Mckenzie's Jaw Surgery Blog

I had my second post-op appointment with my jaw surgeon today. He not only graduated me from a liquid diet to soft foods, but he said I can start experimenting with chewing! I asked him for some examples of soft foods and he said pasta, steamed vegetables, even soft fish (but maybe not salmon). The first thing he did was wiggle my upper jaw and said “wow, that’s really solid,” so maybe that’s why I’m already allowed to chew, even though I’m only 3.5 weeks post-op. I feel like most people usually have to wait 6 weeks.

He also said I don’t have to sleep upright anymore! I told him that’s good because I haven’t really been sleeping upright anyway lol. He changed the configuration of my rubber bands to one box on each side, way in the back, so they aren’t as noticeable anymore. After he took my old rubber bands off he asked me to open as wide as I could. I was like, “are you sure?” Apparently, my mouth can open really wide because he said, “oh wow, yeah, you’ll have no problem eating.” Going forward, he said I can take my rubber bands off to eat and brush my teeth, which is pretty awesome.

Before I left, his assistant asked if I would mind talking to another patient who was considering getting jaw surgery. I said I would be more than happy to, so she walked me over to them. I was introduced to a young man with a very prominent underbite (but maybe I just notice these things now), and his mother. Dr. Day came in and showed me off, explaining that I was only 3.5 weeks post-op and I had just been given the green light to chew. His mother asked me a couple questions, but her son stayed pretty quiet. I could tell he was scrutinizing every inch of my face. I don’t blame him. I talked up Dr. Day (because he deserves it) and told them my only regret was that I didn’t get this surgery sooner (which is the truth).

Since I got such great news, and because my sister accepted a job offer today, we decided to go to Olive Garden to celebrate. In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have picked such a public place to re-learn how to chew. I ordered breadsticks and pasta, but I could only eat the soft inside of the breadsticks. Chewing proved super difficult because my muscles aren’t used to my jaws being in their new position. I kept biting the insides of my cheeks and bottom lip (which are both still totally numb), and sometimes I couldn’t bite down all the way (although I’m not sure why), so I’d have to pull the half-chewed chunk of pasta out of my mouth. The people at the table next to us probably thought I was insane – gutting my breadsticks and regurgitating my food!

Below are the Day 24 pictures I took. The one of me posing with a breadstick at Olive Garden is about as wide as I can open my mouth at this point. Now I see why the internet says 3 weeks is when you start to look “normal” to everyone …except yourself. I don’t look swollen in any of these pictures, but when I press on my cheeks, nose, and chin, I can feel the swollen tissue underneath.

I’m three weeks post-op! At this point, the hardest part is getting my brain to remember that I just had major surgery. I find myself acting as if my life is 100% back to normal, and then I’ll do something physically exhausting and remember I’m still weak. My fiancé and I keep getting into fights over my caloric intake. He’s mad that I’m not eating more and he doesn’t think my excuse of “a liquid diet is hard” is good enough. To prove his point, he downed an entire can of blended Chunky chicken noodle soup in front of me in less than 60 seconds. I pointed out that I wasn’t in a fraternity in college, so I never learned how to chug beer.

I understand where he’s coming from. He’s just worried because I’ve lost 10 pounds and I was already underweight before the surgery. I’ve always been a picky eater, and being on a liquid diet only exacerbates that particular personality trait. After our first big fight, he ordered a huge case of Boost shakes and told me to drink one between every meal. At first, I loved them, but now they gross me out. Why? Well, take a look at this picture and try to guess what you are seeing:

If you guessed that’s three weeks worth of built-up chocolate Boost shake residue that I scraped off the back of my tongue with my fingernail, then you are correct! Totally disgusting, right? For the past week, the contact point between the back of my tongue and the roof of my mouth has felt odd. Furry almost. Now I know why…

Moving on, my dissolvable stitches are starting to fall out. They are brownish/black and about 1 cm long. I also want to mention that my teeth are lining up much better now that the swelling has gone down. Right after the surgery, I couldn’t touch my molars together on the left side. But now, everything lines up perfectly – the swelling inside my mouth just needed to go down.

We went to see the Dr. Strange movie on Saturday with some friends. I broke the no popcorn rule by taking a kernel, breaking it into tiny little pieces, and letting them dissolve in my mouth. We went to Kona Grill after the movie. I asked the waiter for a glass of ice and a straw so I could pour my chocolate Boost shake into it. I also ordered some Miso soup. My bottom lip and chin are still completely numb, so I had to use my left hand to feel for my bottom lip before bringing the spoon up to my lips, otherwise I risked undershooting and spilling it all over myself.

