51 Days: Follow Up Number 2,340,892 and a half

I feel like I've been split in two, and half of me feels like I've been doing this forever and the other half just feels like the surgery was last week and I'm still a ways away from being healed.

Anyway, yesterday I had another follow up with Dr. Voorhees. We will definitely be taking the plate out next Friday, because while it is no longer inflamed and bothering me (thanks to the Peridex rinse), it is still exposed, which is kind of bad when it comes to bones and such. I'll skip breakfast and lunch, go in at 1:30, he'll drug me up, cut open my face again, unscrew the plate (he told me I can keep it, yay/gross!), and then I get to go home and have a really crappy weekend. But he has assured me that it's not even as bad as a tooth extraction, so we'll see.

My bands are lighter and much more optional now, I can start sleeping on the side of my face again (hallelujah! apparently I'm the only person ever who can't sleep on her back), and my diet is almost unrestricted. I just have to stop when it hurts. Which is just general good advice to follow.

Stellar photography 10/14/11

My newest issue is my right "cheek". I say cheek, because that's what you or I would call it when describing it. Dr. Voorhees calls it my maxilla. It still feels "loose" to me, but Dr. Voorhees got in there and wiggled it around and said it's fine. So, it's still healing, but on track. But, I did start taking some calcium supplements because I'm paranoid.

At this point I am 39 days from the promised 90-day 95% recovered land, so I'm just trying to stay afloat until then. It's weird, stuff you would never think about in your normal life makes it hard to keep up morale after something like this. You think if you can make it through acute yet relatively short initial period, that you won't have problems with the after period, but it's proving to be difficult, just in a different way. Until yesterday, I couldn't sleep normally, I can't eat normally, or talk normally, or even wash my face normally. It's been exhausting, but at least every day is a little better.

Oh yeah, I got a couple awesome bumper stickers over the weekend: