Day 141: The Thanksgiving Edition

Its Turkey day… but what can I eat?

First off, I hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving! If you dont celebrate I hope your day was equally as wonderful. It doesn't have to be a holiday to spend time with friends and family and reflect on things you are thankful for.

Saying that, I was worried about the food portion of the holiday. I am still not eating all the things. Talking is also a bit difficult after a while, as the braces and bands irritate my lips. Since I had spent the past weekend at DesignerCon in LA my talking and smiling muscles were already quite tired (more on that on my 5 month post).

Here is the run down on all things Thanksgiving:

Pros:

1. Family generally reads the blog and is up to date on all things "face off"! So discussions about the whole surgery ordeal is totally painless.

2. Wine and Beer flow freely and I can drink both.

3. I was able to eat quite a few things such as:

• Mash potatoes & sweet potatoes
• Spinach Quiche (ordered special for me <3
• Stuffing
• Super tiny bits of Turkey
• Brussel sprout and kale salad (My cousin was sweet enough to steam down a bit of the salad she had made so that I could attempt it)
• PIE…PIE PIE PIE!

I was also able to bite into these fruit jellies!
A surprising delight…aka "a Thanksgiving miracle"

But then there must also be… KHAAAANS:

1. I sadly can not eat other things like crispy veggies, salad, non wilted down kale, brussel sprouts, nuts, crusty bread.

2. That means all appetizers and random sweets were off limits. chips, carrots, celery, and chocolates with mystery fillings. I did however, eat some dip with a spoon. 

3. Competitive family card games were off the table for me as well as quick hand movements near my face still make me super nervous. 

4. I still get pretty tired quickly….and it isn't the turkey talking.

All in all… I chalk it up to success. There are no leftover turkey sandwiches for me (a con) and all the pumpkin cheesecake I made was devoured but that just means I wont be sitting around stuffing my face today. After sleeping in, the hubs and I did have leftover stuffing with scrambled eggs this morning… so i am sort of winning at Thanksgiving!

Day 127: Super human sensation

Today I went to my Surgeon and Orthodontist. Here is the skinny, the area I call the "dead zone" is apparently the opposite, its the "Hyper-active zone". While my gums, lower teeth and inside of the lower lip have a delay in reaction and faint feeling the chin is SUPER sensitive. Dr Huang called it something like "dysesthesia" when I described it to him later. I told him that sounded official so it was probably right. 

 Anyway,  Dr. Olsson had me close my eyes while he lightly touched areas of my chin with both a dull and sharp instrument. I felt all of it as a horrible shooting tingling and could tell him what direction he was going when lightly tracing around my face…. the inside of my lip when faced with the same test eventually felt the sharp side… just a bit delayed.

So what probably is happening is that my feeling returned super quickly after surgery but has now plateaued a bit but is still healing. Dr. Olsson explained most people recover feeling more gradually but my nerves didn't want to wait around to come back… that sounds like me. He expects I will probably only have permanent damage at the very tip of my chin… I'm fine with that as long as the plastic face feeling goes away.

The wax facial feature feeling is probably the fact that the inside of my mouth still has less reactive patches and the outside is crazy reactive so it makes every movement feel tight. He says everything looks great and he isn't worried. Staying on the vitamins and trying to not be a crazy person.

Then onward to Dr. Huang's office… I was having some contact of my upper tooth with the very top of my lower front teeth. The hitting of these two teeth was sort of uncomfortable. He took a look and said we should rearrange my bands, as the lower teeth had wanted to advance more than we needed so it was the exact right time to stop them and just settle it all down for the next month. My bands are now stronger and straight up and down (a.k.a "the fangs"). This is officially a "Code: Sea Lion"…

And because I couldn't see the other two without stopping in to see Dr Nealis and Marybeth I went up to the dentist office and made an appointment for a cleaning when the braces come off.

All in all I feel much better, like maybe i am not totally falling apart after all… onward…

Four Months: Reintroduced to the wild

A little over 17 weeks… but I'm not counting or anything. A lot of stuff has been packed into this past month. But, to be perfectly honest, Ive spent the bulk of this month feeling like this:

and also like this…

My lower lip and chin are still non-existent or exist but on someone else's face. I'm tired & drained but I have work to do which means I have also started falling behind on things. But most of all I am getting nervous about teeth and lack of feeling. I'm also completely sick of having braces…

 So lets start the break down with the thing I most worry about…

Feeling / Movement / The Like:
Oh boy! So when I was set to get this surgery they tell you there is a risk of permanent nerve damage… Actually they remind you quite a lot about this. Especially if you are "no longer 18"…thanks, haha! When told about this it was explained its a 10% chance and that it could just be small patches that dont come back. The problem I have is that it is not a small patch. It has been 4 months of constant annoyance.