There were six people in our group, so I told myself to just sit back and let everyone else do the talking, but the social butterfly in me refused to stay silent. I did A LOT of talking. Especially since everyone wanted to hear about my surgery and how my recovery has been so far. About an hour into the conversation, my face started hurting pretty bad, so I leaned back in my chair and listened to my fiancé talk rocket science with his coworker. I didn’t have much to contribute to that conversation anyway!

I didn’t take any Day 21 pictures, but here is a video of me and my fiancé making a Pizza Hut smoothie. I apologize for filming it vertically – I wasn’t thinking!

Halloween is my favorite holiday. Hands down. I couldn’t miss it, even if I just had jaw surgery two weeks ago. My sister wanted to be Lydia Deetz, so she asked me to be Beetlejuice. I’m still a little swollen, and my surgical rubber bands make my smile look creepy, so I figured why not go with a scary costume this year? I bought a black and white striped suit off of eBay and made an appointment at MAC cosmetics, because they are pros at doing over-the-top Halloween makeup.

I was a little worried about having enough energy to make it through the day. Besides my makeup appointment, I also had a 11:00 AM meeting with one of our wedding vendors in downtown Phoenix, and we were planning on going out at 9:00 PM to Mill Avenue for a Halloween block party, which would involve a lot of walking.

My fiancé explained to the wedding vendor lady that I just had jaw surgery, but I ended up talking almost as much as he did. We put a deposit down on our chairs, dance floor, and tent (we are having an outdoor ceremony and reception). The only jaw-related incident was I snapped one of my rubber bands while laughing at something the vendor lady said. My fiancé picked the broken band out of my teeth. Other than that, I left the meeting very happy with myself.

Unfortunately, things went downhill from there. I almost didn’t make it through the MAC appointment because I got another hot flash while she was doing my makeup. My makeup artist, Melissa, was really nice. She gave my mom a fan (I think they normally use it to dry eyelash glue) and my mom fanned me while Melissa finished up. Once I cooled down, my mom went across the street to Orange Julius and got me a fruit smoothie. I felt better after drinking a little of that. We tried to Google whether I was allergic to NSAIDs, because I had taken Children’s Motrin as a preemptive measure before my makeup appointment (I’m not sure why I thought getting my makeup done would be painful), and we realized I haven’t really had a hot flash since I stopped taking the Children’s Motrin a few days ago. Google told us the same thing as before – having a hot flash isn’t a symptom of an allergic reaction…

As soon as the makeup artist turned my chair around so I could see myself in the mirror, I felt much better because all I could think about was how awesome my Beetlejuice makeup looked! Melissa did an incredible job!

Going out on Mill Avenue was really fun, but I was super worried I would get another hot flash because it was 80 degrees outside and I was wearing a full-on suit. Phoenix set a record this year for the latest day in October to be over 100 degrees. I was definitely uncomfortable and sweating under my costume, but it was the normal kind of hot, not a hot flash.

I was doing fine until we went into a bar around 11:00 PM. The bouncer told me I had to throw my milkshake away before going inside. I told him I just had jaw surgery so I was trying to stock up on calories. He replied that he just had jaw surgery at Biltmore Surgical Center too! But his surgeon was Dr. Shaw, not Dr. Day, and he was three months post-op. When I told him I was only two weeks post-op he seemed really surprised and said, “If I were you I wouldn’t be out tonight.” I told him I’m not drinking and I’m being careful to avoid walking through the super-crowded areas (so some drunk guy doesn’t bump into me and knock my jaw out of place). He looked at me and said, “That’s not what I mean.”

Honestly, that freaked me out and I kept thinking about his ominous words for the rest of the night. Everyone in our six-person group paid a $10 cover to get into that bar, so I felt bad when I asked if we could leave less than an hour later. I convinced myself the loud music was reverberating through my loose jaws and I felt bad all over. I’m sure it was just psychological though. We got back to my sister’s place around 1:00 in the morning, but I didn’t go to bed until 3:30 AM because we stayed up talking to my mom (who was getting on a plane back to Wisconsin in the morning), and after the drive home, it took me forever to remove the makeup and wash out the green hairspray.

Below are the Day 12 pictures I took in my Beetlejuice costume.

