random life blog + 16 weeks post op!!

Hello again readers!

First off I'd like to apologize for being aw ay for so long. It's been over 5 weeks since I last posted, but nothing of importance has happened regarding my jaw surgery. However it has been a while so I thought I'd do an update on my life and how my jaw has been lately! :)

So lately, my jaw has been good. Nothing bad has happened, and no milestones have been made either. What I mean by that, is even though I have been stretching my jaw routinely for the past 5 weeks, I haven't made any progress. I can fit 3 fingers vertically in my mouth (using this as measurement lol) and that's really pushing it. Where my jaw connects on the left side of my face becomes extremely painful when I try to stretch my jaw, but there's no issues on my right. I can tell that my right side would have no problem being stretched a lot more, but my left is just locked into place. I'm going to keep working on it, but I'm a little concerned, so if it doesn't stretch anymore in the next month I'll definitely bring this up to my surgeon.

Now, onto chewing!!
Honestly it's hard to talk about food right now as I just inhaled a San Diego Wrap from Shoeless Joe's and now I'm feeling very ill, but this is an important part of my healing process so I must write about it!
I kind of have a love/hate relationship with chewing right now. At times it's pretty painful - A lot of food still can't fit in my mouth, and the foods that I have been craving are so hard to chew. Things like bagels are a huge struggle, and even though I thought chewing gum would help, it doesn't. But, it feels so good to chew again and eat delicious foods that I couldn't eat for 3 months, that I've gained 7 pounds in the last 5 weeks. I don't think that I look bigger, but I feel bigger. I feel more sluggish and gross and just... blah, then I did when I was on a restricted diet. So starting tomorrow I'm eating healthy! Lots of healthy homemade smoothies, salads, and home-cooked chicken. Overall though, it's been a struggle, and a painful one at that.

That's really all there is to know about my jaw! I will be seeing my orthodontist on the 6th of August and hopefully I'll hear some good news about my braces, or even the elastics I wear. I'm supposed to be wearing them all day everyday, but then that means no talking. Ever. My surgeon says I must keep my jaw closed when the elastics are on. Soooo I'm kind of only wearing them when I sleep... and lately that's been about 12 hours so at least it's half the day? We'll see what my orthodontist says (fingers crossed!)

August is actually going to be such a crazy month for me, and I just pray that it's going to be crazy in a good way. Not only do I have my orthodontist appointment, but I have to see my doctor, I have an appointment to see a specialist that I've been trying to see for 10 bloody months now (and whatever appointments I have to make with her after that), I have to do shopping for my residence room and school, I have plans to do something almost every free day I have (Zoo trip, Beach trip), and, my favourite part about this month... my birthday!!

I will be turning 20 on August 19th. It's really a huge shock for me. Usually it's just another birthday, but this year it's kind of a big deal to me. I won't be a teen anymore, I won't be considered a "child", I'll be an adult, and being an adult means taking on a lot more responsibility, more than I think I can handle at this point in my life. I've always been very childish at heart and I know that going to school and having no one to take care of me or be there for me when I'm having trouble with school assignments (or whatever it may be) is huge for me. I'm going to struggle miserably... but this is life, and if I can't do this, then I won't be able to make it on my own. My parents won't be far away, and knowing them, if I'm sick or struggling with anything, they'd wanna drive up and help me. But I feel like that's cheating life, and I need to prove to myself that I can do this on my own.

Anyways! Since I'm on the topic of school, I think I'll talk about everything that's been going in my personal life (non-jaw surgery related)!

