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!
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