Day 13 Update: I definitely over-did it yesterday (Saturday). Today (Sunday) was miserable. I shouldn’t have stayed up so late last night. I woke up feeling like I had a hangover. That dulled my already non-existent appetite, so I barely ate anything. I ended up getting a forehead headache around 7:00 PM, and I wanted to die. I never get headaches, so when I do, I’m a total baby about them. I think the pain was making me clench down, which caused my molars to start to ache. I gave in and took some pain medicine (10 mL of Tylenol with Codeine). While I waited for it to kick in, I complained to my fiancé that it felt like I was back at Day 3 again. Learn from my mistake: don’t overexert yourself two weeks post-op!

Day 14 Update: Below are the pictures I took on Monday before handing out candy to the Halloween trick-or-treaters that came to our door. My fiancé said I must be feeling better because I actually curled my hair (for the first time since my surgery) and put my fake eyelashes back on!

It’s been exactly one week since my surgery! Today was the first day I didn’t get a hot flash or a “bad feeling” rushing through me. It was also the first day I didn’t crave my next dose of Children’s Motrin. I think I’m finally starting to get back to normal!

I went back to work today. I’ve read a lot of blogs that suggest taking a minimum of two weeks off work after your surgery, but I’m a home-based consultant, so I don’t have to drive anywhere or talk to anyone. Heck, most days I don’t even get out of my pajamas! I simply took my laptop off my docking station and worked from my bed all day (although I did miss my dual monitors). I work in Regulatory Operations in the pharmaceutical industry, which basically means I take clinical trial data and submit it to FDA to get new drugs approved.

I considered taking one more day off work, but then I saw how many submissions we had on the schedule, and I felt bad ditching my coworkers. I probably should have reconsidered it though, because in my line of work you have to be completely focused 100% of the time, and my head was SUPER foggy this morning. I usually never make mistakes, but today I accidentally submitted a document to FDA that wasn’t signed! Not a huge deal, but my client isn’t going to be too happy about it…

I’m a bit of a workaholic (like my father), so I ended up working a 10-hour day. My foggy head cleared up later in the afternoon and I was kicking butt on a large submission, so I didn’t want to stop. My fiancé pulled me away for a few hours so we could finish watching Westworld with my mom. Geez, that show is SO good!

Recently, the tingling in my chin has been going INSANE right before I fall asleep. I try to ignore it, because I know it’s just the nerves regenerating, but it’s a very distracting sensation. I remember reading on other people’s blogs that the exact same thing would happen to them – the nerve tingling would go crazy at night while they were trying to fall asleep. I wonder how my chin knows I’m trying to go to bed…

Below are the Day 7 pictures I took. The first thing I noticed when I looked in the mirror this morning is my chin is WAY less swollen. I can see a little dip under my bottom lip! But the funny thing is when I compare today’s pictures to yesterday’s pictures, the dip looks exactly the same. Going forward, my plan is to update this blog weekly, instead of daily, so hopefully my progress will be more apparent after 7 days vs. 24 hours.

P.S. – I didn’t take a picture of it, but the neon yellow bruising migrated down my neck into my chest!

I woke up at 9:00 AM, still feeling defeated from the night before. I took some Children’s Motrin right away and asked my mom to make me some oatmeal. Breakfast is pretty much the only meal I look forward to anymore, so I figured this time I would try and eat two ketchup bottles’ worth of it. I looked in the mirror and was bummed to see the left side of my jaw is twice as swollen as yesterday. I don’t think I was very disciplined last night about sleeping on my back, so maybe I accidentally slept on the left side of my face.

My fiancé must have stayed up super late last night because he slept in until 2:00 PM! I spent that whole time working on this blog. I ate blended broccoli cheddar soup for lunch, but I didn’t finish it because it kinda tasted like plastic. I wanted to get that taste out of my mouth, so I took my toothbrush and started to brush the front of my teeth. That’s when I realized I could fit the entire toothbrush head in my mouth! I was like “why on earth did they tell me I wouldn’t be able to brush my teeth??” I proceeded to happily brush away. Big mistake. One of the incisions in my upper gums started bleeding. My fiancé banned me from brushing until further notice.

Around 4:00 PM I started addressing our Save The Date envelopes. I quickly discovered that leaning forward made all of the blood rush to my face, which hurt like hell, so I had to take breaks every couple of envelopes to drain my face by lying on the couch. Progress was slow until my mom took over.

