Update on numbness: There are quite a few areas that are ssllowwwllyy becoming less numb. On both sides of my nose and below my eyes I can definitely feel that these areas are improving. Just below my cheek bone on the right side is probably 40% numb, and it's a little less than that on the left side. My septum used to be numb on the bottom but the feeling there is coming back. My lips are probably 30% numb, but enough to be annoying. When I touch them they just feel tingly all the time. On the far right side of my upper lip, probably about 1/4 of the lip is pretty darn numb. There is no numbness along the jaw line, but directly on my chin on the front of my face is the numbest area. I poked around with a paperclip today to see what I could and couldn't feel, and it seems to me I can feel everything, which is a great sign, and hopefully means all of the feeling will be restored at some point! My nose is starting to drive me nuts. The right side is the only side numb, and it's only above the nostril area and maybe 1/2 way up the nose. It tingles a lot and gets itches that I cannot itch! It's like having a piece of fluff near your nose and you can't make the feeling go away! My upper gums are completely numb, but on the lower gums, only the front portion is. The chin numbness doesn't really bother me, but the skin across my chin just feels REALLY tight all the time-- I am not sure if this is caused by the numbness or swelling.. can anyone weigh in on that?

My lips not meeting is starting to bug me. It makes my mouth look weird because my lip sits up so high and I have to do a lot of work to pull it down to meet my bottom lip in order to talk.

I continue to hear "You were beautiful before, but now you look even more beautiful!" It's pretty difficult to both verbally respond to that, and come up with an emotional response for myself. I think it's great that everyone seems to have the same opinion, but I am ready for my own opinion to match up! I think once my continuous lip issues are sorted out, I will be able to better see how I am going to look in the long run. Right now, my lip is no longer very swollen, but I feel like my mouth is kind of alien like!

I am finally feeling a difference in the stiffness of my face. It is definitely starting to get better.

My pictures for the next few days will be sub-par. My mom is out of town, so I have to take the pictures on my own, and they don't turn out as well!

I saw Dr. M this morning, and everything went great. I love hearing how much he OO's and AHH's while looking at my bite. Every time he seems completely blown away by his work. I heard a lot of 'Wow, it's right on. Everything looks great.' Such a good feeling! I asked him about when the splint was going to be coming off, and he said 6 weeks post-op. Gah, I was hoping I could get it off in closer to 5 weeks post-op. I am ready to be done with this thing. It really is better than I thought it was going to be, I would hate to have the type of splint that goes over your teeth like in pictures I have seen- but the one I have is like having to wear your retainer 24/7, having to eat with it and never being able to take it out and clean it. I don't think there are any solids caught up there, but there are times it just tastes terrible and it's disgusting. Oh well, soon enough!

Dr. S ended up wanting me to come over to his clinic rather than him coming over to the surgery center. They considered taking off some of the surgical hooks and I got really excited, but then they decided to leave them on as they didn't find them to be irritating anything. I don't think they're doing any damage, but I remember when I got them on they just made it feel like I had more metal in my mouth and my lip was pushed further from my teeth, so if I could get rid of a few of them it might give me some extra room in there. Dr. M. told me Dr. S. is more in charge of my elastics at this point, so even though Dr. M. gave me the really strong elastics today, I asked Dr. S. if there was any chance I could get lighter ones. He gave me 1/4 elastics, which are the step up from the ones Dr M had me in, which were 3/16. I have actually been wearing the 1/4 size ones anyway -they were in a random bag of elastics I found so I started using them - but getting the OK makes me feel a bit better about using them before I was supposed to. I have been wearing the 1/4 ones during the day, and the 3/16 ones at night. Happy to be done with the really tight ones though, they were giving me headaches! I am still looking forward to not having to wear them at all during the day! Tina (and anyone else who can answer this)- what changes did you have in your elastics routine? How long 3-4 weeks post op were you able to leave them out? Are you only wearing them at night now? Any changes in band size? Rhianna- What's your progress with the elastics?

Dr. M. told me to set up an appointment with him 2 weeks from now, which will fall at about 5.5 weeks post op. Hoping the splint comes off then. The idea of having it off even ONE day earlier excites me! I have an appointment set with Dr. S. for July 6, and this will be my first real ortho appointment (although I have already seen him twice) where I will get the surgical hooks removed, wires changed and xrays/photos taken.

