The week has felt long, but at the same time went by quickly. My swelling continues to drop, numbness is about the same outside of a little slight burning starting in my left bottom lip, and the pain continues to wane in to general soreness and tenderness. My incisions are still super tender, and in general my right side feels harder and more tender than my left. I have a sneaky suspicion that there is either a hematoma on my right side, or possibly a blocked saliva gland. My left side feels pretty similar to how both sides of my face felt last time.....except for that whole section where my jaw bone jutted out of my face. The other issue that has popped up is a pretty gnarly yeast infection in my mouth. I am prone to them, especially when on the hard core full spectrum antibiotics I've been on the last week, and was hoping I could avoid it but sadly I didn't. Felt the corners of my lips go first, which is where I typically get oral yeast infections, and then when I got the first look at my tongue the other day after taking my bands off for the first time, it was SUPER cauliflowery. More than normal unbrushed food build up from the last week. And then after brushing it off (which was incredibly difficult), it burned. I definitely know what a yeast infection looks and feels like, and that's it! My surgeon called me in 10 days of diflucan to take, so lets hope that will resolve that.
I saw my orthodontist today for the first time. Everybody was super warm and supportive in the office. All of my brackets look good and there is nothing broken, which is just completely opposite of my last surgery. I was a mangled broken mess inside my mouth with the ortho after my first surgery. Not sure if that is the ortho's fault or the surgeons fault. At this point I am going to consider both since they both did nothing but screw everything up. Anywho, ortho came over and took a looksie. He thinks I am not quite biting in the splint right. Thinks I'm behind the notches in the front where my bottom teeth should be sitting, IE: I have to slide my jaw forward a little more, meaning I am left with an overbite right now. Ugh. BUT... I am not going crazy worrying right now because I told him the way my teeth are sitting in the splint right now, my molars are sitting in their little pre-made grooves perfectly, and when he has me move my lower jaw forward, the molar is no longer in it's little groove for it.
So, he's going to talk to my surgeon and pow wow before my appointment with him on Monday, and then right after the appointment with him, he wants to see me to give another check. He can't really do anything in terms of treatment until my splint is off, but it's great that he wants to keep an eye on things and is continually talking with my surgeon to make sure everything is looked at, discussed, and taken care of. I asked him if it was catastrophically off or if we were in the ballpark of normal where these are issues that are normally fixed post op. He said we're not catastrophically off. Phew. I mean, my last ortho said that too, but I knew in my gut that things were bad. This time I do tend to think we're going to be in the normal range of what gets kicked over to ortho to fine tune. At least as far as I can tell. And speaking of what I can tell, when he sat me down in the chair today and asked me how I thought everything looked. I told him my biggest issue right now is the class II on the right (which was planned, but it's still sticking out to me), and I felt like maybe I was every slightly canted now in the opposite direction on my top jaw. He got super interested and responded, "well, I want to take a look, because there are a few patients who come along and know their stuff and you're one of them. Anything you've ever said to me, you've never been wrong, so I trust you when you tell me something is wrong and I want to make sure we check it out." Wow. What a difference from sitting in my orthodontists chair a month post op after my first operation. I pleaded with that guy. Told him I could feel my jaw bones were all out of alignment and this was NOT an ortho problem. He just brushed me right off and continued to string me along, moving my teeth wildly all over the place for nothing when I knew from the start he was wrong. Just another example of the night and day difference in my treatment this time around. So, ortho is going to talk with my surgeon and hopefully we have a better idea on Monday what the game plan is. This is exactly why I have been saying I don't want to get my hopes up even though things look MUCH better this time. The difference this time is this team is on top of their shit and they won't brush me off and wait for me to disappear. Instead I am confident they're going to step up and do whatever needs to be done to get this right.
Still taking things slow. I drove for the first time today, and even then I was nervous since I am still pretty foggy and out of it. I got out in public for the first time yesterday. The grocery store, and I was waiting to get all the stares, but I actually didn't get much! I was surprised! Took a walk around this park behind my house the day before. Like last time, I have energy in little spurts (like, only the 10 minute walk in the park that one day) and then I am pooped. Just have to keep reminding myself this again is a slow process!
I saw my orthodontist today for the first time. Everybody was super warm and supportive in the office. All of my brackets look good and there is nothing broken, which is just completely opposite of my last surgery. I was a mangled broken mess inside my mouth with the ortho after my first surgery. Not sure if that is the ortho's fault or the surgeons fault. At this point I am going to consider both since they both did nothing but screw everything up. Anywho, ortho came over and took a looksie. He thinks I am not quite biting in the splint right. Thinks I'm behind the notches in the front where my bottom teeth should be sitting, IE: I have to slide my jaw forward a little more, meaning I am left with an overbite right now. Ugh. BUT... I am not going crazy worrying right now because I told him the way my teeth are sitting in the splint right now, my molars are sitting in their little pre-made grooves perfectly, and when he has me move my lower jaw forward, the molar is no longer in it's little groove for it.
So, he's going to talk to my surgeon and pow wow before my appointment with him on Monday, and then right after the appointment with him, he wants to see me to give another check. He can't really do anything in terms of treatment until my splint is off, but it's great that he wants to keep an eye on things and is continually talking with my surgeon to make sure everything is looked at, discussed, and taken care of. I asked him if it was catastrophically off or if we were in the ballpark of normal where these are issues that are normally fixed post op. He said we're not catastrophically off. Phew. I mean, my last ortho said that too, but I knew in my gut that things were bad. This time I do tend to think we're going to be in the normal range of what gets kicked over to ortho to fine tune. At least as far as I can tell. And speaking of what I can tell, when he sat me down in the chair today and asked me how I thought everything looked. I told him my biggest issue right now is the class II on the right (which was planned, but it's still sticking out to me), and I felt like maybe I was every slightly canted now in the opposite direction on my top jaw. He got super interested and responded, "well, I want to take a look, because there are a few patients who come along and know their stuff and you're one of them. Anything you've ever said to me, you've never been wrong, so I trust you when you tell me something is wrong and I want to make sure we check it out." Wow. What a difference from sitting in my orthodontists chair a month post op after my first operation. I pleaded with that guy. Told him I could feel my jaw bones were all out of alignment and this was NOT an ortho problem. He just brushed me right off and continued to string me along, moving my teeth wildly all over the place for nothing when I knew from the start he was wrong. Just another example of the night and day difference in my treatment this time around. So, ortho is going to talk with my surgeon and hopefully we have a better idea on Monday what the game plan is. This is exactly why I have been saying I don't want to get my hopes up even though things look MUCH better this time. The difference this time is this team is on top of their shit and they won't brush me off and wait for me to disappear. Instead I am confident they're going to step up and do whatever needs to be done to get this right.
Still taking things slow. I drove for the first time today, and even then I was nervous since I am still pretty foggy and out of it. I got out in public for the first time yesterday. The grocery store, and I was waiting to get all the stares, but I actually didn't get much! I was surprised! Took a walk around this park behind my house the day before. Like last time, I have energy in little spurts (like, only the 10 minute walk in the park that one day) and then I am pooped. Just have to keep reminding myself this again is a slow process!
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