Day 169: The Final Countdown / A Christmas story

This month I have been super busy, busy enough to totally disregard my 5 month post. This is partial business and partial not wanting to jinx myself. My last Ortho appointment at the beginning of the month involved scheduling my braces removal (as long as my bite is stable without the rubber bands). I have been without rubber bands and since nothing has changed I think it is safe to say I am almost done. I have scheduled removal for Jan 4th!!

Feeling:
Oh the joys of having a stubborn face. I seem to be getting more sensation on the inside gum line of my lower teeth, but the outside of my chin is still hyper. If anything it is doing gradual restoration, not enough to notice a great difference. Touching the base of my chin is way less sharp / uncomfortable. Washing my chin / face is still strange and calls for a light touch. I still have phantom sensation and can not tell if there is food on my face.

I can now tell when I have food in my teeth more easily. Getting food out of my gum line is now super sensitive (which makes me afraid for the braces removal). Also rice, rice gets stuck at the base of my gums, when i try to push it out with a finger I feel the scars, its odd.

I do still get odd sensations in my top jaw and right sinus. I can feel the screw in the right side, I get an occasional pressure there. If I blow my nose i get a weird vibration in one of the upper teeth closest to the metal plate / screw. I'm told it will gradually go away.

I will get to see a new head scan after the braces come off. Hopefully its all growing back the correct way.



Work:
I have been back to it. Now on more of a full time schedule. I can work 8hr days for now, I'm trying to make myself stop working between 8-10hrs, trying not to work too much on weekends. Easing into it and trying to make my work habits a little more agreeable for future projects. Too often before surgery I would work every day up to 20hrs at a time. Nope…nope… reset.

Travel:
Flying is no longer bothering me! I do still have to bring my portable water pik and sometimes my wedge pillow but it is all getting easier :)

FOOD:
I am still having issue with crunchy food. I am not much closer to eating a sub sandwich or a crunchy taco. Some teeth are just numb or sensitive (mostly the front top and bottom). My palette behind my front teeth is still mostly numb just behind the teeth and the extra sensitive toward the middle, so rough or sharp food (pretzels, bread, ect..) feels very strange.

I am trying to progress more with moving my jaw around, when the K9s touch it is quite startling. Eating with my mouth closed is still a challenge. I have to eat slowly and deliberately.

Christmas dinner will be the ultimate test… or maybe post xmas left overs will be the test. If I can make a tiny turkey sandwich I will be very excited!

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!

Three Months…and a few days

Wow… 3 months have flown by. I was hoping to get a bunch of personal projects done, as I had said but it just didn't happen. Now I am getting more "with it", more "normal" and my deadlines are starting to become something I will need to focus on. I am still not working as much as I was before (that's probably good) but as I start ramping up for conventions and 2016 shows I will need to keep the balance.

I still have a little ways to go, its a long recovery process…

My Orthodontist says everything looks great! Perhaps 2 more months of 24hr rubber bands and then one month after to check stability without rubber bands at all. It is possible I could spend the new year braces free!!!

So, whats new? Well to me, it feels like there has been little progress on a day to day basis…until I sit down to write and then I realize maybe a lot has changed. 

Feeling:

The dreaded dead zone is still super annoying. Hot, cold, pins, needles, pinching, tightness, asleep and throbbing…annoying. Still getting spasms but none of my medical team seems concerned by this. 

The good thing is, if I touch anything on my chin and lip, I can feel something. It is all fighting to come back.  Light Green has the most feeling, a little delayed and a bit spiky but there. The darker green takes a min to register. No matter what I touch in the area…it basically feels awful, just overly sensitive.  I am also getting feeling back in my gums, the lower front teeth are sharing all the same sensations as the lip and chin. Just lovely…insanity.

There is also this: This is the area that contains screws. This is the area when touched, I feel the screws.  If I push on either side of my nose in the pink area, I feel the actual screws. If I touch anywhere else in the pink zone it feels like a bruise. If I push around my sinuses I feel it in my upper teeth. Yesterday I touched my lower jaw bone on the right side, It was sore so I was rubbing it….I could feel the gap in the bone. That kind of freaked me out a bit. Hopefully that's all sorting itself out proper. yikes.

Food / Eating:

This will probably be a continuous struggle for a while yet. My left side is much stronger, that side has the most feeling so I use it most. I am trying not to favor the left side but if I chew on the right I tend to bite my lips or cheeks. 

I have been chowing down on a lot of pasta, roasted veggies, breakfast foods. I miss salad! I have been eating salad greens but wilted down. I had my first bagel a week or so ago! It took a long time and I had to tear it with my hands into tiny bits but I got it done! I bought some honeycrisp apples today, I'm going to give it a go, tiny slices…stay tuned. 

