Week 4-5 Before and After

It's 37 days since my jaw surgery! Coming into Week 6 feels great. Last week was exciting, because I saw my surgeon and my orthodontist. The pic on the left was at Day 31 after a Bobbi Brown make-up lesson. Yep there's a bit of help there! Haha. More before/after below.

The orthodontist is still very happy with the bite. There is a bit of an open bite on the molars at the back on the left side, which he acknowledged - he is positive that this can be sorted with the braces and elastics. He says the teeth are very straight and I agree. He is just going to close up a tiny gap between my front teeth which I actually barely noticed until he mentioned it! He's fantastic. I was shocked (and excited) to hear he is hoping to take ALL the braces off at the end of August before I go back to school! This would be 12 weeks post op, and I never thought that would be so quick. At the moment I have braces on the front AND the back of my teeth, so I thought I might get the front ones off but that the back ones would stay for a few more months. He is so happy with the bite though. I said not to let me push him into taking them off! I would obviously love them off but long term retention is the most important thing, of course. I was still pretty numb so he (amusingly) took that opportunity to really tighten the top braces the hell up! Haha. I wonder how much that would have hurt if I wasn't numb.

Jaw God (the surgeon) was on good form when I saw him. He is really pleased with the result. I mentioned the slight overbite and he too is confident it can be easily closed. I explained that my top lip is slooooooooowly gaining some feeling and he said if it's started, he feels confident that this will continue to improve. The area between nose and lips still feels very tight and I keep making hamster faces to try and loosen it up. My speech is still quite distorted and it's hard to tell if this is the frozen upper lip, the braces or the elastics...they're probably quite a winning combination altogether to be fair! He looked at my ears - I thought he would take the stitches out like he did on my jawline (these are invisible now) but he said they would come out on their own. In honesty, I realised maybe I'd been too precious about them and when I gave them a good clean at home, most of the stitches came out. It was only dried blood holding them on. Sexy!!! He also said it's ok to sleep on my side, which had felt weird with my ears and jaw before. AND he gave me permission to start chewing. I have been blender-free for the last 3 days!!! Very exciting.

I'm still make-up free except for the pics here because the numb parts feel like someone else's face, and the parts that are waking up feel a bit tender and sensitive. It's just not worth the hassle! I did, however, treat myself to a free makeup lesson at Bobbi Brown last week when I was on Oxford Street seeing the surgeon. It was weird but fun! So there are a few pics where I look more 'myself' below because normally I am such a make-up lover. My surgeon very sweetly told me "I don't need it!" - I will definitely tone it down after all this but I'm such a girly girl and love a MAC-load of war paint :-)

Food Progress!

Blended food! This is mash made from roasted butternut squash, sweet potato, white potato and cheese, with blended thai green curry with broccoli. Classy! To be honest, this looks disgusting but tasted pretty good.

My first solid meal!! This was a day before my 5-week post-op date. It was a sourdough pizza made with ricotta cheese and extra tomato sauce, so it was pretty sloppy. It wasn't easy....as soon as it was sitting in my lap I became ravenous and suddenly realised just how much I wanted solid food! It was frustratingly slow and you can see that much of the outer part went sadly neglected, but it was still amazing. Happy, happy times, and this gave me the confidence to try other solid food. The next day I ate salmon fillet, cheese sauce, rice and green beans chopped up very small. Yesterday I had chips (fries) with gravy and meat loaf! Loving it! Those 11 pounds I lost are going right back on, haha.

 

Face and Jaw Progress!

 

 Before and After Pictures: BEFORE - right pic WEEK 4 with Bobbi Brown makeup - left pic

 

Large version of same picture: Week 4, with makeup. Nose is wider, face is wider, still bit swollen.

 
Open bite before and Week 4
 
 

Above: smile before (left) and week 4 (right) with make-up

 

Above: side profile showing left side of face. Before (left) and Day 37 (right).