At my first post-op appointment on Thursday, my jaw surgeon, Dr. Day, told me to change my rubber bands in three days. When I went to do that, I pulled my top lip up to reveal the incisions in my gums. The left side had been hurting whenever I would smile or laugh and I finally figured out why – there is a small, white mass below the stitches. My top lip is partially attached to it, and whenever it is tugged, the mass disconnects from my gums and I start bleeding a little. I’m not sure if I messed it up even more by brushing or if it was already like that, but I am mildly concerned about the whole thing. If it doesn’t get better before my next post-op appointment, I’ll ask Dr. Day to take a look at it.

If you’ve been reading this blog since the beginning, you already know I’ve had trouble finding liquid meals that I can stomach (no pun intended). Well, I finally found something that tastes INCREDIBLE… warm, blended refried beans with a little bit of shredded cheddar cheese. OMG. SO GOOD. I ate two entire ketchup bottles’ worth! I finally felt like I had a sufficient amount of calories in me for the first time since the surgery!

Below are the Day 6 pictures I took. I think I’ve finally reached the point where my cheeks and chin are more swollen than my jawline. When I say “cheeks” I really mean the small area to the left and right of my nose. The neon yellow bruising from yesterday is still there.

I woke up at 8:00 AM after a full night’s sleep. I drank oatmeal and a fruit smoothie for breakfast. My mom asked me if I felt full and I told her I haven’t felt full since the surgery. I did have my first bowel movement this morning though! Sorry if that’s TMI. After breakfast, I took 600 mg of Children’s Motrin and proceeded to kick butt. I went into my office and filed a bunch of paperwork and paid off the two credit cards I used to pay the surgeon’s fee. I felt like my energy level was finally back up to a semi-normal level, so I took advantage of it and got things crossed off my to-do list.

My fiancé woke up a few hours later and showed me the giant hockey puck-shaped bruise he got last night from blocking a slap shot. Then he pointed out that I was starting to bruise too. I have neon yellow bruises covering my entire neck! If he hadn’t said something, I’m not sure I would have noticed because they don’t hurt. The camera flash makes them look worse then they appear in-person.

My fiancé made himself a breakfast burrito, and hearing him talk about it from the other room made me CRAVE bacon, so I asked my mom to blend together some bacon and diced potatoes. It ended up tasting “smokey” – I think the bacon was smoke-flavored and that overpowered the mixture. I still drank it anyway. It’s funny how you get weird cravings like that.

We spent the rest of the afternoon working on our wedding guest list and wedding website. I was doing great until my sister called. We work in the pharmaceutical industry in the same line of work, and she has a job interview on Monday. She wanted help preparing responses for the interview questions they might ask. I was more than happy to oblige, but I didn’t realize talking loudly on speakerphone for a half hour would cause the roof of my mouth to swell as bad as it did. I had to implement a no-talking rule for a few hours, so my fiancé watched the Pittsburgh Penguins game in one room, I worked on our wedding website in another room, and we just texted each other back and forth instead of talking.

For dinner, my mom went out and got me Jamba Juice and Paradise Bakery Mac ‘n Cheese (my favorite thing in the entire world). The latter tasted okay blended – it’s not as good without the texture of the pasta noodles. It kinda just felt like I was drinking cheese, which was gross. My fiancé ended up making me the “Beef Stroganoff” recipe in my little yellow liquid diet book. He forgot to add the sour cream, so it probably could’ve tasted better.

My morning was great, but my night was awful. Having read a bunch of other people’s blogs, I’ve noticed a common theme. At one point during everyone’s recovery, they feel like they are going to die. It’s usually around Day 3. This whole time, I felt proud of myself for not getting to that point. I didn’t feel like I was going to die when I was projectile vomiting blood on Day 0. I didn’t feel like I was going to die when I woke up from intense heat on Day 2. I can’t even really say that I was worried about dying in my jaw surgeon’s office on Day 3, when waves of heat and dizziness were rolling over me. But tonight, I finally said the words “I feel like I’m going to die” out loud.

We were watching the first episode of Westworld when all of a sudden I couldn’t take it anymore. Just like how I couldn’t finish the last ten minutes of the Star Trek movie the other night. I had to tell my fiancé to turn off the TV so I could take a moment to “gather” myself. I was getting a hot flash again, and my body felt super weak from my low-calorie diet. I think my body isn’t good at regulating temperature. In fact, I know it’s not – a few years ago, my fiancé took me to the emergency room because I thought I had heat stroke. I paid $700 for them to take my temperature and tell me I was fine (thanks, Obamacare).

