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

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 :)

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