 

 

Above: Week 4 with make-up

28 Days Later

        Saturday marked 28 days and so exactly four weeks since my double jaw surgery and otoplasty! Gone are those dribbley, miserable first days and now we're into the slower and far more bearable part of recovery. I'm feeling pretty good, although I get a little bored because it's the school holidays. I'm not complaining about not being at work! Not one bit :-) But it does mean now I'm not quite so immobilised by recovery, I need to be productive. Being a bit swollen, numb and an unwelcome dinner guest does not mean you can just waste several weeks of perfectly good time!
        Everyone who's commented in their blogs on how detrimental sitting there doing nothing can be to your mind-set during recovery - I wholeheartedly agree. I plan on exploring all the parts of London I've always meant to, sorting out my room, sorting out my wardrobe, indulging in a little jaw makeover pampering, figuring out my next dream travel trip and most importantly of all, doing some seriously committed, fairly fizzy writing. I keep promising myself I will, and with this amount of free time there is really no excuse!

In Jaw News: so what's it like 4 weeks in?

- I'm infinitely more comfortable in general
- Friends seeing me for the first time are shocked by my lack of bruising / swelling / that I don't look like I got hit by a bus. I think the most perceptive comment was "it just looks like you had your wisdom teeth taken out, rather than your face rearranged". That's pretty much my take on it too! I'm still swollen in my cheeks and the very middle part of my face, but the size of my face now looks kind of normal. Ish.
- Feeling is coming back. I can now feel my lower eyelids, although it is still a little numb near my nose, and the area that has got feeling is quite sensitive. I think it's still a bit swollen there because my eyes look very baggy and puffy in pictures, and they didn't so much before the surgery. Could also be that my sleep is still not amazing. My top lip, which is the area of numbness that bothered me most, is starting to make a comeback. Hallelujah! Much less so on the left side, which has always been more numb than the right. The far left of my upper lip is still pretty much completely numb. There is a numb patch on the right side of my chin (that doesn't really bother me), and the area between my lips and my nose is starting to gain sensitivity too. This area still feels very 'tight' - literally as if it lacks much movement. I keep screwing my face up because Graham (www.doublejawsurgery.com) said that can help break up the scar tissue. Also as per his suggestion, I've tried whistling, but it doesn't work at all! :-)
- Sleep is better although I still sleep with three pillows and I don't sleep on my side because of my ears.
- Ears - ears are less bruised and swollen. Some of the stitches have come out on their own, and some are still left.  They are still quite sensitive and I am still quite aware of not messing them up, so I take a lot of care when brushing my hair / washing my hair / wearing glasses / lying down.
- I can open my mouth much farther now, although not *all* the way. The elastics are fine, and I am cleaning my teeth as best I can. I wash out with water, then use a baby toothbrush, then an electric toothbrush as much as I can fit it in, then a mouthwash.
- My jaw does spasm sometimes, and this is painful/uncomfortable but short-lived.
- Eating: I still only eat mushy or blended food. I can eat beans unblended and bread is fine if it is soaked in soup. I find it much easier to chew on my right side - the left is still numb and I feel like I might have a bit of an open bite on my molars at the back on that side. I am seeing my wonderful orthodontist soon, so I'll ask about that.

A few more pictures below! I put some lippy on for fun, despite being relatively unable to feel it, although I'm still not wearing any makeup at all usually. It still feels weird to touch the numb and sensitive parts of my face and sweeping a brush over the skin gives me pins and needles type feelings! Still looking forward to a much needed haircut in a few weeks, too :-)

Day 28 mugshots

Swelling much reduced! Looking semi-normal although there's a little way to go to feeling (and certainly eating) normally yet

Semi-side profile. My jawline has changed considerably. I have to remind myself how it was before!

Open smile with a bare face and a dash of red lippy! Still a bit swollen but I'm already much happier with my smile.

No more open bite! Or over bite! I still can't quite believe it :-) No regrets :-)















Below: Before and Day 28!