We briefly considered that perhaps I was allergic to the antibiotic, Azithromycin. I already know I’m allergic to Bactrin (which causes hives to break out all over my body), but when we Googled the symptoms, it was hard to tell them apart from normal jaw surgery symptoms (e.g., swelling of the face/throat, dizziness, trouble breathing). Once again, after my hot flash was over, my body swung to freezing cold. I got under my comforter, took my last dose of Children’s Motrin, and tried to go to sleep. It was 1:00 AM – the latest I have stayed up since my surgery, so maybe my body just didn’t like being up that late…

Below are the Day 5 pictures I took. I accidentally forgot to take off my Breathe Right strip for the first picture, and then I think I ripped it off too fast because it left a mark in the second picture.

I woke up at 10:00 AM after sleeping through the night. It wasn’t a perfect night’s sleep because I hate sleeping on my back and it constantly felt like there was phlegm stuck in my throat, so I kept waking up to swallow, which was difficult to do because of all the swelling. I also had this weird idea in my head that I needed to “switch out” my throat with a different throat. I know, it sounds insane! When I finally got out of bed, my mom made me maple and brown sugar oatmeal mixed with the “Apple Breakfast Deluxe” recipe in my little yellow liquid diet book. I actually drank the entire thing. I was so proud of myself! I tried to go back to sleep, but I was having trouble breathing out of my right nostril, so my mom boiled a pot of water on the stove and I leaned over it with a towel over my head.

After that, I took a long, restless nap in the guest bedroom until 2:00 PM. I’m not sure why I wanted to be in the guest bedroom – a change of scenery perhaps? I tried to cheat and sleep on my side, but then I kept waking up because I knew I wasn’t supposed to be sleeping on my side. When I finally got up for good, I tried to eat some more, but nothing sounded appetizing. Around 4:00 PM I managed to take a shower all by myself! I honestly don’t know how I did it without fainting. I only had to sit down once – after letting the water hit my face, I got a little dizzy and I felt like I couldn’t breathe through my nose. It was a strange sensation, but fleeting. It was sooo nice to finally shave my legs and armpits!

My fiancé has been on vacation since the rocket launch, but he went into the office today and worked a half day. At 6:00 PM, he got home at the exact same time my brother, sister, and sister’s boyfriend came to visit. My brother was really weirded out by my swollen face. He said it was like meeting a new person. My sister’s boyfriend said it just looked like I was wearing a fat suit. I had to leave the room at one point because OMG they were making me laugh SO MUCH! Laughing really hurts because it pulls at my stitches. I was doing okay until my fiancé tried on his Halloween costume – then we all started cracking up. He’s going to be Harley Quinn from Suicide Squad. Imagine a 6’5″ dude in fishnet stockings, sequin shorts, and a blonde ponytail wig and try not to laugh!!

My family decided to go out for sushi and my fiancé had to go to his rec league hockey game. My mom was worried about leaving me alone, but I wanted time to recover from all the laughing. Things were going good – I was proud of the fact that I was able to take care of myself. I even got this strange craving for chili, so I heated up a can of chili in the microwave and threw it in the blender. It tasted great, even though I normally hate spicy stuff. Unfortunately, eating it was a BIG MISTAKE. Spicy chili + swollen mouth = BAD. I don’t know why I didn’t see that coming! It might have just been psychological though, because I was fine until my mom got home and pointed out I shouldn’t be eating anything spicy. Then all of a sudden I got really hot and started freaking out that my mouth was swelling up. I asked for some blended chocolate ice cream, and that seemed to help soothe my synapses.

We also realized that I forgot to take my antibiotic (Azithromycin, 5 mL) at the correct time. I was supposed to take it at 1:30 PM, but I ended up taking it at 7:00 PM. Whoops. I hope I don’t get an infection!

Below are the Day 4 pictures I took. My smile is looking better. I’m surprised at how wide I’m allowed to open my mouth. I wonder how far it could go without the rubber bands…

I woke up at 8:00 AM because one of my ice packs had started leaking in my sleep, so my shirt and sports bra were soaking wet. I felt super gross so I decided it was finally time for me to take a shower. My mom and I got in swimsuits and I sat on an outdoor furniture foot rest that we had brought inside our walk-in master bathroom shower. She used the handheld detachable shower head to shampoo and condition my hair for me. I probably could have done it myself, but I was so weak from my low-calorie diet that I could barely stand. I also have really long, thin blonde hair that gets super tangly and is a pain to detangle.