Working out:

I am cleared to do everything as long as it doesn't cause me to clench my jaw. So time to ease back in to  it all again.

Weight:

I really don't feel that different. My body has pretty well held on to everything… I hear that when you start working out again on a regular basis that it just sheds really fast. Like the weight I should have lost when I was on liquid finally decides it isn't needed. We will see if that's actually something that happens. 

Movement:

I am totally regaining the ability to make silly faces! My smile looks more normal too!! I know this for a fact as I stood up at my oldest (23 yrs and counting) friend's wedding this past weekend…and Im a big dork!  It was also my first long outing since surgery. 

Groomsman-ing is hard work

Groom's ladies assemble!

Dancing around at a wedding does have it's challenges. There's no way I can go to a wedding and not dance! I just had to improvise with an "ice pack".

Travel:

Who knew this would be such a challenge? I have not flown anywhere yet but the drive was taxing. I had travelled with my contour pillow, magnification mirror and a portable water pick. I had also prepped for the drive by making a ton of pasta and hard boiled eggs.  All in all it went pretty well! 

I am also cleared to fly now! So, at the end of the month I will board a flight to Illuxcon!

What else is new?

Well, Ive been trying to have normal days. I make a decision on how the day will go that day, if I need to rest I just rest. 

I also am proud to say that I have won another Designer Toy Award!!! This year for Best Non-Plastic for the Sylvan Plush I created with Gary Ham! It wasn't something I thought I could win…I wasn't able to fly out yet so I tried to not give it much thought… but then I got a text from the award ceremony from my friend Andrew (pictured accepting for me):

It has been a crazy eventful month! I'm hoping the upward swing continues! 

Day 76: Forever numb

I hope one day to get feeling back…its maddening to say the least. It is completely distracting and does effect my mood quite a bit. I try to stay generally up beat and just do what I can but some days just aren't so good. I keep thinking there is something wrong, like I will be this way forever but then I have to remind myself  it has actually only been 2.5 months. I find looking at other surgery blogs helpful, helps to remind me this is all normal and if anything I am ahead of the curve.

Chart of feeling / non-feeling

Here is where the chin feeling is today.

Green: Faint return of sensation, I can touch it and can feel gentle tingling where my finger actually is on my face. This is the same area that feels wet when I drink anything cold (even when nothing is running down my face it feels like it)

Light Blue: This is the area of constant sensation and tightness. My lower lip and right below. If I touch lightly the whole chin fires off in a very spiky "asleep" way. It also sends a strange signal to my lower teeth.

Dark Blue: Nothing. I can feel the surrounding area fire off because it recognizes pressure but the skin has no feeling. If i push a little harder the skin feels bruised. For all i know it is.

Hot and cold: This is where there is the most unusual reactions. I can not really feel my lower lip so when I rest something hot on my lip it feels like a giant burning wet noodle slapped down the front of my chin. If I drink something cold my chin feels like water is rushing over the outside…it's not.

My upper jaw is still sore, on either side of my nose is tenderness. If I push on my sinuses I can feel the plates on that side of my face. Its all just creepy.

9/23 - progress

I have been going back and forth on how I think I look. My face hasn't quite settled yet so I'm trying to reserve judgment until its all healed. My smile annoys me as it isn't quite right. I used to have dimples, I'm curious if they will come back.

Swelling:
I still have a bit of swelling under my nose, under my cheekbones and along the jaw line. I am even a little lop-sided today, my lips are being pulled almost to one side…its something that changes almost daily.

My Jaw: The Jerk
I have been having the strangest thing occur; If I am sitting reading, or watching TV, or writing this blog, ect… My Jaw will suddenly jerk open and then back to start. Usually this results in a tongue in the wrong place at the wrong time. I don't understand this phenomena, more research is required.

Morning of surgery vs Today

Movement:
The muscles in my lower jaw are not even yet, I feel it most when I start talking to someone. I am not sure if my lower lip is forming words properly. I have been practicing pulling crazy faces in the mirror…"exercise". I have also noticed inside my upper lip that the skin grew back a bit oddly, may be making the movement a bit tighter…not sure yet.

Energy:
This is still a hit or miss area. I have days where I feel normal (minus the numbness) and can get a lot done, then there are days where I get nothing done. I am not able to work steadily yet but Ill get there.
I do fear all those personal projects I wanted to work on are going to get overtaken by work I actually need to do. I was hoping to be further along by now, so I will have to schedule personal work into my regular life. This is probably a healthy thing to do anyway.

