7 Months + 1 Day Post-Op!

I was planning on writing a 6 month post-op post, but never got around to it. So here is a 7 month post-op one instead.

Last month I had a check-up with my surgeon and everything went good. He is very happy with how my jaw/bite turned out from the surgery. And is also very happy with the healing of my stitches and jaw itself, and my jaw movement. Everything is basically back to normal. He even said that if he was my orthodontist, he would be taking off my braces already. But my actual orthodontist is a bit more of a perfectionist then my surgeon is.

I had an orthodontist appointment last week and she told me that she just wants to tweak one area on my left side where my teeth don't touch perfectly flat. So I'm currently wearing an elastic to bring my teeth closer together when they're closed. After that is tweaked to her liking, I will be able to get my braces off. Which makes me so happy. I'm hoping that within maybe 2 months they will be off.

Besides that, I don't have much else to say.

I've been very busy between work and being back in school. My course is going very well so far and I am doing good in it, but I am already starting to get worn out between having a full day of school, studying for tests, and working most evenings. So life has been busy. Next week is also my birthday. I won't be doing much at all for it, but I'm excited.

I hope everybody else is doing good!

5 months + 3 Days Post-Op (Photos!)

So here is the post of just photos that I promised!

Just some random ones:

Ones from Mark and I's photoshoot:

And here's one of my ring:

148 Days Post-Op

Wow I am a horrible blogger. I haven't posted in like... almost 3 months?

It is insane to think that in 5 days it will be 5 months since my surgery. Honestly, it feels like that it was forever ago to me. I feel like I am completely back to my normal self (just with more confidence which is always awesome!). I have no side effects what so ever anymore and rarely even think about the fact that I had a major jaw surgery done.

I also have a bunch of new stuff going on in my life recently which has been keeping me very busy.

In January I am going to be starting a Health Care Aide program which is exciting. I never really knew what I wanted to do for school or a career which is why it took me a few years to apply to anything. But I always had an interest in the health care field. And I think going through this surgery kind of helped me along- All of the nurses and health care aides that were taking care of me during my hospital stay were amazing, and made me think that I wanted to be able to help people like how they helped me. I'm kind of nervous for the course as some of the science stuff wasn't always the easiest for me. But I am also starting to get excited.

I have also been working a lot lately. As you can imagine a store like Walmart is starting to get very busy now with Christmas coming up. But it's nice working a lot as it means more money. I also had a chat with my manager the other day and he wants to get me trained on the customer service desk. I guess I've been doing something right at work if he wants to give me more responsibility.

And lastly... I'm surprised I could even wait this long to write this out.

I AM ENGAGED!

On October 27th (2 days before our 6 year dating anniversary) my boyfriend and I went out for dessert and drinks to celebrate our anniversary as well as his birthday (which was the day before). I had a feeling something was up... Because when we got home afterwards he told me that I wasn't allowed to come in right away as he had to set something up. And sure enough when I was finally allowed to come in he had the lights out with candles light, music playing, and rose petals on the ground leading me to him. Of course I said yes.

I am very excited, and have been looking at wedding stuff like non-stop since then. I think I am already driving my boyfriend insane. But I just can't help it!

That's all I really have to say right now. In a few days I will post again with a bunch of new photo updates. Last weekend my boyfriend and I actually got some photos taken that we plan on giving out to our family for Christmas. I should be getting them any day now, so I will put up a bunch of those.

I just noticed that I still keep saying "boyfriend" instead of "fiance". That just still seems like such a foreign word to me. I need to get used to it.

41 Days Post-Op (Photos!!)

So here's the post with just a bunch of random photos like I said I would do.

These are from last weekend, when my boyfriend and I went out camping at the Beach-

Bad picture of me, but the sunset over the lake was super pretty.

Just walking on the sand.

Candid shot my boyfriend took- Before surgery I would have hated a photo like this, but now it isn't terrible. My smile is bad though with all of the elastics.

These are from Monday after my ortho appointment-

Front.

Profile.

Smile- with no elastics or surgical hooks!!!

These ones are from last night-

Front.

Profile.

And this is from tonight-

My boyfriend was away on a trip to Disney World with his family the past 5 days and he just got home tonight. He bought me Minnie Mouse ears as a souvenir!!
I know what I'm going to be for Halloween this year now!

40 Days Post-Op

I am seriously so bad at updating this. But there's not a lot of new things going on with me, except...

I AM NOW ELASTIC AND SURGICAL WIRE FREE!!

At least during the day time.

I had an ortho appointment this morning, and everything is looking good. My orthodontist took off my surgical wires and just put a regular wire back into my braces. It is weird looking at they teeth now- The surgical wire and hooks hid them so much that now my teeth look big with not a lot on them. I was also told to stop wearing the elastics that my surgeon gave me. I now only have to wear one elastic on one side of my mouth while I sleep. My top jaw is a little bit off-centered so the one elastic should bring my jaw a bit over to that side.

I cannot express how excited I am to not have all of that extra metal and elastics in my mouth now. I was self-conscious about talking a lot or smiling at work before because I got quite a bit of questions from people. And it also just looked ugly in my opinion. Now I actually don't mind smiling with my new smile. Even though I will have my braces for a while still, I feel like my smile looks normal for once.

