Reading through my older posts last night made me really glad of my decision to blog about this whole jaw surgery saga. Memories, in time to come, will all be but distant. And as long as technology doesn't fail, I will always be able to recall these events in my life through this blog down the road.
I also realised that most of what I've been writing about are on food, and not so much on how my recovery is progressing. Heeeee :)) I guess it's because things are getting along fine, and the improvements each day are all rather far and few. But in light of not wanting to forget the minute details of my recovery, and for fellow recovery mates who might need some assurance, I shall sum up on how recovery has been the past month (as much as I can remember).
Pain & Discomfort
Week 1 - Some pain is expected the immediate few days following the surgery. However, since you'll be put under morphine, it shouldn't be so much as that it becomes too hard to handle. In fact, I actually felt more uncomfortable than pain. My discomfort level was about 8-9/10, while the pain level was about 3-4/10.
There were two things which so caused my discomfort - tightness in my jaw and pain while swallowing. Firstly, this tightness in the jaw feels as if as someone put a rigid mold of your jaw (and made it like, 2mm smaller in size) over your face. And that feeling neverrrr goes away. It was especially tight in the mornings, but I would sometimes wake up in the middle of the night because it was just so tight. In all desperation, I'd lift my chin up slightly and look up to relief it. I'm not exactly sure if it's alright to do this, hence I did it really gently. But it did provide some temporary relief.
Secondly, the pain while swallowing feels like your worst sore throat, 5 times over. From what I understand, it is caused by the tube which they inserted down your throat during the surgery, which causes some abrasion I think. Whatever it is, it brought great difficulty in swallowing anything at all during the first 3 days, to the extent where I was afraid to swallow my liquid medications, water, Ensure and soup. Every swallow was a deliberate action, and required much thought and mental preparation. I know, it totally sounds silly to a normal person, but at that time, I really thought: Thank God for the ability to swallow and eat food.
Week 2 - Pain/tightness in the jaw gradually reduced day by day and was almost all gone by the end of the week. The sore throat also began to subside and was totally gone by this week.
Week 3 to 4 - Besides the pain from being unable to eat the foods that you want, you also might experience some from sore teeth due to the rubberbands for traction purposes. Both was equally painful to me.
Nausea
I felt nausea only once on the 2nd night (I think?) in the hospital. Not sure what caused it, but I think the most probably explanation would be side effects from the morphine (though I was off it for quite some time already). Either that, or the meds.
Swelling
Week 1 - The swelling for me was over a rather unusually large area. While most patient's would only be around the lower parts of the face, mine was all the way up to the temples and eyes. Just swell. My eyelids felt like I cried a river the night before, and I literally didn't have a nose bridge.. not that it was high to start with, as with typical asian noses. The surgeon said though unusual, he wasn't worried because the swelling was soft and not hard, which meant that it was just water retention and not blood-filled. The lips were also terribly swollen and there's no way you could close your lips up. I had so much trouble spitting out the mouth gargle because of that, and I had to resort to pushing the liquid to the front of my mouth, and then blowing it out. The end result: bubbles and more bubbles out from my mouth. Way to go.
Week 2 - Swelling subsides the most noticeably during the first three weeks (I feel). At this point, my face was still mighty swollen, enough to earn stares as I walk around in public. I had those cute little chipmunk cheeks. Hurhur.
Week 3 to 4 - Swelling was quite minimal and the differences each day decreases. Towards the end of week 4, I look almost normal, save some residual swelling on my left cheek (it was an uneven swelling for me since the first day). Someone commented that it was really not obvious at all, and couldn't really tell that I went for surgery haha.
Appetite
Week 1 to 2 - Appetite was really poor these two weeks, probably due to the sore throat. In addition, I think my stomach really shrank because I didn't eat much, and even if I tried, my stomach would have (what feels like) gastric pains, whether I ate or not. Thank God that they didn't last longer than a few hours each time though. But I'd say just continue to consume your liquids slowly and work the stomach up. This didn't last beyond the first week for me. I can't stress enough to
Week 3 to 4 - Appetite starts to increase considerably and the clear soup diet just will not be satisfying enough! Though I was like, filled with liquid, but I was still craving for more food. I think it would be a good time to start introducing blends and ice cream and all that sweet stuff. There's no other time when you eat without thinking twice (and thrice!) about the calories!
Sleep
Week 1 - Sleep is very, very interrupted. Two hours straight of sleep is a gem. Partly due to the nurse constantly waking you for your medications and checking your BP, and partly because of the discomforts that makes you a really light sleeper. I sometime gave up on sleeping and just stare into space.
Week 2 - Sleeping is more continuous, though I still wake up at least once or twice in the night.
Week 3 to 4 - Sleep became my greatest enemy once again, because I couldn't wake up in the mornings. Which is good... means that I'm sleeping well.
Energy Level
Week 1 to 2 - Due to the poor appetite, you won't feel like getting out of bed much. At least I didn't. But I think it's important to try walking around to work your muscles and stamina. The more you move, the more normal you'd feel.
Week 3 to 4 - By the end of the third week, I felt almost normal. Not that I can run a marathon (no high impact activities till 6 weeks post-op ya), but I could most definitely walk around without panting like mad, like I did in week 2. I had a lot of energy to think about food, that's for sure hahaha.
Oral Hygiene
Week 1 to 3 - Don't bother with the toothbrush. Keep it sealed in the packaging and just gargle your way. Make sure you gargle diligently and meticulously with the syringe though. Don't want any infection to set in.
Week 4 - Toothbrush upgrade! But be gentle with the pressure because your gums are utterly useless in detecting any sensations. Brushing is only limited to the outer and some parts of the inner (as much as your mouth is able to open to manoeuvre the brush).
Jaw's Range of Motion
Week 1 to 2 - Can generally say that you can't open at all, because you'll be banded shut and even with just the rubberbands for traction, the muscles are still not strong enough to work against the force of the bands.
Week 3 to 4 - By the end of week 4, I could open wide enough to easily fit one finger, up till the middle joint. It takes a lot of effort and jaw exercises (which I haven't been too diligent with. heh :\ ).
Bite Deviation
From the first week when I had a peek at my teeth alignment, I already noticed that it was not center to center. Not sure if the surgeons could not fit it accurately enough during the surgery, or that my bite shifted a few days after the surgery. For my case, because there was a lot of twisting and moving of my jaws in three planes involved, I can't say much as it's really not an easy work to do, to begin with. But the following weeks after the first, I had rubberbands to pull my bite nearer to the center. I began with about 3mm off center, now it's about 1.5mm off alignment. I don't really expect it to improve much anymore actually, because I think I'm already out of the malleable window period.
I hope the summary has been of help to at least one person out there. I think your outlook on life during the recovery period plays a really big part. I mean, if surgery has already been decided, Recovery is a road inevitable. And since you're already on it, why not make it a memorable experience? For myself, I get by each day looking forward to every meal (maybe not so much at the beginning though haha) and getting all the food I always wanted to eat, but didn't (mostly because of calories LOL). Maybe you should find something to look forward to too and chirp about it!
I will probably compile a series of day-by-day photos tracking the swelling from the beginning sometime later , when I see that my swelling is almost all gone. (sorry I'm kind of sluggish about having to sieve through all the photos at every post, that's why).
Hope all is well with you all, and I'll be posting again soon! Take care!
Good...very detailed tracking of your recovery journey... No pain No gain...like what Dr.Tan said that by the end of your recovery..you will be beautiful-ler...:))
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