 

Some unseen adventures from Days 0-23

My Bionic Arm: This is in the recovery ward straight after the surgery! A little annoyingly, this is my left hand and I am left-handed. Epic fail. Sorry if you don't like needles! I felt like robo-woman :-)

My Magic Wand! This was the suction wand I was kindly given to hold on to in the recovery ward. Now, that first night you might have a bit of blood in your mouth, like me. I think I'd swallowed a little too. Don't be alarmed - it certainly feels like more than it actually is! Or did for me anyway. Of course it's bleeding, someone just cut it into several pieces and stuck it back together! :-) It doesn't taste nice and is a little unpleasant, but it was only for that first night. So don't be surprised or alarmed, but be reassured that it won't go on for long! You can see (should you want to) that there's only a little blood in that tube. The downside is the taste of it made me feel a little sick. I was predicting feeling queasy after the surgery anyway though, so again, I wasn't massively phased. Tip: if you do throw up, just try to relax, tilt your head forward, and let it come out through your teeth. No, it's not fun throwing up when your teeth are banded together. When is it ever a ball to throw up anyway?! But it's not a massive problem - it will just drain out. No party, but no biggie :-)

Clinging on to a sense of humour with all my might: Back in my room from the recovery ward!

Smoothie ingredients! You've got banana Ensure, an actual banana, mango, peach slices, honey, yoghurt, ice cream and guava jam I got on holiday last year. Getting creative with the smoothies is fun! I know there's a lot of sugar here, and I assure you I brushed very carefully afterwards. I have a five step tooth brushing routine more. More on that later (fascinating, I know!)

My friend Rosie sent me this lovely book of smoothie recipes! I didn't always stick to them precisely, but it gave me some excellent inspiration for flavour combinations! Thank you, Rosie!

My friend and namesake Jen sent me this soothing eye-mask that you pop in the fridge! Aren't friends lovely? This was so useful, particularly when I woke up in the middle of the night and felt headachey, and hot in the warm weather we've been having. Ahhhhhhh. Thanks Jen!

Enjoying a Day 22 peanut butter and chocolate smoothie in Ed's Diner with my friend Jen! That place is so cheesy, you can't fail to be happy. Jukeboxes and pints of icecreamy smoothie? What's not to like? :-) I am still proud of my ability to suck through a straw too! It was so hard in those first few days....I will never take it for granted again!

Post-op letter: my operation in surgeon-speak

Here is the letter I recently received, explaining the details of my surgery for my doctor. It was copied to me. The things I learnt: I have six plates in my face, and I had a wisdom tooth taken out :-)  I wonder if that's why all the bruising was down the wisdom-tooth-removal side...could be coincidence! Who knows.

Before .v. Day 23 and update

Day 23, yippee! So over three weeks now since my jaw surgery. What news this morrow with it brings? Well, I have moved back from my parents' house by the beach to my flat in London. It was a bit of a shock at first being back, but I've acclimatised now! It does seem, annoyingly, that the progress I had made on sleeping through the night has been undone unfortunately. I've gone back to my Days 3-10 habit of waking up at 4am! Curses! Still, I'm sure it'll settle back down. I've been seeing a friend or two (for icecreams and smoothies) and sorting out my room. I bought a dressing table / desk, with the dual functions of beautifying my new jaw with lashing of slap (US readers - that's what we in the UK call makeup!) and giving me a proper desk to start fulfilling my dreams of writing. I have high hopes of writing something of terrible, trashy chick-lit quality in the coming weeks :-) I got the table from the charity shop for £30! Get in! I'll post a pic when I've sorted it out, not that you asked :-) So what in jaw news?

My jaw has been spasming a bit recently, which I've interpreted as it realising, "Holy cow! I just got moved around! Where on earth is this new position?! I'm homesick!" Hopefully it'll man up soon because the spasms always take me off guard. It's more a shock than painful, although it does hurt a little! Makes me think I've broken off one of the plates, but I'm guessing that's extremely unlikely.

