Day 28 Pictures & Update

Here's the smile at 4 weeks post-op! My left side is more swollen than my left. I have to practice my smile a couple times every time I take this picture because it still does not feel natural...it could be all the bands and metal in my mouth...OR the major reconstructive surgery...who knows...

This is the promised ROM picture. This is what 13mm looks like. Oh, and you can also see where my left top tooth bonding was chipped during surgery...that's something that will be fixed at some point down the line.I think I'm looking pretty good now, it's just the pesky swelling that still insists on sticking around. The left side more than the right. If you touch my cheek you can feel how hot it is. It is working overtime trying to heal I suppose.

Now here is a special little treat, A MOVIE! It's of my exercises, I know reallllly exciting. This is my life for 15 min. twice a day, so I thought I'd share. At the very end I am trying to move my jaw from side to side and the back and forward...my lips and nostrils tend to move more than my my jaw and teeth do at this point. Sorry for the horrible lighting, such is our apartment.

Right now I am just waiting to hear about the Botox, my muscle are so mad always. I did take a long shower tonight and used the massage setting on my shoulders to try to ease up some stress on everything...I don't know if it helped my muscles, but it did help warm me up from the freezing apartment!

Today I took a look back at all of my old blog posts to see how far I have come. It makes me proud and astonished that I have come this far, I just hope I have the strength to make it the next 6 weeks on this liquid diet. I am succeeding at finding different "Naked" or "Odwalla" brand smoothies to have that have extra protein and nutrients that I otherwise would lack. These seem to be helping me cope with this diet. I am also enjoying taking my short walks everyday. Today my walk was around the co-op when we went shopping, I was quite exhausted after! I can't yet do bike rides or anything crazy like that...no helmet wearing for a year. For Christmas I've requested money in small donations from my siblings to put towards buying a bike stand for our living room so that way I can just hook up my awesome Huffy cruiser bike to it. (I'll have to post pictures of the bike, the seat alone makes me happy!)

Sometimes I feel trapped because of the state of my jaw currently, I mean I am literally banded shut for 23.5hrs. a day...it would be hard NOT to feel this way sometimes. These feelings are fleeting, but every now and then it really gets to me. I'm sure other jaw buddy's can sympathize. I've decided that I really need to keep myself busy with projects (today was cooking Sam a delish supper) to occupy my time and make myself feel useful. I think I'm going to start some art projects. Time to dust off the puffy paint and dig out the pipe cleaners! Haha

Thank you for the continued support!

Smiling- through and through :)