5 Weeks Out

The first picture of me taken by someone else (since my surgery)

Good News friends, it does get better! Once again I blinked and a week flew by. I am so thankful for the distraction of school because it helps me to feel normal again. Today I yawned super big, and for the first time it didn't hurt. I think the popsicle stick stretching is paying off. I can open my mouth up about the width of two fingers. While this seems painfully small, I feel like my mouth is at max...openness I guess? IT FEELS WIDE OKAY. And then I look in the mirror and realize its almost nothing. I thought school would drain me, but it really didn't, so I did what all recovering jaw surgery patients do, and got a job. I like to keep busy so why no be paid too, right?

I had an Orthodontist appointment this week. He and all the assistants said I look great, but I think they are obligated to say that since I'm paying them thousands of dollars to fix my teeth. This visit, they were scheduled to fix a bracket that came off during surgery. They couldn't fix it last time because I couldn't open my mouth wide enough and it hurt like hell. So they fixed it and changed my bottom wire. I'm now on track to perfecting my smile and being done with braces once and for all! There's a small chance I'll have to go through the whole 'Sure Smile' process again depending on how drastically they feel my teeth need to move. If so, Ill get them off in June. If not, probably April!

Havasupai Falls baby!

I also have been attempting to exercise more. When I can fit it in, I try to walk on the treadmill or on campus. I tried to really push my heart rate on the treadmill (just to see what would happen) and I quickly realized why they want me to wait a while to exert myself. I could literally feel the roof of my mouth and my jaw pounding. So for at least one more week, I'm not gonna try jogging or lifting weights. I recently went with one of my friends to our local lake and did a mild hike around there. Its was beautiful and it was really nice to hike again. In April, I have the opportunity to hike the Grand Canyon down to Havasupai Falls. I'm stoked but I'm realizing I need to get in amazing shape as soon as I'm allowed to. The hike is 2 miles down and 10 miles into the canyon. I've heard its super hard and I'm basically a pile of dough right now... so I need to get on that.

I've had a week of realizations too. When I was hiking, my friend took a picture of me and I realized it was the first picture of me that hadn't been taken BY me. It was so crazy to see myself from a different view and see how different I really do look. I think it will still take a while to get used to my new face. My friends are slowly getting used to it, but I have a feeling my mom is gonna freak when she sees me for the first time again. Heck, I still stop and stare at a mirror when I see myself. But the best part is honestly that my teeth all fit together. Something else kind of blew my mind this week. My speech is ALMOST normal again which means, people don't know anything happened to me in the first place. I met a gentleman today and I realized that, he will never know what I used to look like. No person that I meet from now until I die, will ever know the face that I had for the first 20 years of my life. They will only know who they see before them now. And I don't know why, but that was crazy to me! Not that I'm a new person now, but I'm slightly less self-conscious now. I think that when I get my braces off, I'll have waaaaaay more self-confidence. I really can't wait for that. :)

I only have one week left until I'm "technically allowed to chew." 6 weeks is almost here!! I've been trying to force myself to experiment with chewing my pasta, but its so foreign and weird. While I can chew through the noodles easily, I don't have control of my cheeks yet. I've discovered that we literally rely on every mouth muscle to eat our food. My lips still don't close comfortably. Today I was stretching my face, AND SOMETHING POPPED. It didn't hurt or anything but it was so. weird. It might have been nose cartilage or maybe it was the tightness under my nose releasing? I don't know, but if I suddenly have all my feeling and control back, I'll be attempting to pop my face more. I should also note that my bottom lip has been super sensitive and it hasn't gotten any better yet. Even putting on chap-stick is still uncomfortable. My gums are slowly coming back; I can feel all my bottom gums, but my front top ones still have no feeling. All the numbness is my face is gone! I'm super surprised because most people have at least one patch of numbness somewhere on their chin. The only thing still slightly numb is the upper left lip. Go figure. But lip, I love you, I need you, and I want you back. Please come back to me.

"How'd this happen?"

 GREAT QUESTION.


Well it all started in a Galaxy Far Far Awa- ahhhhh gotcha. No but really, this whole thing started a long time ago. I have no idea if this had any effect on start of my mouth issues, but I sucked my thumb until I was about 8 years old...Yep I was a thumb-sucker. My mom tried everything short of just cutting the damn thing off. I was in third grade when I got a thumb guard, (right)

I always got food stuck in it. Yum, save that for later.

that I finally quit for good. They slapped some braces on poor little third grade me and sent me on my way. I was literally the only 3rd grader in my school who had braces and I was mortified. About a year later they finally realized that braces alone weren't fixing the damage that 8 years of thumb-sucking had done. So off came the thumb guard and on came the palate expander (left). They cranked that thing for another year until they assumed my bite was wide enough, then off came the braces and the torture device. I got my braces off at about 11 years old (the time all my friends started getting them on) and I thought that I had finally gotten the last laugh. But oh was I wrong...

Worst. Pain. Ever.

Fast forward about 5 years and...Wow, would you look at that. My mouth was messed up once again. I had lost my retainer after about a month, and at the time, no one was talking about how important retainers were. Guess what...my teeth all moved. I was about to enter high school when I really started noticing the awkward gap between my upper and lower teeth. I could stick my tongue through it and drink through a straw. I remember one car ride I mentioned it to my mom and we soon returned to the orthodontist. I thought that they would be mad because my teeth had moved, but they were so perplexed by my mouth shift, that they sent me to our local Oral Maxillofacial Surgeon. We had a consultation, they told me I'd need surgery if I ever wanted to bite right, but the price tag drove us away. I was going to have to live with my open bite until/ IF we ever found the money to make it happen. I gave up hope for the correction of my face forever. I didn't think about it much except when I tried to bite foods or if I saw myself in pictures. I always noticed in pictures that I would have a double chin. I soon realized that I basically had no chin... or as the doctors call it, a "weak chin." I became very self conscious of this which was super fun, especially going through high school.

How I felt 24/7

Freshmen year of college, I got pulled aside and told that, SURPRISE, you get to have the surgery after all. I was literally in shock though. Like, I was happy because it meant good changes, but I also might have started crying because I was scared of what kind of surgery that would mean for me. It also meant that I would have to be THAT kid in college with braces. Of course by the time you get to college, everyone else has already gotten their braces off and have perfect, amazing, white smiles. Just my luck that I would have braces book-ending the normal time for people to have braces... awesome.

So here begins the adventure into my Jaw Surgery journey.