This past week I've been at the cottage with my family and Evan. We don't own a cottage to ourselves but we rent out a cottage just outside of Fenelon Falls for a week every summer for the last 4 years. Except for a few little incidents with my sister I had a lot of fun! Evan and I watched every single Harry Potter, went into town quite a bit, spent some time alone on the beach in Fenelon, and we went into Bobcaygeon, a neighbouring town, to do a bit of shopping. I almost bought some Michael Kors shoes but they were too Daft Punk for me. Very flashy.
Unfortunately, this year the cottage was pretty run down. The water for the cottage comes from a well, and the water in the well was very little, so it contained a lot of iron/sulphur. Needless to say, you couldn't turn the tap on for more than a second without smelling sewage. The toilets were stained because of it (although it came right out with Lysol cleaner we bought so idk what the weekly cleaning ladies are doing), the wifi was awful! It was basically dial-up. And oh my god, the garbage was disgusting! The people who were there the week before us accidentally put their garbage in the wrong shed for pick up. So we moved it to the right shed, and there were at least 2 additional weeks of garbage in there! The caretakers have really let it get bad. We're really on the fence on if we're going back next year or not. Maybe if things get fixed there... who knows. We took a lot of photos, and Evan took gorgeous photos of the stars with my Nikon SLR so I'll post those below.

Other than the cottage, I've put all my focus into schooling. I registered for my classes last week, which makes this whole "living on your own and actually going to school again" thing so much more real. It's a very exciting yet nervous feeling. I hate the thought of being away from my family. My home has been my safety net since my anxiety started up, I hate leaving my house because I am 100% anxiety-free here. I think this will be good for me though, pushing me outside my comfort zone to become a functioning member of society.
The one thing I'm really excited about is my elective I'm taking. The one reason I've been kicking myself in the back for not staying in school and getting into University is because I wanted to take cool lecture courses like Psychology and stuff... and, as luck has it, one of the choices for my electives was Principles of Psychology!! I was debating between that and Social Psychology.
Not that anyone is interested, but I'm so proud of actually having college courses and being a college student that I'm going to post my schedule down below with the other pictures.

I am a hugeeee make-up junkie, and so I finally went shopping in Sephora and MAC a couple weeks ago. Literally a girls paradise. From MAC I bought a cream highlighter in Radiant Rose, a powder highlighter in Soft and Gentle, and one of the Mineralized Skin Finish setting powders in Light Plus. From Sephora I bought a matte cream lip stain in number 03 from the Sephora Collection and a waterproof lip pencil in number C3 from MakeUpForEver, however it was too dark so I exchanged it for C1, which is still dark but a bit better. The cream lip stain kind of disappointed me though, it's supposed to be non-transferable and I've tested it, it's transferred every time. Also it's supposed to be a raspberry pink color but on me it looks like Clown Red. I think I should start doing Make Up reviews hahaha.

Well this has been an incredibly long long post about my life lol. Probably unnecessarily long but whateverrrr. Here are the pictures I promised. I hope to post a lot more and I'll be doing an update when I see my ortho!

My favourite of Evan and Chloe :)

what my face looks like 3.5 months post op

lol omg

With each star picture Evan added 5 more seconds of shutter speed so we could get more stars.
This is how the last picture turned out.

These were a bitch to upload cause they were in .NEF format, so I hope you like them!

This post is a bit more personal than most, but when I started making my blog, everything in my life was jaw surgery related. My life was pretty much put on hold because of the surgery, and then while I was recovering, the first couple months were all about my jaw and how the healing was going. Now that everything has slowed down, and not much is going on, this is becoming a lot more of a personal blog.

Hope you enjoyed and I'll update soon
xoxo

13 weeks post op Update

Great news everyone! (You definitely read that in Professor Farnsworth's voice)

So I had my appointment with my surgeon on Tuesday. Nothing new had been going on until that point... well, actually one thing. But I'll mention that in a second.

I went to see him and he told me that he's pretty much done with any adjustments he had to do and that it's all up to my orthodontist now! I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. I told him about the pain in the side of my head, and he said it was all muscle tension, and that, as time goes on, it should go away. I'm skeptical but somewhat relieved. And for the best news... I can finally chew!!!

However... as much as this was great news, I wasn't nearly as happy as I should have been. Sunday morning I woke up to immediately find out that a boy I know well, who knew and was friends with almost everyone in town, was hit by a taxi around 3 am and died. Jake was only exactly a month away from being 20.

It's been a horrible week. I've cried every single day and I can't stop thinking about him. It's wonderful that I can chew again, but I'd give up chewing for another 3 months to have him back. We weren't even close these last few years, and it's devastated me. All I hope is that he's in a better place now, and that he didn't suffer any pain. 

