surgery….t minus 14 days!
so for those of you who don’t know the story, here’s a recap:
diagnosis: maxillary and mandibular asymmetry and condylar hyperplasia…to break it down- the right side of my jaw is longer then my left causing my upper and lower jaw to be on a slant.
I wasn’t in any kind of accident or anything, it’s just the way I was made. I noticed the crooked appearance of my mouth when I was about 12, but it didn’t bother me up until about 2 years ago. I have constant pain, soreness, when I yawn I have to adjust my jaw so I can close it because it sometimes lock open, headaches, things like that. So I decided to find out what I can do about it, and the conclusion: surgery. There’s no other way around it. I also had to get braces…sooo awesome…what 23 year old doesn’t want braces? I’ve been sporting them since December 09’- they are on to align my teeth to fit with my new jaw position and will be on for an estimated 6 - 9 months after surgery.
I had my presurgery appt. today where I was informed on the details regarding my surgery and pre/post op. instructions.....
Some good news, my jaw won’t be wired shut, but instead they will be rubber-banned shut….for 6-8 weeks! I do get to take them off when I “eat” but I can’t leave them off for hours at a time. For the first 2 weeks, unless the doc. says otherwise, I can have milkshake consistency type foods, more like drinks. Then the next 2 weeks, if I’m healing normally, I can move to baby food and mashed potatoes type consistency. And 2 weeks after that I can move to softer foods such as pasta. I’m supposed to eat every 2 hours. I have to use a syringe (turkey baster) to eat… I feel like it’s going to take me 2 hours to try to eat with that thing. and I can’t use a straw for 3 weeks since I won’t be able to suck. Word is I’ll lose 10% of my bodyweight, which is currently 170…I’ll let you know. I won’t even have feeling in the front of my mouth for a few weeks so I have to use a sippy cup to help guide my drink into my mouth. I will get feeling in the top of my mouth before the bottom and there is a 2% chance that I could never have feeling again, so I’m hoping that the 98% is on my side that day. I have to rinse with salt water after every “meal” to help the healing process and each morning and night I have to rinse with equal parts of water, mild mouth wash, and hydrogen peroxide - yum. I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to brush my teeth, but I can! with a soft brissle children’s toothbrush, which are way cuter anyways. I can shower normally, yet carefully. If I happen to throw up I’m told to just relax and let it happen…um okay. I can’t blow my nose for 2 weeks. My biggest concern is…what happens if I have to sneeze?! I guess I’ll let you know when I find out. During surgery I’ll have tubes up my nose to give me air which cause stuffiness afterwards, so to manage that I can use nasal sparys, humidifier and q-tips, bleeding may also occur. I’ll have some serious swelling happening and during the first week the swelling will remain unchanged, and I’m convinced that during this week I will resemble sloth. 6-9 months later I will still have 15% of residual s
welling. I can’t do any heavy lifting for 6-8 weeks, really anything that would involve me clenching which could mean even picking up a gallon of milk. For the next 2 weeks I’m supposed to watch my clenching so I know what I shouldn’t be picking up after surgery. They gave me a list of things I could buy- food, med. supplies etc. even a cook book- I’m told I can purée anything, although the thought eating a blended up hot dog grosses me out, I’m sure I’ll get desperate enough to try. so that’s the jist of that….The surgical procedure….so they are making my mouth symmetrical, to do that they need to shorten the one side and move some other things around and la di da. My jaw will be put back together using titanium plates and screws, not metal so I won’t beep at the airport! hey hey! I’m not sure how many plates will be in there yet, but I like surprises so it’s okay- I think. I supposedly won’t have any scarring and I’ll have those dissolvable stitches…I’ve never had any kind of stitches or broken a bone, besides a finger or toe, or had a surgery for that matter. I’ve never even “gone under”. When I had my wisdom teeth pulled, all local, cuz I’m a trooper…just sayin’. Something quite amusing I found out was that during my surgery (which will be done on the upper and lower jaw, if I hadn’t mentioned that) they’ll obviously be making cuts in my mouth including my upper lip. Today when the insurance coordinator was explaining everything to me at the end she says, oh and you may have a dot in the middle of your brows for a few days from where your lip is pinned. Ummmm…forget this dot, my lip is going to be pinned where?!? Apparently your face is elastic and once they make the cuts for the upper jaw portion of the surgery they need to put my lip somewhere, I guess my nose is too busy?? I asked if they could take a picture, because that would be an amazing site. Maybe I’ll look at it after I recover to avoid vomiting.
well that is all for now! I’m still not sure how to utilize everything on this site, so if you have any questions or comments or funny jokes…I hope I can laugh…you can e-mail me at
lobailey22@gmail.com. In order to subscribe or comment on my blog, I’m pretty sure you have to make an account.☮♥ :- #
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