Remember when I had double jaw surgery?
Do you realize that was almost six months ago?! Time flies when you're wired shut, lose feeling in half your tongue and almost all of your face, take six weeks off work and have to learn to eat and talk again.
I know you won't believe this, but I'm not over it yet. Obviously it's not as intense, but there are lots of residual effects that I'm still working through.
I haven't had my BLT, cheeseburger or otherwise fancy sandwich yet. I can only open my mouth 25mm wide right now. (That's 1mm more than I could before surgery.) My jaw muscles are also really weak so chewing hard things like steak or almonds is really tiring, if not impossible.
I started physiotherapy to deal with this. The problem is that my muscles haven't opened wider than this in six years. They don't know what to do or how to move anymore. So I'm working on opening wider and strengthening the muscles.
My poor tongue is still numb. I'm not worried because it normally takes forever to get feeling back when stuff like this happens. It's a little better than before but the improvements are so gradual it's hard to even measure it.
I have feeling back everywhere on my face but my chin is still tingly and partially numb. I would say I have 75% of the feeling back there. I have most of the feeling back inside my mouth but my upper and lower gums are still pretty numb. Upper palette and inside of my cheeks are hit and miss.
My lisp is almost totally gone. Sometimes I find myself saying certain words strangely but overall people tell me they don't notice anything wrong at all. Now I'm self conscious about my 's' sounds because I'm not used to making them!
I went for high tea at The Empress with my mom last year and I had a really hard time with these smoked salmon sandwiches. This year was a different story - look at that bite mark!!*
My orthodontist promised that the braces will come off "this year". I hope that doesn't mean December 31, 2015 but only time will tell.
*If anyone is reading this who struggles with an open bite, I know you will appreciate these photos.
I've been looking for the perfect blazer for a while now. I finally found it on the weekend.
It had to be more casual than professional (check), not too complicated with seams, fabric and fancy buttons (check) and most of all it had to have pretty fabric that shows when you roll the arms up. (Check!)
Here is my new favourite outfit:
Blazer. Funky t-shirt. Skinny jeans. Chucks. If I had my way, I'd dress like this every day but I only have one cool t-shirt so far.
Have you seen the documentary about the Helvetica font? It's really worth watching.
I saw a great video the other day about how Comic Sans is the worst font of all time. During the video he flashed this image:
He only showed it for about 10 seconds, but I went a little mental. Standing up, pointing madly at the screen and yelling "I must have that t-shirt!"
So I found it and bought it in black. I can't wait to wear it. It's so simple, not a lot of people will understand it. It's the perfect t-shirt!
My parents were here for the month of January and we had the best time ever!!
This year they felt like they had seen enough of downtown Victoria and wanted to get out to do more hikes and beaches. So we took them out to some of our favourite places.
Remember the time(s) I was afraid of werewolves? Or the time my flashlight went out? Or the other time..... yeah I think you get the idea.
I forgot what hiking with my dad is like.
There isn't much that will hold him back from a good scare. The forest is a playground for him - he hides under bridges. And waits.....
Mom and I end up being perfect targets. Dad and Brad get ahead of us and Mom and I end up visiting, looking at plants and trees. In other words - totally distracted. Dad hid in the trees and growled at us as we walked by.
This seriously happened.
And I almost peed my pants.
It's ridiculous too because Mom and I end up screaming and bouncing off each other to get away. If it was a real bear we would have no chance.
The second time, he actually ran up behind us and grabbed us. I haven't screamed that loud since I was six.
Perfect Targets
On our last hike, they got ahead of us again and we couldn't see them. Mom and I literally couldn't move because we thought for sure he was going to jump out at us any moment. We just stood there and yelled "This isn't funny. Come out now, we're aware of you."
They were actually just innocently ahead of us.