Anyways, back to my appointment. You read this blog for my updates on my post op progress, not to hear about people who have passed away. So I have about a 90% diet now, which means I can eat almost anything. I can't remember what I first chewed... all I remember is telling myself that I'm probably gonna forget what I first chewed lmfao. However later that day my next full meal was Quesadillas and salad. 

My teeth have been super sensitive these past couple weeks, so it was hard to chew at first. A lot of what I was eating was cold and it was a bit of a struggle, but it's gotten significantly better. My jaw hurts after I chew a lot though, so I try not to overdo it. The funny thing is that my left jaw is starting to do very small clicks. It used to be my right jaw that clicked! Too weird.  

So I went after my appointment with my surgeon and saw my ortho, and since he can do whatever he needs to do, he took off my surgical hooks!!!! I'm really happy about that, my teeth look so much better, I can't wait until my braces come off. I am still wearing elastics in a triangle shape, I need to start wearing them more so I get my braces off quicker.

Nothing much has happened since I last posted, just some personal things. Saw my nana, did some shopping, put out resumes cause i'm broke and in need of a job, etc. I hope to before and after pictures in the next couple days!!

As for my future plans.. I'm going to my cottage for a week at the end of July, and I'm going to stock up on stuff for residence :) we rent this cottage out but we're thinking this is gonna be our last year, for a lot of reasons. I think I already mentioned this before.. or maybe not. I don't know.

That's about it! I don't see my surgeon for 2 months and I don't see my ortho for a month, so this blog is probably going to become more personal :) I'm gonna stop rambling now, talk to you all soon :)

10.5 weeks post op - Ortho appointment

I wanted to make a quick update, since I promised in my last post that I would when I saw my surgeon!

First off, lately I've got a lottt of views on my blog. At first there weren't many, and so I just wrote whatever, but suddenly it jumped and tons of people have started to view all my posts, and it made me realize that I actually kind of have an audience and I shouldn't be so negative all the time! I'm the kind of person who always tends to look on the bad side of things (unfortunately) but for the sake of all of you who are reading this, I will try to include a lot more positive things about the surgery and post op process, as I'm sure some of  you will be undergoing surgery soon and I don't want to make it seem like it's all bad!

Anyways, my ortho appointment. I didn't have a set time that I was supposed to be there, just as long as I went today. I think the receptionist didn't give me a time because she assumed I was coming straight from my surgeon's office like I usually do. Anyways I saw my orthodontist almost right away, he took a look at my teeth and said I needed to wear elastics again :( to be honest I'm not all that surprised, I've been watching my bite like a hawk these last couple weeks and even I noticed a difference in the way it looked and felt, so I'm actually kind of relieved that elastics are on again, now nothing can move out of place! He put the elastics on each side, in a triangle - what I mean by that, is that the elastic is hooked onto the top and bottom hook like usual, but stretched farther back and looped onto the next hook at the bottom. I'll post pictures soon if that doesn't make sense!
I have to wear the elastics like this all day every day. Which doesn't necessarily bug me. What bugs me is that none of my surgical hooks are being used, and yet my ortho won't take them off, cause I see my surgeon in 2 weeks time, and my surgeon might tell me I need them again. Understandable but it still sucks.

Other than that everything is still the same as the last time I updated. I really need to talk to my surgeon about the pain in my head. I found a sore spot, pushed on it, and the pain was so excruciating that I just cried for hours. Right now I'm going through a bit of a stressful time, I have to worry about paying tuition and residence fees on time, I'm completely broke, no job, worrying about my jaw... It's not that bad, but it's still more stress than I've gone through in a while.

So what's everyone doing for the long weekend? For my Canadian friends, I mean. Canada Day is monday!! I'm so excited cause I'm going camping again at my friends uncles. You know, the place I went to just over a month ago when I had my car accident? I really love the place and I'm pretty excited.

