So Gross

I kind of wish I had taken a picture of this, but it was so gross it might have made those with weak stomachs vomit. Last night after dinner we came back to the house we are renting and I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth. Since dinner was the first time I had taken my bands off this was to be the first time I was able to brush my tongue since I had surgery. Because I was only able to open my mouth a tiny bit even to eat I could not stick my tongue out very far to brush it but what I could get through my teeth contained one of the most disgusting things I have ever seen. I think the only way to describe it was to say that it looked like a very thick layer of mold was growing on my tongue. It took much scraping and a ton of brushing to remove it. Perhaps when I can finally open wide and brush the back of my tongue I will take a picture so you can see the nastiness that is a tongue that has not seen the light of day nor a toothbrush in weeks.

Post Op Surgeon Visit #3 and the Vineyard

Yesterday was my 3rd post-op visit with the surgeon. Overall he was really pleased. He said he was amazed that all of my swelling was almost gone only 2 weeks after surgery and everyone in the office was really shocked at how quickly I had healed. The surgeon said I could now begin to take the bands off when I ate and he taught me how to remove them. I thought that when I removed the bands I would be able to open fairly wide, however, I could barely open wide enough to get a spoon in. I asked the surgeon if he thought it would be okay for me to start running again and he said that because I had the infection last week he wanted to wait at least another week before he gave me the green light to resume running. Hopefully when I see him again next week he will give me the okay because I am getting a bit tired of walking for an hour and a half everyday to accomplish what I could with just 40 minutes of running.

As part of our anniversary, Jonathan and I are spending a long weekend in Martha's Vineyard. We got to the island at 7PM last night and decided to go out to dinner to see what kinds of foods I could eat. We ended up driving to Edgartown and eating at an Italian place called Chesca's. I removed my bands and ordered polenta and was able to use a fork in order to put some of it into my mouth. The biggest problem is opening my mouth wide enough to get the fork in which is fairly painful and causes me to get most of my food on my lip (which can't feel and thus do not know is there). So basically I put some food on a fork, try to get it in my mouth and then quickly with my other hand run a napkin over my lip to make sure I do not have food everywhere. It is really time consuming and requires a good deal of effort to get even a little bit of food in my mouth and ensure I don't look like a hot mess.

After the polenta we ordered a chocolate cake with mocha buttercream and ice cream for dessert. It was still difficult to get the food in my mouth but we ended up finishing the whole thing together and I, for the first time in two weeks, felt full, happy and completely satisfied.

Anniversary

Today actually marks the anniversary of 2 events in my life, one much more important than the other, but an anniversary nonetheless. Lets save the important anniversary for last. Today is two weeks since my surgery. I am now back to going into the office and most of the swelling in my face is gone. I am down another pound since last week, so I have lost a total of 7 lbs since the surgery and my wedding and engagement rings are super loose on my finger. I still have no feeling in my lower lip or my chin and the side of my jaw that had the infection still feels lumpy compared to the other side of my jaw.

Today is also my and Jonathan's wedding anniversary. To celebrate I got some cupcakes from a great bakery in Boston called Sweet and was hoping to put them in the blender with some ice cream and milk and have a great shake. The only problem is that when I blended the cupcake it didn't taste any different than a normal vanilla shake and I was really disappointed. Since we couldn't go out to eat, Jonathan and I went to see 500 Days of Summer. On the ride home Jonathan asked if I was craving certain foods and I said I really wanted cheese and pizza but in general I just wanted to be able to not have to work for my food. I just wanted to pop one of the pieces of the mango I was cutting this evening right after I cut them, or lick the icing off those cupcakes instead of having to wait to add all the other ingredients and make a salsa I could drink. Maybe I am just impatient, but I like to taste the ingredients of things I am making as I make them and not being able to do that makes me unhappy.

Below are the two week pictures. Jaw is much less swollen.

X-rays-Pre and Post Op

My orthodontist finally loaded the x-rays taken last week to my online account so now you can see the difference in my bite that the surgery created. On the top is my x-ray one week before surgery. You can really see my overbite on that one. On the bottom is the x-ray from a week after the surgery. A few things to note: obviously the pins in my jaw. When I blew up the photo it looked like there were 6 pins in my jaw and I believe there are 3 on each side of the jaw. Another thing is that my bite is now aligned and if you look at the curve of my chin (not the bones but the soft tissue) you will see that the curve/depression is much less severe in the post-op x-ray. It is a subtle change that is probably not detectable by anyone but my surgeon, but an improvement nonetheless.

