Pain
Last week, I mentioned that my jaw was kind of throbbing at the end of the day after starting a more chew-intensive diet. I emailed my surgeon and he actually said that the throbbing meant that I needed to back off a bit and let my jaw heal. It was pretty frustrating, to be honest. For most of the week, I had to revert to a very soft, almost no-chew diet, and I did NOT want to go back. I know in the grand scheme of things, this is pretty much nothing and I'm just being whiny, but it's so hard to go back to drinking smoothies for a main meal after diving back into the world of chewing. I felt like I was taking five steps back. I've since started chewing again, but I'm being more careful and trying to eat softer foods most of the day, and allowing myself a "chew-intensive" meal once a day instead of 2-3 times a day. It seems to be working so far. I'm also thinking I might do one day a week where I don't chew, just to let the bones heal a bit more from all the pressure.
The biggest frustration is that I had finally started feeling like my jaw was pretty strong, after weeks of thinking it was made of glass and being afraid of breaking it. I'd started feeling more confident and less "weak" as a result. When my surgeon told me that I needed to back off to let it heal, it definitely shattered that image. But I know that in a few months, all of this will be behind me for good. All we need is to hang on and let time do its thing.
Other than that, I still have some pain in the right joint when I open my mouth wide, but nothing else. I'll ask the surgeon when I see him next week. Some of my teeth are actually starting to touch on the right, so maybe it'll fix the problem. I'm seeing my orthodontist this Friday. I'm expecting pain and elastics... But then we'll be one step closer to removing the damn braces, so yay!
Swelling
Not much change on that front. Still learning to like my face, but similar to last week, it's much better than before.
However, I'm still struggling with acne, which is adding another layer to the list of reasons why I don't love my face right now... I know for sure that it was caused by the surgery, or maybe the post-surgery diet, but definitely something related to the surgery. I've never had so many pimples that are that deep and that take so long to go away, except in my teens. And I'm actually using tretinoin, so... I can't imagine how bad it would be without. I've looked around the Internet a few months ago and it seems like a lot of people complain of acne after surgery, even unrelated to the face, like breast augmentation surgery. It seems like it takes a while to go away too, so I'm trying to be patient. Sometimes it looks like it's about to clear, but then I get a whole new batch of the little suckers. Sigh...
Numbness
Still improving slowly, but definitely improving! I don't have any patch that is completely numb anymore, so it's looking pretty promising! It took SO long to get to that point though. So for anyone out there worrying about the numbness: don't. It took almost 3 months before I started noticing big changes! I knew it would take a while for it to come back, but I was so worried because I'd seen most people on blogs mentioning the pins and needles after only 6 weeks. It definitely wasn't my case.
Diet
As I explained above, I had to revert to a no-chew diet for half the week, which was disconcerting, to say the least. I had to get a new stock of bananas and milk for the Ensure-replacement shakes I used to drink, and I ate a lot of ice cream to drown my sorrows. Definitely not a healthy week, once again. I just can't wait to be able to chew most foods so I can go back to a healthier diet. I miss eating raw fruits and veggies when I want to snack. The easiest foods to eat right now are not the best for you. I know I could make a fruit smoothie, but honestly, I just can't stand smoothies anymore. I want to BITE into things, and feel like I'm eating foods with SUBSTANCE. Ugh. Patience, I know. Keyword and all. Overall, it's not making my life a living hell or anything, it's just a small annoyance.
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I didn't take any pics of food this week because of
the setback, so here's a pic of my tea mug as a
consolation prize!
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I bought a bunch of potatoes and carrots and I'm going to make a huge batch of mashed potatoes. I've been eating the pre-made mashed potatoes from Safeway because I'm honestly quite lazy, but I'd love a little variation with carrots, and maybe cream cheese mixed in. I'm sure it'll taste much better too. I found some Greek yogurt ranch dressing the other day, and it paired so well with mashed potatoes! I'm looking forward to that.
Fatigue
Not much difference to report, but honestly, I haven't been sleeping a lot these days. I'm realizing that I'm almost afraid of returning to my healthy sleeping habits in case it doesn't fix the fatigue. It's like as long as I'm tired for a reason (my period, not sleeping enough, etc.), I have hope that the surgery DID fix the problem, but as soon as I get rid of these extra factors, that's it. I'll know for sure if it did or not, and I'm terrified of finding out that it didn't. I really need to stop being so childish though, and get into a good nightly routine. Go to bed earlier, get at least 8 hours of sleep every night, etc. I'm due to test the iron next week, too, so we'll see!
That's pretty much it for this week. I'll try to find some time this weekend to update the photo section with new pictures. I'm also thinking of creating a section called "What I didn't expect" and have a list of random stuff that surprised me during the recovery, or things that I hadn't read about anywhere else. Hopefully I'll find some down time soon; work has been pretty intense these days.
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