In numbness news (that's the best news, isn't it?!), there has been a little progress in feeling returning under my nose. This is the area that most annoys me that it's so numb - I can't feel the area between the nose and my lips, nor can I feel my top lip. At all. This is in comparison to less extreme numbness elsewhere on my face. I'm more growing impatient with it than worried. I just hope *some* feeling comes back to *most* of it, otherwise that long-awaited post-jaw-surgery kiss is going to be a bit of a let down :-) I'm staying positive. I keep doing squishy hamster faces to encourage blood flow, much to the amusement of my flatmates, and it'll just take time. It feels like the right side above my lip might be unfreezing....come on left side, you know you want to get in on the fun! What I find weird is when the numb areas itch...but when you scratch you can't feel it....does anyone else get this?! It's spooooooky! Phantom itching :-)

The only other news really is that I received an official letter which was copied to my doctor, with the details of the surgery. It's in medi-speak and I have utter respect for what must be a very complex and demanding job, but I do find it amusing that the procedures are described as "uneventful". Hehe. What events could there have been?! A picnic? A man dressed as a gorilla bursting in? I also like the idea that a 'problem' would be euphemistically disguised as an 'event'. E.g., "there was an event of bleeding, which was resolved". Hehe, In all fairness the letter is mainly way over my head, and I only make light of it because, well, you have to don't you :-) Here's to an 'uneventful' surgery for everyone! I'll post it as a separate post.

Day 23! Ooh who needs a haircut?! :-) I think I'm going to go (back to being) a bit darker when this is done. I fancy a fresh start :-) Let me know what you are most looking forward to! I wouldn't say my hair is by any means the thing I'm looking forward to the most...haha. Looking more like myself here. It's irritating that the photo does no justice to the numbness you're experiencing! Like that top lip - I can't feel that! Or that whole area between nose/lips. Nadda. As my friend says, slowly slowly catchey monkey :-)

Day 23 side profile: Much more aligned! I actually have a chin instead of a slope. Very pleased with that. It's funny to see how red/purple my ears are here - they're so flat now that I can't tell they look like this from the front! I'm really, really glad I had that done. It cost so little in relation to the jaw surgery and it's made me way more confident about them. I can't wait to get them pierced!

Day 23 open smile: Ooh, don't those braces just ruin our post-op fun? :-) On the plus side, I think they might have taken at least five years off my age! Haha. What do you think?! Maybe I shouldn't be in such a hurry to see them go :-) This photo shows well how my nose has become wider as a result of the upper jaw movement. Obviously it's still swollen so it's hard to tell how it will be in the end, but I'm quite happy with it! On a lot of people's blogs they say that having jaw surgery makes them feel like their nose is more proportionate within their face, and I can definitely relate to that. Still frustrating that I cannot yet reap the *real* benefits of this surgery yet - biting the heck out of flat things! Still, I don't actually crave those foods. I've sort of lost interest in them, temporarily, while I'm on my blended diet. For dinner today I had fresh pea and ham soup blended together with half a chicken breast, with some oat crackers mushed in.

Side-ish angle (above, left) I have a jawline!

This is a picture of me (below) before: resting face. Compare with Day 23 resting face just underneath! Unfortunately my hair is covering my ears in the pic below, but you can see the jaw very clearly.



Resting face: my top lip is looking a little thinner, perhaps, than before, but it's hard to tell what's causing this because they definitely looked different when I had my front braces put on, pre-surgery. I say front, because I originally had lingual braces, and still do. Normally you wouldn't need front ones too, but my surgical plan became a little more involved in the run up to the big day, and Jaw God requested brackets on the front of every tooth. I didn't mind by that point because I knew I wasn't going to be looking my best for a while anyway, and honestly, I'd do anything to make the surgery easier/smoother! It's all about the end goal, in the most straight forward way possible. So (what a deviation from topic!) I think my top lip might settle a bit when a)it's not numb and stiff, and b) when the front braces come off, which is hopefully just before I go back to work in September (I'm a teacher). We all know those braces-off dates are big teases, so fingers crossed! I'm managing my expectations because I know my lovely orthodontist can't make any guarantees. Patience as ever!