Anyways, I hope you guys are having a good start to your week and I hope the rest of the week is good to you as well! I promise to update soon.

xo

69/70 days post op

Thought I'd do an update for you all since... Well... I'm bored out of my mind.
It's 2 am so technically it's 70 days post op but since I haven't slept yet I'm just gonna say it's 69 days post op! I'd be happy about this, except for the fact that's its been 10 weeks post op and I have another 2 weeks to go before I can chew... not that that's stopped me. I feel so horrible but I can't help but chew my food. It's just a reaction I instantly have. I've chewed almost everything I've ate. And yes, I've ate meat and foods that require chewing. I've been bad. I feel bad. So I'm gonna dedicate the last 2 weeks to not chewing.

I see my ortho Tuesday. Last time I was there, a week and a half ago, we took my elastics off fully for 2 weeks, and if nothing moves, I keep the elastics off until I see my surgeon 2 weeks later. Then, whatever he says, goes. I am praying that nothing moved. But knowing my luck with all this bullshit, I'm sure something did move.

I'm still having pain in the left side of my head. It's really irritating, and this last week I've been getting headaches, which is normal for some people, but I never get headaches. Ever.

I'm still not sure if this was worth it. I didn't get much, if anything, out of it. The only good thing about it so far is that it's a great conversation starter or a good topic to talk about. "So... I have a bunch of titanium plates and screws in my face". I actually met some of Evan's family the other day, his Grandmother, Aunt and Cousin. His aunt has had a horrible time this past year, a doctor accidentally poked holes in both her lungs and she went through multiple surgeries to fix it, including a month long artificial coma. She's recovering well, but it's been almost 10 months since and she's just starting to walk unassisted. She was a huge inspiration for me, knowing that she went through and survived what she did, it kept me strong through the last few days pre-op and gave me hope since being post op. But they are lovely people and I'm glad I met them.

I'm almost completely numbness-free and my bite still looks fab. Lately I've been able to fit 3 fingers in my mouth instead of 2, which I think is awesome progress.
Other that that I've just been trying to live my life. I've been taking Sasha for long walks, every time upping it a kilometer. So far we're at 4.5 km but I'm trying to go higher, it's good for both me and her. I took Chloe to the park today and she was quite content :)
I'm trying to get schooling stuff together. It's frustrating because we're paying tuition through an education fund but I need someone from the registrar to fill out some forms, but I can't find the # for the registrar? Payment is due on the 5th of July, where as Rez fees are due on the 1st and I haven't received an email with the fees statement and whatnot. It's kind of hectic because my A.D.D. numbs my brain and makes me feel retarded when I try to do this stuff alone, I need serious help understanding this stuff and it's really the simplest thing to understand. I hate how my brain doesn't just intake information like most people's do. It's like there are guards blocking my brain and any information that wants to be absorbed needs the fucking password.

I will for sure update after I see my orthodontist on Tuesday. Hope you guys have been having a better couple weeks than I have lmfao :)

Surgeon's appointment, 8 and a half weeks post op

So I wanted to do a a quick update on the appointments I had with my surgeon and my orthodontist today.

I woke up late this morning... as usual. Rushed to get ready, and got to my surgeons office in record timing. I waited for him for like half an hour... 10 min in the waiting room and 20 in the "dentist room" as I call it. While I was in the waiting room, this elderly lady comes in and is like "I'm here for my 11:45 am appointment with Dr. (Insert name here)." It was 9:30 am. What the?

So anyways he finally comes into the Dentist Room and checks my bite, says it's good, and then wiggles my upper jaw. He then says that my upper jaw STILL isn't attached to my face and that he wants me to ask my orthodontist about having my elastics off fully now. This makes me nervous because I feel like my bite shifts throughout the day. It gets farther and farther apart. Anyways, he says because my upper jaw still isn't attached, he would prefer I don't chew food for another month, or at least eat food that requires minimal chewing. My heart sank, these have been the best 4 days of my life.
The shitty thing is that I won't be seeing my surgeon for another month, so everything has slowed down a month basically. Bleh.

Then I went to my orthodontist. I was in and out in 5 minutes which is unusual but hey I'm not complaining. I told my ortho about having the elastics off completely now, and he was hesitant but said that we would have them off for 2 weeks, I would then see him again, and if nothing moved then we keep them off until I see my surgeon 2 weeks after that. But he said it would be too much of a pain to take the surgical hooks off and then have to put them back on, so they're gonna be on for at least another month.