I have some photos to post... But I'm honestly too lazy right at the moment to do so as I just got home from work a little while ago and I still need to eat dinner.

So I will probably make a post tomorrow just strictly for photos.

28 Days Post-op

It has now been four weeks since my surgery, wow. The past two weeks feel like they have flown by. And I feel like I'm come a long way. I rarely have pain anymore except sometimes when I am chewing. And my energy level is slowly starting to return to normal.

I started back at work last Thursday, and lucky me, I started off working a 9 hour shift. I was exhausted after that first day. And I have no idea what I did to myself, but on top of being super tired I hurt my leg somehow. It sucked. Luckily I didn't forget as much stuff as I thought I had. But it did feel weird getting back into everything. And every day that goes by now I feel like I am starting to get more energy. My body was so not used to the kind of phyiscal-ness that I do at work, that the first few days my swelling came back quite a bit. One customer actually asked me if I had my wisdom teeth taken out because my cheeks were all puffy. Nobody else really mentioned anything to me though. Which I'm happy about because I find it hard and kind of awkward to explain my surgery. But at the same time I kind of felt disappointed that nobody said anything to me. I mean, I didn't go through all of this to just be the same in the end. I almost wish that it was more obvious.

On top of being back to work now, this week I've been pretty busy. Every year my city has this thing called Folklorama that they put on- It's like a big multi-cultural event where different cultures each have a pavilion where they showcase their culture. They have a show with music and dance, food/drinks, and some sort of cultural display. My boyfriend and I have gone to a few different pavilions this week for Folklorama. So far we've gone to see an Africa one, a Celtic Irish one, and an Indigenous Mardi Gras one. They're really fun to go to, and I love getting to try the different foods. If anybody is ever in my city (Winnipeg, Manitoba) in August you really should check it out. They even have a website with a bunch of information- http://www.folklorama.ca/

So as you can tell, I am pretty busy right now. And not much new is going on regarding my recovery.

This weekend I am going to be even more busy, so I probably won't be posting another update for a bit. I magically have the whole weekend off of work, so my boyfriend and I are going to go out camping and to the beach. Since this will probably be our last chance before the summer is over. We're also going to be getting out to some more Folklorama pavilions on Sunday. I am very looking forward to this weekend.

I hope everybody else is doing good! I'll try to update as soon as possible after the weekend and let you know about my camping adventures- I'm curious how my jaw is going to be sleeping on an air mattress. And I plan on taking a bunch of pretty pictures at the beach, so I'll hopefully have some more new ones to post. As I know I'm really bad with posting photos. I just feel like I never have good enough ones to warrant putting up.

22 Days Post-Op

I've gotten so bad at writing blog entries. But I don't feel like I have enough to say to be interesting. Not much has really been going on or changing lately.

On Friday and Saturday my boyfriend and I went out to visit my Grandparents (they live over the provincial border, about 2 hours away). We don't get to see them too often so it was nice getting out there for a few days. We just visited and spent some time outside. And they took us out fishing early Saturday morning. It was nice to just get away from my city and relax outdoors.

This morning I had another follow-up appointment with my surgeon. He's still happy with everything- he says my incisions look like they're healing really well, my range of motion in my jaw is good right now, and my swelling is still going down which is good. I don't have to see him again for another month now. And he's given the okay to my orthodontist to change up my elastics when I see her next, which will be August 20th. So I am still wearing my elastics the same way that I have been for about another 3 weeks. But then I think I should be good to get my surgical wire taken out and to go back to the regular elastics on my braces.

I barely feel any pain lately. I sometimes get a pain in the side of my jaw (I'm guessing where the metal brackets are holding my bone together) when I chew too much, but it hasn't been that bad. I probably haven't taken pain medication for over a week now. And my chin numbness keeps fading and fading every day. I feel like I've been clenching my teeth a lot in my sleep lately though due to the elastics. I hope I'm not grinding my teeth also. Just right when I wake up my jaw feels very tense and my teeth are a bit sensitive. Besides those small things, I feel pretty normal right now.

The only other new thing is that today is my first day back to work since surgery. I'm kind of nervous. I'm a cashier so I have to remember a lot of SCU codes for produce and such, and I feel like I've completely forgotten all of it. I think I've also forgotten the locker code to my locker at work.. Which is not a good thing as my uniform thing is in there. Hopefully it comes back to me once I'm actually there. And I really hope that I have the energy to start back. Although I don't have to do a lot of lifting, there are some stupid customers that put their heavy items onto the register belt and expect me to lift them, rather then me just using the hand gun. And I probably shouldn't be lifting things that are too heavy yet. I'm sure I'm just worrying way too much, and that everything will be fine. It just feels weird to be going back to work already.

In a few days I'll let you know how it is. I don't think I'll be coming on as much with work now, as I usually work quite a bit every week. But I'll try to update whenever I can.

Now here's some pictures from a few days ago:

Somewhat of a smile.

How far I can open my mouth right now.