My lips moves so oddly when I talk. It doesn't only feel like it, it looks really weird too. Does anyone else feel that way?

The top picture is me biting down with my lips relaxed, the second one is me pulling my lips together. See how weird it looks?

I was so nervous as I was walking in to work! I had really positive feedback from a lot of people. Quite a few people said I looked really good, and two of my managers told me I was even prettier than before! My coworker who sent me the care package told me I look like a model now! Everyone keeps saying 'You were pretty before, but now you are SO pretty!' and I have gotten a lot of 'WOW's haha. It makes me thankful I don't look like I did before, now that I know what everyone thought of me! Hehe :) I really am smiling more with every compliment I hear. Two coworkers told me they didn't even recognize me when I walked in, whatever! I did a lot of answering questions and talking about my recovery with everyone today. I had some people who knew exactly what was happening, and others who just knew I was out of work for a while, so there really was a wide range of reactions. It's funny to hear how blown away some people are. I have been making comments about my face and lip still being swollen to everyone, so people don't think my face is stuck all stiff and weird forever. It was great to get nothing but positive feedback from everyone. I am not in a place where I don't like my face, thank god, but I am also not in a place where I absolutely love how everything turned out. I am positive I will get there though, it will just take a bit of time to get used to looking in the mirror! I am absolutely loving my profile though!

Less than 3 weeks until I can get this silly splint out of my mouth! It's not terrible, but it does make my speech more sloppy and eating a bit more difficult. Dr M called me yesterday to check on how I was doing. How great is that? The man juggles between 4 different locations he works at, along with however many patients he has, and he takes time out to see how I am doing. He asked me if I would like to switch my appointment with him to Thursday instead of Friday, because on Thursdays Dr S (who is located directly across the hall from Dr M) is in all day and that way he can come over to the surgery center during my appointment to check in how I am doing as well. That way, I can see both Drs in one appointment. I think I will ask Dr M about the splint at my appointment... maybe I can get it off closer to 2 weeks from now :)

I tried to use my waterpik yesterday. I had never used it before, between moving home and my time of surgery, it never made it out of the box. Anyway, I think I better go over the instructions a few times-- I used about 3/4 of the water tank thing in a total of about 10 seconds. I clearly am doing something wrong :-P

Current annoyance: the upper gums. They are so numb when I touch them with a toothbrush, but they are always uncomfortable, if that's even possible. It alternates between feeling like there is NO saliva reaching up there so my gums feel completely dry, or it feels like all of my saliva pools up there and so it feels slimy and gross. The way the splint is held in place is there are little wires that go in between my teeth and are 'tied' at the top of a few teeth, so I have little metal twisty tie looking things near my gumline above my tooth (really creepy looking, btw). I am wondering if I am beginning to feel these or what is causing so much discomfort. Maybe there are still sores up there?

Every day, things seem to get better and better. I am not going to lie and say I am done complaining, it's in my DNA, I am a complainer haha, but I am also really good at looking at the bright side of things. I have been blessed in so many ways throughout surgery and my recovery. MY LIP IS COMING DOWN and that is a miracle in itself :)

I found this site yesterday that has a bunch of before/after pictures people have posted... I thought it was pretty fun to flip through so I thought I would share! http://www.jawsurgeryblog.com/forums/forum/before-after-photos

Back to work this afternoon :)

I do notice that my lip is definitely more swollen in the morning than it is in the afternoon. I took pictures earlier this morning, but because my lip has gone down again after a few hours, I took some new ones.

I have probably put on makeup less than a handful of times since having surgery. Directly under my eyes is numb, so putting on eyeliner/mascara down there feels so odd, I don't like it!

My face is still SO shiny! I am ready for that to go away!

I literally feel like it was 3 days ago that I was writing my two week post, and now it's been THREE WEEKS. It's crazy!

My nephew's birthday party turned out great, but I literally was talking the whole entire time. Every family member and friend wanted to know everything about my recovery from surgery and how I was feeling currently. I think I talked solely about surgery for 3 hours straight. I even had two people come up to me (close family members) and tell me they didn't even recognize me when they first saw me. Now that is something I do NOT want to hear! I don't want to NOT be recognized. I don't think they meant it in a hurtful way by any means, but it was still a bit hard to hear! I had a ton of people tell me how great I looked. It really was nice to hear, and I am sure I will get to the point that I will think the same thing about myself! In time...!