The only good news I got today was that I got accepted into a Single Room for residence. Other than that I'm pretty depressed about the whole thing, I feel like I've completely wasted my time with this process. I have pain on the side of my face, I still cant chew, I hate my physical features (most of them) and everything is taking so god damn fucking long to heal.
Honestly I should have never done this.

Tomorrow is 8 weeks post-op!!!

Hey everyone!

So so sorry that I haven't been posting lately. I don't actually remember the last time I posted... How sad is that?

Anyways I wanted to do an update because up until the last couple days, everything has been normal with my jaw and my life. But since a few things have arisen with both my jaw and my day-to-day life, I figured it was time to make an update. So yes, this will be an update on both my Jaw Surgery progress and my general life happenings.

So first I'll start by saying that tomorrow I will be exactly 8 weeks post-op!! And everyone knows what that means... I finalllllyyyy get to chew!
I've been pretty bad when it comes to eating though. I've literally ate everything I'm not supposed to. Bread, Meat, big chunky pasta, you name it. Well... I haven't ate crackers or pizza, so I guess I haven't been too bad. And I never actually chewed any of this... except the bread. I took little pieces and mushed it behind my back molars where my wisdom teeth used to be, the gummy part. So actually I have been pretty bad.
My next appointment with my surgeon isn't until Tuesday and I know that most people would wait until they see their surgeon to start chewing food but when I saw him last week I said "So I can start chewing 2 Fridays from now?" and he replied "Yes, but start off with the soft foods you've been just swallowing. You can't go straight to meat and raw veggies. Cooked veggies and pasta are a good starter." So That's exactly what I'm doing. Tomorrow Evan is coming down and we're having lunch together so he can see me chew my first meal since surgery. I'm so excited it's not even funny.

Now onto pain. The last couple days have been weird... I'm not sure if I mentioned this, but after surgery I developed pain on the left side of my head, right above my ear and in my temple. It was never that big of an issue for me, because I only felt the pain if there was any pressure on that side - if I leaned on my hand with it, if I pushed it, etc. But today has been strange... I've been getting bad pain in my temple / side of head, and I can even feel it behind my eyeball. It's more irritating than painful, but it still bothers me that there's something wrong there and I don't know what it is. I kind of consider myself a... Hypochondriac? If that's the name of someone who thinks they have every disease and issue in the world then that's definitely me. I don't think looking at this screen is helping either. When I see my surgeon I'll bring it up and maybe he'll do a 3D scan of my head. Who knows.

Numbness! I'm actually really excited to talk about the numbness in my face and I don't really know why. Over the last couple weeks there has been a dramatic difference in numbness. Originally my lower lip and my chin were completely numb. Now, I would say I have about 90% feeling back in my lower lip, and 80% back in my chin. There is a spot right in the middle of my chin that's at about 30% but it's getting higher every week. I have an optimistic feeling that I'm not going to have any numbness in my face in a few months. But here's the really cool part - I was putting on lip balm the other day and every time I got to this one spot on my lip, a hair that had fallen off my head and gotten stick to my lipbalm kept tickling the same spot in my chin... or so I thought. Turns out that it wasn't a hair at all, it was just my nerves! It was the coolest feeling, and since then the feeling has intensified, every time I touch that spot on my lip the nerves in this one little spot on my chin go crazy! They go even more crazy when I rub the edge of my lower lip under that one spot. Oh, and I put something cold on that spot on my lip the other day? I felt the coldness in that spot on my CHIN, not on my lip! It's amazing.

Onto other surgery related things. I can fit 2 fingers in my mouth, and almost 3 if I really push it, which I don't want to do. I can easily move my jaw side to side, and I can shift my lower jaw forward enough that my lower teeth are actually significantly more forward than my upper teeth. I think I'm pushing it too much though, and that may be why I'm starting to get noticeable pain in the side of my head. My surgical hooks are still on but I'm praying they come off soon. I'm so done with these elastics, let me tell ya. Still wearing 4 of them, still wearing them when I'm asleep. The shitty part is, I don't even need my bottom surgical hooks so I don't even know why they're still on.