After showering, I ate maple and brown sugar oatmeal for breakfast (my mom had to thin it down and blend it). Then I rinsed with my prescription mouthwash (Chorhexidine Gluconate 0.12%, 15 mL). My mom started to blow dry my hair for me, but I wanted to lie down because I was too weak to sit up anymore. I ended up falling back asleep from 10:00 AM to 11:30 AM, leaning one side of my face on an ice pack. My mom woke me up at 11:30 AM so I could take my pain medication (Tylenol with Codeine, 10 mL) and French-braided my hair for me, so I would look acceptable in public.

My first post-op appointment with Dr. Day, my jaw surgeon, was at 1:00 PM today. I had one of my hot flashes before leaving the house, and it got even worse in the car. On top of that, I probably walked too fast into the building because I got a little dizzy and had to lean on my mom while waiting for the elevator. Luckily, we didn’t have to wait in Dr. Day’s waiting room too long. They took an x-ray before leading me into the exam room – I probably did a terrible job of keeping still, because I wasn’t feeling well. At least the exam chair felt cold against my skin.

Dr. Day came in right away and asked how I felt. He said I was a little more swollen than most of his patients, but that’s probably because after he was done with my surgery he didn’t like how my molars were lining up on the right side, so he opened me back up and went at it for another 15 minutes. I told him I didn’t mind – whatever he needed to do to get things perfect. He showed me the x-ray once it printed. I was really surprised how little hardware he used on my lower jaw. You can see the extra screw holes on the bottom left from him repositioning it twice.

He said I can stop icing because it’s not doing much of anything at this point, but I can ice for comfort if I want. He recommended that I start taking 600 mg of Children’s Motrin every 8 hours and to only use the 10 mL of Tylenol with Codeine to treat breakthrough pain. I told him I didn’t mind the pain or swelling. What’s really bothering me are the random hot flashes and how weak I feel all the time. I told him I hadn’t eaten much since the surgery and that I had already lost 6 pounds. He chastised my mom and fiancé and told them to force me to eat more.

After he left, his assistants let me stay in the exam room and put an ice pack on my forehead. One of them even fanned my face for me, which was really nice. I was feeling awful – super hot and a little dizzy. They told me “don’t worry, you aren’t the first” and tried to distract me by talking about how worse other jaw surgery patients had it. They used a wheelchair to get me downstairs and back out to the car. My mom felt like we should have asked more questions, but I told her there really isn’t much else to know. From here on out, it’s just about calorie intake and waiting for the swelling to go down.

When we got home, I had a flower delivery waiting for me. They were from my fiancé’s parents, who live in Pittsburgh. I really couldn’t ask for better future in-laws. They are such sweet people. I spent the next hour trying to eat leftovers – I downed the rest of yesterday’s avocado mixture and mashed potatoes, another whey protein, peanut butter, banana, chocolate milk smoothie, etc. At 3:00 PM I took 600 mg of Children’s Motrin. I also discovered that yawning REALLY hurts… and nothing makes me yawn more than listening to my fiancé watch hockey.

The afternoon was pretty uneventful. I just hung around the house with my mom and fiancé, talking about wedding plans (our Save The Dates arrived in the mail today). They made me laugh a lot, which is painful, but also feels good – like I’m breaking up scar tissue. The funniest moment was when my fiancé made me dinner. He microwaved a jar of baby food with the top off (and no metal on it) and somehow it exploded with enough force to blow open the microwave door! I also got an itch on my chin that I couldn’t scratch because it was under the numbness. It went away pretty quickly, but if that happens a lot I’m probably going to go insane. Occasionally I’ll get “twinges” in my chin, which I hope is the nerves regenerating. Sometimes my ears will feel plugged too, but I think that’s just from my sinuses being swollen.

At 10:00 PM we put on Star Trek: Beyond and played a drinking game. I haven’t been very good at finishing my meals, so I was supposed to take a drink out of my ketchup bottle every time something specific happened in the movie (e.g., anytime someone says “Captain”, anytime the Enterprise goes into warp, anytime a red shirt dies, etc.). About halfway through the movie my face started feeling heavy. Not painful, but uncomfortable. I mentioned it and my mom pointed out that it was 11:00 PM, so it was time to take my Children’s Motrin again. I ended up missing the last 20 minutes of the movie because all of the action scenes were making my head hurt. It’s funny, I thought I was going to be able to knock out a ton of TV during my recovery – finally watch Veronica Mars or something, but I haven’t been able to watch anything because it’s too hard to concentrate. Action scenes are especially difficult to follow.