Before and during recovery

So to keep me inspired and to see the difference so far, here are a few before and after pics. It's way too early to be assessing the outcome of the surgery - I'm still very swollen, it hasn't settled down yet, and it's not really a fair test before my before pics have make-up. But it's still nice to see :-) Sorry about the slightly misplaced pics - I am still finding BlogSpot a slightly wild beast to tame! :-)

Resting face before, and day 20:

You can see a big difference here with my jaw, with the inevitable swelling, and with my ears!!! See you later, sticky-out ears! :-) (This is not a side effect of jaw surgery - my surgeon offered to pin them at the same time for a very small additional fee) My mouth no longer hangs open. Still quite a bit of swelling to go! My hair looks a tad longer in the first pic and now I slightly regret cutting it myself with nail scissors the week before the op. Lols! Ah well, I'll give it a good while to grow while the swelling goes down :-)

 

 

Open bite before and day 20: 

You can really see how it's closed up! This is a combination of the overbite being corrected and the upper jaw being impacted so that the open bite closed. Yippee! I can't wait to bite things. 

 

                                             

                                                            

 

Recovery pictures! Day 4-14

So I've been terrible at day by day blogging....apologies! Must try harder :-) Its Day 20 and I'm feeling good! Still very numb from my lower eyelids down to my upper lip, but I'm sort of used to it now and keeping positive and having patience!

I have been keeping a paper diary of my progress, though, and been taking a picture every day. The diary was advised by my dietician and is mainly to record how much fluid / food I'm managing. This was particularly important at the beginning when I was on my syringe diet! Later on it was mainly really useful for keeping track of how much paracetamol I'd taken. They wouldn't let me take the strong pain meds until I ate solid food, but I don't feel like I've needed them (yet?!) anyway.

I'll put the photos and the key milestones from the diary below.

Day 4. Swelling has gone down slightly but bruising is creeping in! I felt sooo glad to be home. My room in the hospital was lovely and the nurses were really nice, but it was a shame I didn't see the dietician until the third day because that delayed figuring out how to drink and swallow, which I struggled with. She brought a much bigger syringe which was the key! I found it easier to stand up and try to drink it. Every swallow was an effort and it was all fairly dribbley, but it felt great to get something in. Ahhh the joys of home :-)

Day 5: Bruising is beeeeeautiful! Check out that gorgeous blossom. And yes, yes...that is indeed a patch of drool on my top. It's a sexy time! It didn't hurt though; that's the joy of extensive numbness. As I've said before, there's more a feeling of pressure and a bit like you have a really heavy mask on your face. The challenge in these few days was not being able to sleep through the night. I would wake up maybe three times, and waking up always felt quite horrible. My jaw was achey, my throat was dry, I had a jawish headache. I found the best thing to do was get up, have some water, take some paracetamol, put some ice packs on my face for about ten minutes, then try to get back to sleep. I even danced around the kitchen with my mum at 1am. Whatever cheers you up!!! According to my diary, this was the first say I managed to tentatively sip from a glass! Every day brings a small victory :-)

Day 6: Looking much better and far less emotional by this point. I was very positive for the most part on those first few days, but I'd have very weepy moments when it was just all a bit much. I was very much warned that this would happen though, so if you feel like absolute HELL in the first few days, try to bear with it. I was all doom and despair and pitiful tears at times. It was a pretty dark time, but just soak up the hugs, do what you can to make yourself comfortable and remember it WILL get better. Like a lot of people have said on their blogs, I found my visions of a comfy time on the sofa watching box sets and occasionally drinking a smoothie were faaaaar from reality in those first few days. But it is so much better now :-) I went on quite a few gentle walks. I really recommend getting out of the house if the weather is good. And having people tease you I found very helpful too :-) It's important not to take yourself too seriously during all this! Bruising was subsiding on Day 6. Still swollen / numb, although the outer and upper parts of my face were starting to unfreeze. I managed to eat some more 'normal' food - yoghurt, blended chicken soup, blended porridge, and blended baked beans with mash.

Day 7: Getting more expression back! Bruising is still going down. In overshare news, my tummy was back to normal by this day. I think the combination of anaesthetic, lack of fluids and then a liquid diet kind of messed me up for a few days, but I was feeling much better by now. This was the day I discovered the trick of tinned pasta! Fresh pasta is a little too gluey, but tinned hoops or ravioli work really well (blended!)