When it comes to my looks, I'm really on the fence. I love how I have a defined chin and it seems to fit my face well. I love how I have defined cheek bones as well. However I absolutely hate my nose. It's so upturned that it looks too short and very piggy. And I dislike that my lips aren't noticeably closer together. If you've read my old posts, you'd notice I talked about how my biggest desire out of this surgery was for my lips to close. I knew they couldn't be closed all the way without making myself look unattractive but I was hoping for a bit of a difference. Since I am able to pucker my chin muscles a little bit without making it noticeable, I can make it look like my lips are naturally closer together, when in reality I'm actually putting the same amount of force into it than I used to.
All in all, I'm on the fence about whether or not the surgery was worth it, but I'm leaning more to the "Yes" side. My bite is beautiful, I'm generally pleased with the "new" features of my face, and my numbness is almost 100% gone.

So that's pretty much it. I'm really lucky that the car accident didn't affect my jaw at all. Going through another surgery would be hell.

Other than that, life has been pretty basic, with a lot of random drama. For one, I was having a hell of a time with this gym membership. Not sure if I mentioned it already... but even if I have OH WELL. So I joined this gym 2 weeks before surgery.. they told me they could postpone my payments while I'm on medical leave. So I emailed the girl then night before surgery (like she told me to) never heard anything, and they were still charging me. So about 3 weeks after surgery I called and spoke to the manager, and she said she would postpone my payments for 2 months. I thought the situation was dealt with... and it wasn't. 3 weeks ago tomorrow, I noticed they were STILL charging me. So 2 weeks ago I walked into the gym and asked to speak to the manager. They called her down but she was just about to do a conference call or some BS so they took my number and said she would call me... she never did. So last week I got fed up and called. I spoke to the manager and although I was nice about it, I definitely made it clear that I was not happy. So once again she said she would deal with it... she said she would send me an email confirming that she did it, like she said she would last time and never did, so I hung up and waited for the email. Never got it. I was so mad at this point... I seriously thought I was gonna be charged again... So Friday came around and I checked my account... and so far they haven't charged me a thing! So glad that's dealt with.

Another issue is school... I've been trying to get in contact with someone for a bit about some accommodations. I have A.D.D. (Attention Deficit Disorder, although now they classify is as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) and after calling a couple times I finally spoke to someone about it and got the answers I needed.

And looking for a job! I messaged my boss a couple weeks ago about working... but she texted me back and said I wasn't needed for a while. Apparently things are slow at the Groomers and since I can't work with the dogs... I'm not really needed. So now I'm onto looking for a new job. I'm ridiculously picky when it comes to jobs. But I found my dream job... It's pretty much Pet Retail. The place is very laid back and it's not too far, it still concerns animals (the last time I was in there, there were cats chillin on random posts) and since I've had experience in retail I think I'd do well there... Except you have to apply online, and that location isn't hiring. The closest location is in Toronto. Hell. No. Nonetheless I'm going to walk in and hand in my resume one of these days.

Other than that, my life has been about, eating, sleeping, and watching make up tutorials on Youtube. Evan got a job working Night shift, it was supposed to be part time but since a couple people have left he's working 40 hrs a week. It would be easier if we were in the same town but since we're not, I never see him. Boo hoo. :(

Well, that's all the bitching I need to do for today! I hope you jaw surgery under-goers or survivers enjoyed this post and found it informative. And possibly found humor in my pathetic day to day life? Who knows.

I'm making it my mission to post before and after pictures this week, but until then here are a couple recent pictures of myself! Talk to you soon xo

A day after the car accident

In the hospital after the car accident.

again

I got bored idk.

Sasha :)

Blurry but this my profile 6weeks postop.

camping right after the car accident

baby goat :)

probably my favourite picture of my profile.

he kept biting my fingers lol :)

Chloe :)

again :)

Sasha's silly face

<3

Evan <3

my favs

<3