Back to work

One positive thing about the surgeon's visit yesterday was that he said I could go back to work. I am very excited about this because even though I was only working from home for about 6 days, I was starting to really get sick of having no interaction with any other human beings everyday save for the contractors working on the bathroom (them and my cats, of course). I hated being inside and having to communicate everything over email and using the remote desktop system our work has set up because it is painfully slow and tends to go down quite frequently. I had taken to emailing all the documents I needed to my personal account so I could avoid working on the remote desktop but it was really tedious and I was constantly having to flip back and forth between my home desktop and the remote desktop in order to find documents and files. I know a good deal of people who work from home, but I honestly cannot see how they do it without going absolutely insane. In the same way you sometimes get sick of your office or you dread going into work, I was starting to get kind of sick of my own house. By the time Jonathan came home every night I was climbing the walls wanting to just get out of the house, even if it was only to go to the gym. This was actually kind of a good thing for us because we started doing things we usually don't do during weekday evenings, like going out to the movies. In the past 2 weeks we have gone out to see 4 movies (Inglorious Basterds, Time Travelers Wife, In the Loop, and the Hurt Locker) and it has been really great and I hope it is something that we can keep up even though I am returning to work.

Post-op surgeon visit #2

Actually it is my third appointment with the surgeon since my surgery because I had to go in when I had that infection, but it was my second scheduled visit. During me first visit the surgeon told me that during this appointment they would teach me how to take the bands that are holding my jaw/teeth together. I was super excited about this because that would mean I would get to use a spoon and my tongue and could eat some soft foods. Wednesday night is Jonathan and my wedding anniversary and I was excited that we would be able to go out to eat. I had it all planned out, we would go to Al Forno and I would order gnocchi and soup and I would feel full and satisfied.

At the appointment the surgeon said everything looked great, but that he did not want me taking the bands off just yet. So now I have to wait until Thursday until I will be able to put a spoon in my mouth and try eating soft foods. I am really bummed and disappointed but I guess it is only 3 more days. Looks like on our anniversary I will be eating cake blenderized into a milkshake.

Even more than the food, however, I was looking forward to being able to brush the insides of my teeth and my tongue for the first time in 2 weeks. I can only imagine how good it is going to feel when I can finally open my mouth and put a tooth brush inside and get my mouth and teeth super clean.

Food cravings

Not until this weekend had I really been craving any foods. As I mentioned earlier, my liquid diet is very flavorful (thanks in large part to the folks at Gracies) and I feel like I am getting the nutrients and calories I need to work, exercise (walking only) and be fairly productive. However I am starting to get sick of drinks with various combinations of ice cream, milk, peanut butter and chocolate and there is only so many strawberries, raspberries, mangoes and bananas I can take in one day. And even though the food is flavorful and makes me full, it does not make me all that satisfied. Even though a banana or a piece of cake or chips and salsa (one of my new favorites in the blender) taste the same in liquid form as they do in their 'real' form, it is much less satisfying to drink them than it is to eat them.


Case in point. Last evening after drinking a glass of salsa I decided to blenderize a piece of Italian Marscapone Torte from Pastiche, an awesome bakery and cafe in Providence, with some milk and vanilla ice cream. The result was a shake that tasted amazing, but left me feeling really unsatisfied. There is really something missing when you are drinking a piece of cake. You miss being able to taste cream and then vanilla cake and then espresso as opposed to all of those flavors blended together. Plus, and probably most importantly, you miss the textures. No spongy cake or smooth marscapone, just liquid. That for me is one of the worst things about the liquid diet.

The other terrible thing about having your jaw and teeth banded shut is the inability to use your tongue. One of my favorite things when I am cooking is licking the spoon or my fingers when I get food on them. There really is nothing better than running your finger along the edge of a mixing bowl after you have mixed up a batch of brownies and stealing a taste of the chocolaty batter. Your tongue is also very useful because it allows you to taste the things you are cooking while you are cooking them so that you can adjust the seasonings if need be. Not being able to open your mouth prevents you from engaging in this type of activity. You basically cook, blenderize and then taste and try to make adjustments from there. The most infuriating thing, however, is seeing cream, ice cream or yogurt right in front of your face and just wanting to put your finger in and taste them, but being unable to do so. Such is life, I guess.

Here are a few of the things I have been craving: popcorn, a baguette with butter on it, pizza bagels, a bagel with cream cheese, donuts and hot dogs. Almost all of these things my husband has eaten in front of me in the past week (excluding the hot dogs and donuts) and I have been really jealous when I watch him eat them. I have been trying hard not to watch when he eats so I won't crave those things as much and feel upset that I cannot eat them, but it is not always that easy.