The dead zone is still a place where the cold, the hot, the spiky hang out. It also creeps from my lip into my gum line and the lower teeth join in on the feelingless fun. I can sense when my hand touches my face but if there is food or water there I am clueless. If you have ever had Novocaine then it is like the part where you can almost feel the pain again but it also feels like that part is asleep.

The biggest hassle with having this part of my face reacting this way is that i have to move it to do things. Sometimes I just feel my bottom teeth pulsate if I am not moving my lips. If I do move my lips it feels tight, like it is on fire and or may belong to someone else. I officially have a possessed phantom lip.

Because of this I have called the surgeon. He is going to give everything a look but I could be healing continuously into the 6 - 9 month period. At 9 months I'm most likely at the "this is what this is now" stage. Ya know…because I'm not 18.

In addition to just generally freaking out and muttering "this surgery wasn't worth it" I have upped the vitamin game. I had spoken to the surgical resident and was advised to get a B complex. I had already started on those a few months ago, so did some research and got a few others that may help nerve function, like fish oil. (I am no doctor so i asked people that actually are)

Here is the current line up

I also hate taking pills… so to make myself not totally give up I just take one multivitamin on the weekend. If Im doing something wrong ill know about it on Thursday. So far no change…

Except that the fish oil feels like a horse tranquilizer…

 Food / Eating:
This has been going slowly… so slowly but in the right direction. I am happy to say I had a salad finally. It was super tiny and took me 30 mins to eat but I ate it damn it! I can not eat whatever I want… there is no giant burger, no hard-shell taco dinners, no mixed nuts in my close future. I can manage small sushi rolls if i cut them in half, mini grilled cheese if i smash it flat (and bite super slowly), fish and chips if I eat tiny bits with a fork and only eat the soft fries, and all the ramen if it doesn't have bamboo shoots or other giant veggies.

*notice that completely clean bite…very satisfying.

eat all the tofu…leave all the bamboo

I can not have chips… I would like a potato chip. Just one… 

So I have purchased some seasonal flavors for when the time comes (i don't care if they end up being disgusting). Its like a pair of skinny jeans you cant fit into yet or something, except probably completely the opposite.

you will be mine…

 Travel:
Last month I was released back into the wild. I traveled to PA for Illuxcon and for the annual retreat in the woods. It was an interesting adventure. I didn't expect travel to be so hard. I hate flying under normal situations but flying when you are constantly worried someone is going to bump into you or your face is going to explode upon take off is another added hurdle. It didn't help that a very large fidgety man playing his video game with the sound on pinned me up to the window for the full flight to Philly.

Inside I am screaming

The first couple days may have been the hardest. Travelling to a convention and having so many conversations, enough to cut my lip in 2 places because of laughing. BUT! I got to see people I only see once a year, we made up games and drank lots of poorly prepared cocktails.

At Illuxcon, creating a new game called "police sketch artist".

Afterwards a handful of us retreated into the "woods" to make art and trouble. I got a cold. My body is not sure why I am torturing it but I am… it is lashing out.

 Thanks to friend (or enemy?) Tony Palumbo, I was reminded to stay away from the snack table…

I spent Halloween fighting the cold but also enjoying movies at Dave and Dena's cat palace. I got to see my friends Elyse and Michael and also picked up some wax teeth from Jinxed. The return flight was much more spacious but the descent was far more painful. My sinuses and ears felt like they were going to explode. I fought the urge to blow my nose with extreme force and eventually my ears squeaked back to normal.

When I got home I was greeted by this awesome gift from Miranda and Josh at Clutter. Mmm tooth necklace, Ecto 1, my future pop rocks meal, and my finalist badge from the DTAs. :)

  

Even tho travelling has been quite taxing I will be going again very soon. This time to LA, to another convention (note to self, bring orthodontic wax). If you are going to Designer Con, say hi to me!