Day 8: Pretty similar really. The victory for today was that I managed to brush the biting surfaces of my teeth! I'd managed to get a baby toothbrush in there to do the front surfaces for the last few days, but couldn't open my mouth wide enough to do more than that, It felt so nice to brush more! A tip with the Corsodyl they give you: it does stain your teeth quite a lot but is necessary because it's antiseptic and helps heal the gums. I was advised by the dental hygienist to use CURASEPT instead, which does the same thing but without staining. Win! I had my favourite meal so far today - blended salmon, mash and cheese sauce. Decadent!

Day 9: The ability to smile is still increasing! The dietician called to check on me and said it sounded like all was going well. Another great meal, all blended together: mash, chicken, broccoli, chicken tonight sauce. Blending is all about adding liquids! Another smoothie tip: add a spoonful of jam before blending to make them extra yummy.

Day 10: Today I weighed myself for the first time since the op. I'm 5'10 and before the op I weighed 72 kilos. I deliberately ate quite a lot before the surgery! My weight on day 10 was 66.9, so that's a loss of about 5 kilos in 10 days. I think that's about expected. I'm trying to keep up the calories because I know that healing will happen faster if my body has energy! Today I had to go into London to see the orthodontist. This was great for two reasons: 1) he was really impressed with my bite and because I was numb, him putting a wire on didn't hurt, and 2) I got to have a caramel coffee frappacino at Victoria. Ohhhhhh heavenly frappacino.....liquid nectar of the gods! I was also given elastics to wear, which I was kind of pleased about because I was worried my bite might have been messed up because they had to remove the wafer a lot earlier than intended. The orthodontist said he had been concerned about this too, but it wasn't an issue in the end. Yay!

Day 11: Some big old bag bags had developed under my eyes at this point from the sleep deprivation! The bruising had gone down quite a bit. The orthodontist said I was still very swollen, and I think it's probably hard to tell this yourself because your face looks different anyway. You can certainly feel the swelling, and this is exaggerated by the numbness. I could feel more of my cheeks this day and the numbness was mainly concentrated in the centre of my face, around my nose. Still numb from my lower eyelids down to my upper lip.

Day 12: Wonky glasses! :-) I had my ears pinned back so I wasn't allowed to wear my glasses behind my ears like you normally would. I found a way of pinning my hair so they would stay in place! I actually think the glasses distract from the swelling :-) I did notice, which you can't see in this pic, that when I relax my face, my lip droops slightly on my left side. My left side is way more numb than my right side for some reason, and didn't bruise. I have no idea why this is! Today was exciting because I saw Jaw God for the first time since the hospital. He snipped off the stitches on my jaw line (these were tiny, and this didn't hurt), and he said it's all looking excellent. He said it's more common for the lower lip to experience permanent numbness than the upper lip, which is great because I can definitely feel the lower one! It's just going to be a patience game for the rest. I will see him again in three weeks. I got to have another frappacino!!!! Sweet bliss....

Day 13: There seemed to be more movement in my face on this day. My upper lip felt slightly less frozen. There seems to be three stages: 1) total frozen, hard feeling, like a mask, totally numb, 2) softer, feels more like your own flesh, still numb, 3) soft AND some feeling coming back. I definitely noticed some stage 2 and a little stage 3 action happening around my lip by this day!

Day 14: The end of my first two weeks! I remember in hospital my friend Hara, who had this op last year, showed me her day 14 pic. I was after that just always thinking 'come on day 14!!!!!'. She looked nearly normal and much more comfortable. I guess she still must have felt swollen and numb though. I definitely feel infinitely more comfortable than in those first dark days. It's all positive now! I tried wearing makeup today for the first time, as you can see in this pic - just a little. To be honest I didn't like it - it felt so weird putting makeup on skin I couldn't feel! I didn't think it looked right with the swelling either. I thought I'd just continue to go makeup free until I felt most of the swelling had gone down and I could feel the skin more. I'm still makeup free on day 20 :-)