I ate SO much after the party! Due to my super slow pace eating plus non-stop talking it was hard to get a whole lot in when everyone was over. I chowed down on a brat, potato salad, bean hot dish, and fruit as the party was coming to a close, and it was all amazing! I had my elastics off for nearly 4 hours at one time, whoops! I meant to take them off just to eat, but I was so busy and distracted, I didn't get them back on for a while. Oh well !

I am thrilled about my lip! I didn't look in the mirror all day yesterday, and my sister's fiancé said something about my lip looking really good so I thought I'd check out the progress, and I was literally blown away. I posted a picture yesterday, and I know it may not look like it went down a ton, but this stupid lip has literally gone down slower than snail speed. The fact that it visibly went down so much in a matter of 4 hours was insane. I feel like today it looks a bit puffier than it did yesterday, but I could just be imagining it :-P

My sister has switched from calling me a square face to telling me I look really pretty! Once again, progress!

This whole process is such an emotional rollercoaster, but I am really feeling better about things. My concerns are starting to disappate and I feel like I like my face today a little better than yesterday. This journey really is the biggest test of patience I have ever had!

Back to work tomorrow! I will be working Tues-Sat, so hopefully all of that talking will further help my lip go down!

Sorry for my total lack of effort to look good in these pictures. I was bumming around my house all day working on catching up on my summer class, and was too lazy to get ready. I also took the pictures with a different camera so the quality is a bit off. Sorry!

My mind has been blown, and I couldn't wait until tomorrow to share something awesome with you guys!

My top lip has literally decreased in half in a matter of hours! It really is extraordinary! I will talk all about the party in my post tomorrow, but all of that non stop talking I did today with family and friends really must have worked wonders. LOOK at my lip earlier today, and a picture I just took this afternoon. Click on each photo to make it bigger! WHOA! I am THRILLED! I may even go back to work tomorrow, we'll see :)

This is the photo I posted this morning

and this one I just took!

Today we are having my nephews 1st birthday party at my parents house, with tons of family and friends coming over. I know it's going to be a bit difficult for me, because there are so many people who have yet to see me post-op. I am making progress at being OK around people I don't know with my new post-op look, but being around people I DO know is still something I am not feeling prepared for.

My boyfriend and I tried to get some ice-cream at the shop I mentioned the other day. We parked the car, started walking towards the shop, and then I spotted 5 girls I went to high school with and was friends with, and I immediately bailed. I made my boyfriend hustle back to the car with me, and we picked up ice cream somewhere else. Holy, stressful. I think seeing people you haven't connected with in a while is even harder than seeing other family and friends!

I have to show off a few pictures, because this little man has grown to be the love of my life and I still cannot believe he is turning 1.

Isn't he just precious?

I broke some post-op surgery rules last night, but I think I am in the clear. The OTHER love of my life, my dog Meeko, is having a lot of issues with arthritis and his breathing. He fell off the couch yesterday, and now is walking with a major hunch back. He doesn't seem to be able to straighten out his spine. Anyway, I was sobbing and sobbing and then came the runny nose and I couldn't take it so I blew my nose. I think Dr M said not until 4 weeks post-op, but I didn't care and did it anyway. I seem to be okay, hopefully no damage is done! Anyway, if I could ask all of you a huge favor, to send good thoughts my way for Meeko to get better, I would appreciate it so much. He is 15 and he has been my everything since I was 7, so I need him to be okay. Thanks!

I am so thankful for all of your comments in response to me questioning the new look. When I have been looking through other blogs, many people would question their looks post-op, and I would be thinking they were NUTS because they looked SO much better than they did before! I am hoping this is case with me, that it will just take time to get used to the new look. It is so helpful to hear all of you think the outcome is positive. I know that I was unhappy with a lot of things cosmetically before, and these things were fixed, so I am sure in the long run I WILL be happy. At this point, I think it's just hard knowing what I will look like in the long run. When I look in the mirror now, I am so distracted by my super shiny acne filled skin, puffy cheeks and swollen upper lip, that it's hard to see beyond these things. The shiny chin draws my attention there, and then I feel like I have a massive, manly jaw!

I can't wait till the point where I can type a post saying 'jaw surgery isn't on my mind 24/7 anymore'. That'll be the day!