Below are the Day 3 pictures I took. The general consensus on the internet is the swelling is supposed to peak today, but I think it peaked yesterday. I have a theory that my recovery is going to be much quicker than most because my surgery only lasted 4 hours (compared to the typical 8 hours). Dr. Day truly is the best in his field!

I woke up at 10:00 AM because I was having trouble breathing through my nose and it hurt to breathe through my mouth because of the swelling. I used Q-tips dipped in hot water again to try and clear some of the dried blood away. Then I took my third dose of pain medication (10 mL of Tylenol with Codeine) and washed the bad taste away with apple juice. I got three-fourths of the way through a whey protein, peanut butter, banana, chocolate milk smoothie. All of that exhausted me so I went back to sleep.

I woke up again at 1:00 PM because I was SUPER hot. I was dreaming I was lying in the sun on a picnic blanket. I kicked off my comforter and ripped off my shirt and laid in just my shorts and sports bra with the ceiling fan on high. My fiancé placed some wet towels on my wrists and dripped water on my forehead. Once I cooled down, I tried to clear my nostrils and replaced my Breathe Right strip. My mom brought over a pot of boiling water and placed it in front of me on my bed tray. I leaned over it and she draped a towel over my head. I used some saline spray too. After all that, I was finally able to breathe out of my right nostril again. I think my left nostril is a lost cause.

I took my antibiotics at 1:45 PM (Azithromycin, but not 10 mL, only 5 mL going forward). We used a syringe with a bigger opening this time and didn’t mix it with Gatorade. That was much better because I just quickly squirted it back there and chased it with apple juice. I tried to drink some warmed chicken broth, but I was craving something thicker, so my mom blended an avocado and kale into a Naked Juice Green Machine smoothie. I weighed myself and was shocked to see I had already lost 6 pounds! I know most girls would love that, but I’m already too skinny, so I was pissed. I weighed 131 pounds the morning of the surgery and now the scale was flashing 125. I do remember accidentally stepping on the corner of it and knocking the batteries out, so maybe it just needs to be recalibrated…

After lunch, I rinsed with my mouthwash (Chorhexidine Gluconate 0.12%, 15 mL) and the WaterPik (still on the lowest setting). I took some pictures and then laid back in bed. My poor fiancé went to sleep on the couch because he was still jet lagged from the rocket launch and having to wake up multiple times through the night. Nurse Vicky called to check in on me and thank me for the Starbucks gift card. She confirmed the day of surgery is Day 0, which means I will be going to see Dr. Day on Day 3 (tomorrow at 1:00 PM). The day went really fast. I laid down for another nap and couldn’t believe it was already 4:00 PM.

I woke up an hour later, at 5:00 PM, very uncomfortable from all the swelling, so I took more pain medication at 5:25 PM. We decided to start giving it to me every four hours, no matter what. At 6:00 PM I watched the final presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton. The first two debates were absolutely ridiculous, so you can imagine what it was like watching the final debate on Codeine. My mom blended some mashed potatoes for dinner, which tasted amazing. My fiancé tried to blend a chicken breast, but chunks of it kept getting stuck in the squeeze bottle nozzle. Occasionally I felt the need to walk around my house because my knees were getting stiff from having my legs straight out in front of me all the time. I spent the next few hours updating this blog and finally went to bed at midnight. My mom and fiancé made a schedule and divided the “shifts” for the night as follows:

Pain medication at 10:00 PM, 2:00 AM, and 6:00 AM.
Ice pack change at 10:00 PM, 12:00 AM, 2:00 AM, 4:00 AM, 6:00 AM, and 8:00 AM.

Below are the Day 2 pictures I took. I realized my lips aren’t that swollen compared to other patients. I think my nose is crooked because my upper jaw was moved up higher on the right side to correct my tilt. Please ignore my extremely oily hair and skin. I still hadn’t showered at this point…

I woke up at 6:20 AM to Nurse Nancy shaking my leg. She said I was out cold. I got dressed in the clothes I arrived in and was ruffling through my overnight bag when my mom and sister came in. They said I looked much better. I brought two thank you notes and two $15 Starbucks cards to give to the nurses. I wish I had brought three instead of two because I also had a certified nursing assistant named Francisco who was wonderful. My sister’s office is a block away from the Biltmore Surgical Center, so I’ll ask her to drop one off later. Before we left, the fire alarm started going off for some reason, but I guess it was an accident because no one made us evacuate.

