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.
2 comments:
Six months already! I didn't really put things in perspective, aka understanding that your jaw muscles would have been having a rough go BEFORE surgery, too, in order to merit double jaw surgery in the first place. I hope the physio is helping!
Glad that you are making progress so far and that you've kept up a really great attitude through it all.
Post a Comment