This past weekend I had the ultimate test of stamina. Several friends came in from out of town. During the week I got to see friends Erica and Alex and had my first full day outing. Friday my good friend Andrew and his gf Becky came to stay the weekend. For 3 days I was out and about almost non-stop! At night I was done and had to rest my face with ice. There would be parts of the day I would have to stop talking or sit down but for the most part, success! I also attended a baby shower and went out for my husband's bday. I am a bit tired now…maybe I should take a day to lay about.

Andrew, Becky and I on a pinball adventure

Food:
I am happy to say this is going in the right direction. It is hard to get used to. My teeth still feel very strange, they are mostly numb on my right side. This makes eating on this side kind of horrible. I can not apply pressure and if my k9s touch I tend to jump. I did have an eating milestone tho, a breakfast burrito! With the use of a steak knife, fork and a lot of time it was conquered. Tiny bits by tiny bits.

I have found that I just need to try to bite down on things, if it doesn't budge I stop and scratch it from the currently possible list.

Gym:
So….running is way harder than I remember. I have not gone for a real run since late last year…which is probably why I should have worked at this a little more carefully. I went for a 2 mile run, right out of the gate. At first it felt very odd, had to keep my jaw open so I did not clench the teeth together. I was very surprised by how much easier it is to breathe. I could run for quite a bit before getting out of breath. Then about a mile and a half out my legs started hurting. My hip has been bothering me since…sooo I need to not go whole hog. I still can not do weight lifting which is a bit of a bummer. Can not go underwater yet either.  Everything in my life is currently "feel it out and see if it works, don't push too hard tho".

 Misc:
Still trying to work but find it difficult to stay on task. my brain is still rather scattered and the numbness really is a distraction. Other blogs I read put some of my current symptoms even later down the line… but basically I'm hoping my chin returns to normal over night.

Here are some toothy and lovely gifting I have received lately. So much toothy goodness…

Two Months down…

It has been 2 months since my face off adventure! Here is my 9 week time-lapse. It is really interesting to flip through all my photos; You can even see the moment where I got my splint out and my face puffed up again:

Slowly slowly…

Things are moving right along, I am mostly just frustrated I am not at 100% yet. I'm impatient. I have a ways to go but progress is being made. I have decided to not work more than 3 days a week. Getting back in the studio is important but i need time to relax as well. I am happy that I do work for myself going through this, but it is stressful not making steady income. If I worked for an office I wonder how the transition would be. Operating a sewing machine for the first month was definitely not happening.

Working out

Today I successfully completed a full 75min spin class! I cant do everything to the same degree but this time I stayed the whole time. I have also been cleared to get back on the treadmill. I have to go super slow, light jogging at the most. No bouncing around, no clenched jaws. My goal is to go from 2 gym days to 3. So, 1 full rest day, 3 work days, 3 workout days…they may not be the same days.

Eating & Feeling:

The feeling (or lack of) is still super annoying. My chin and lower lip are still very confused. While there appears to be an awakening, a stirring, it is pretty void. If i run my finger along my chin there is a delay. If I drink something cold it feels like there is cold liquid pouring down my face (but there isn't). If I put cold cream on my face it feels like there is cold liquid in my mouth (there isn't).  There is a constant coldness, hotness, spikiness, tightness. I hate washing my face or even touching my lip or chin.

The feeling on the roof of my mouth is also coming in. Currently it just feels like I burnt the roof of my mouth with hot cheese two days ago.

I also get random spasms. I will be sitting on the couch and my jaw will make a quick movement, quickly shut or quickly twitch open.

Here is my (still) current feeling chart vs earlier in recovery.

Eating is still a challenge. Even tho I am getting a normal amount of calories, about 1500, my body still holds on to everything. I think it is still "doomsday prepping". I also play "guess whats on my face"daily.

I feel like i was eating more variety on a liquid diet as well, which may or may not be true. I try to get lots of veggies but i have to cook everything down. I think the hardest thing I can manage is a kernel of cooked corn. I sadly could not eat croissants i bought last week…tragic. I keep trying different things but often land on pasta, arugula and  feta. I feel like i got sick of having the same meal a lot quicker when everything was liquid. Maybe it was texture based bias.

Teeth:
Ever since I got the bands adjusted to slightly larger I have not had any of the tooth / jaw pain. They still aren't quite right but i cant tell which ones have feeling just yet. I still hate the way my teeth touch properly. They do not all have feeling, really not comfortable in there.

I did have my first tooth nightmare. I dreamt that, even tho i had braces, my teeth were falling out. They were cracking and falling out of my mouth in pieces. I was running around in the middle of the night trying to find someone to put my teeth back together. It was kind of terrible…Maybe I was grinding my teeth in my sleep.

Visits:
I got a great, even tho short, visit from my good friend Dawn and hubby Ben. They had a long layover and it gave me a good excuse to take my first long drive. I also got to eat some ramen and buy a sweet bun. Oh, and work out those smile muscles :)