Dr. Day came by to check on me before we left. He said he forgot to tell me that he did me another “favor” during the surgery – he fixed my deviated septum! I asked him about the cracking noises my right TMJ was making and he said they were perfectly normal – it’s just bones adjusting into place (whoa). He also said I can have a blenderized diet starting at lunch today. I wasn’t expecting that! I really haven’t been hungry at all though. Maybe the anesthesia is dulling my appetite? After Dr. Day left, Nurse Nancy helped me into a wheelchair and wheeled me out to my sister’s car. The drive home was uneventful, although I wish my sister’s car had better shocks because I swear I could feel every bump in the road.

Once I got home I drank some water and passed out cold again for a couple hours in my bed, leaning upright against my BedLounge chair. I probably only woke up because my room was super hot and my jaw bra had completely melted. I drank 3/4 cup of beef broth, 1/4 cup of V8 juice, and an entire can of chocolate-flavored Boost shake, so 280 calories total. During that time, my fiancé arrived at the Phoenix airport and got home at noon, just as I was finishing my Boost shake. He helped me take my antibiotics (Azithromycin, 10 mL), which we tried to mix with red Gatorade because I hate cherry flavoring. It still tasted awful. What really sucked was the powdered clumps got stuck in the syringe tubing over and over, so it took forever. Then I rinsed with my mouthwash (Chorhexidine Gluconate 0.12%, 15 mL) and finally got to watch a video of my fiancé’s rocket launch. He was responsible for powering and configuring the avionics system. I know this has nothing to do with jaw surgery, but here’s the video he showed me. If you skip ahead to 10:20 you can hear him talking on the countdown (his call sign is OPS-1). If you just want to watch the lift-off, skip ahead to 15:00.

My fiancé fell asleep next to me because he only got two hours of sleep between the post-launch party and his red eye flight. I tried to go back to sleep too, but I just wasn’t tired. I figured that was probably a good thing because if I stayed up all day then I would sleep all through the night. The only problem is I ended up overexerting myself. I took off my ice packs and went out to the couch in our living room and cleaned the blood from my nostrils with Q-Tips dipped in a cup of hot water. Then I tried to get the tri-pod set up in my office to take some pictures. After that, I was super exhausted, so I laid in bed with my cell phone for a while, just reading comments on my Facebook post. I realized I couldn’t breathe at all out of my left nostril, but I could breathe perfectly fine out of my right nostril, so I was pretty happy about that.

I fell asleep from 6:30 PM to 8:00 PM and woke up again in VERY intense heat. My ice packs had melted, my room was hot, and the water against my face was starting to heat up. It was absolutely miserable. I finally gave in and took the first dose of my pain medication (10 mL of Tylenol with Codeine), before trying to go back to sleep. I had restless legs syndrome again, so my mom and fiancé took turns rubbing my legs.

My fiancé woke me up at 10:30 PM and 12:30 AM to change my ice packs because we didn’t want a repeat of the heat incident. I woke up by myself at 2:30 AM, thirty minutes before my fiancé’s next alarm was going to go off. I took the second dose of my pain medication, drank a second Boost shake, rinsed with my mouthwash, and used my WaterPik (on the lowest setting). Looking in the mirror, it seemed like the swelling had doubled. That didn’t bother me too much though because I knew the swelling would peak at Day 2 or Day 3. Funny side note: we have two feral kittens that we took in four months ago. We named them Yuri Gagarin and Valentina Tereshkova (after the first man and woman in space). Val likes to knead and suckle on furry blankets like the one covering my BedLounge chair. I feel bad because she was going at it and my nose started bleeding all over her. She didn’t seem to mind, but my fiancé had to clean off her coat with a wet towel!

My fiancé and mom were awesome – all night long they took turns waking me up every two hours or so to change my ice packs and give me my pain medication, as needed. I felt very well-taken care of. I guess I should mention that I was never in outright pain today, just discomfort. I actually didn’t even want the pain medicine, but it helped me sleep, which was nice. I always sleep on my side, so sleeping on my back (and on an incline) has been difficult.

Below are the Day 1 pictures I took. The swelling hasn’t peaked yet – supposedly that will happen on Day 3. I woke up from the surgery with tiny cuts around my lips. I still have a Band-Aid over one of the external incision sites, but you can see the other one in the lower left picture. I wasn’t expecting them to be so small. Please ignore my oily hair and missing fake eyelashes. I hadn’t showered at this point…