expect chewing to be hard for a while, and I knew it was going to be worse than I thought, but I still feel extremely discouraged by this. You probably will too, no matter how many times you read about similar experiences on other blogs. It's just hard to imagine, pre-surgery, how challenging chewing can be!

And it's frustrating. After spending a month working through all these symptoms and feeling like shit, and finally thinking you're out of the woods, you realize that now you have to learn how to chew all over again. It seems like such a simple task that you can't help but feel mad at your mouth. Like "come on, you stupid jaw, how hard can this be?! JUST CHEW".

Anyways, I don't want to discourage anyone. Eventually, everybody figures it out. It'll work out in the end. I just want to be 100% honest with my recovery experience. In my case, the first chew was completely frustrating and discouraging. Now, I just need to move on, work at it some more over the next few weeks, and wait for it to get better. Everything else got better, so this will too!

The funny thing is, I remembered watching a vlog on YouTube from a girl chewing for the first time after jaw surgery, and thinking how weird her jaw movements were. My husband filmed me tonight for my first bite, and I swear, I had the EXACT same face, movements, reactions, etc. that she did. I found it again, and it made me laugh so much. So yeah, go check it out. This is probably how your first bite will look like, except that internally, there's a lot more freaking out and frustration happening.

One word of advice though, don't try to chew a breaded chicken nugget on your first try. I don't know how she managed that, but I was cringing watching it. It must have hurt so bad! I assumed she just swallowed it whole.