Day 9 - Working from Home

I woke up at 9:15 AM and worked from home all day today - the full 9-5 PM! It felt good to get back some normalcy in my life. I had to lie down a couple of times during the day, once at about 12 PM and then again at 5 PM.

My sinuses were going crazy today. My nose kept dripping of the mucousy-blood mixture. I thought the blood was supposed to stop by Day 10 but today's been the worst day for it. My stitches haven't dissolved either which has me a little concerned too. My upper lip and the right side of my nose kind of stings. Perhaps its a combination of the numbness almost being gone and my wounds healing.

I discovered Rebecca's blog today. I can't believe there's an entire Ortho-blogosphere out there! I wish I knew about it before going into surgery. It sure would have made my life a little easier. For example, there's a more intelligent way then watering down all my meals - the syringe! Not sure how it works but I'm only a handful of days away from getting my elastics taken off now so I'll just man it out.

From reading Rebecca's blog tomorrow might be even worse for pain - "Your jaw is weakest on Day 10". We'll see how it goes...

Day 8 - Oats, Dribbling and Yawning

I got caught up on all my email from work today so I'm hoping I'll be able to put in a full day of work tomorrow - working from home of course.

I still haven't managed to resolve my wedged oat problem. It's really jammed in there and it's super-annoying. I think I'm going to have to live with it.

In other news, for the last 2 days I've been battling a downpour of mucousy-blood mixture from my nose. Alright, it's not quite a downpour but it does make going outside a little bit of an inconvenience. I'm constantly concerned about the state of my nose. Thankfully, I almost have all the feeling on my face back so at least I know when something is starting to dribble down. It's supposed to clear up by day 10 so I'm definitely looking forward to that.

And finally, I'm finding yawning really difficult. Well, it's obviously difficult because my jaws are bound together by elastics but it really hurts to yawn. I couldn't find any mention of how to handle yawning in the booklet my surgeon gave me so hopefully it's not bad for me.

Day 7 - One Week Post-Op

I'm at the one week stage. Yeah me! I think I've been doing quite well. The swelling has reduced, I don't have a lot of numbness and my head isn't as woozy anymore. I don't think I have the strength to get through a day of work though but my eating habits have been quite alright.

I have 5 meals a day and some of the meals I've had over the last few days include:

• oatmeal
• tomato soup
• cream of mushroom soup
• pea soup
• mashed potatoes
• spinach curry
• channa masala
• malai kofta
  
• baked beans
• mushy fish
• banana shake
• strawberry shake
• Chocolate Boost

I did have a bit of an eating catastrophe today. My Dad was on an important phone call so I didn't want to fire up the blender and decided to have un-blended oatmeal for breakfast. The eating was fine but I managed to get an oat wedged between my splint and the roof of my mouth. It's been stuck there all day and there's no way for me to get the thing out. It kind of concerns me because it may stay there for 4 more weeks! Hopefully I won't develop any disease or cavities due to 4 weeks of wedged oats.

Day 6 - On A Mission, James Bond Style

I woke up this morning with a purpose. I want to start working from home later this week since doing nothing at home is just killing me. I'm also targeting next Monday or even as early as Friday this week to be back at the office. I need to work on improving my speech though.

I've come to the realization that others can't understand me when I use words with the letter 's' in them. I just can't pronounce the 's' properly' with the splint in my mouth. So I'm replacing my 's' with a 'sh' and having more success (or rather shuccshesh). I like to think I sound like Sean Connery now. If it's good enough for James Bond, it's good enough for me!

I also ventured outdoors for the first time today. Took a walk in the courtyard behind my apartment building. Weather was really nice and 15-20 minutes of walking tired me out. Hopefully the extra activity will help me get some better sleep tonight.

Day 5 - A Hobo No More

Yet another night of bad sleep. It felt like I hadn't slept when I woke up this morning. I kept waking up every hour through the night and I must have had the lightest sleep known to man!

After having a couple of miserable days and more bad sleep, today turned out a lot better. I got out of the apartment for the first time in days. Ok, it was only down the hall to the laundry room but it was still something. And I shaved for the first time. Shaving felt kind of weird with the numbness and all but at least I don't look like a complete hobo now.

I was all excited for dinner today since I was going to have mushy fish but it didn't really taste that good. I think the texture turned me off a little. Oh yeah, and I've been meaning to mention my love for fruit shakes for the last 2 days but I keep forgetting. Banana is my favourite and Strawberry a close second. I can't wait for the summer to really kick in - a cool Coffee shake with Pralines & Cream ice-cream will be pure bliss!

Day 4 - More Misery

Another night of poor sleep. This time, I got really uncomfortable with my sleeping arrangement. I have a soft pillow chair with 2 pillows on it but I had to fluff and switch the pillows around multiple times through the night.

The day turned out even more miserable than yesterday. I had oatmeal and orange juice for breakfast. Watched another episode of Hereos while icing down my jaws and by the time the episode ended I was hyperventilating. My head feels even woozier than yesterday. Initially I thought the anesthesia hadn't completely worn off but now I'm thinking it's the meds.

I'm starting to get really concerned about this splint and my ability to talk. It's going to be 4-5 weeks until they take it off and it's really hampering my ability to speak. I'm not sure how I'll be able to get back to my regular schedule when I get to work. I usually spend anywhere from 2-4 hours on conference calls so I may be as good as useless.

On a positive note, I'm kind of surprised with how much feeling I have on my face. My left cheek almost has all it's feeling back and my upper lip and right cheek aren't completely numb either. When I had my wisdom teeth taken out, I had absolutely no feeling on parts of my face for 2 months. At this rate, I may have all my feeling back by the end of the first week.

Day 3 - Miserable

I didn't sleep very well at all overnight. The only quality sleep I got was between the hours of 7 AM and 11 AM. I didn't feel terribly uncomfortable so I'm not sure why I couldn't get into a deeper slumber.

Had a pretty miserable day today. I had blended oatmeal for breakfast, took a nap and woke up feeling a little woozy in the head. There isn't a whole lot I can do. Don't really feel like reading and definitely don't have enough energy to be up and about. Fortunately I have about 4 episodes of Hereos, 3 episodes of Desperate Housewives and 2 episodes of Grey's Anatomy PVRed.

Watched a couple of episodes of Heroes which took my mind off things but I got pretty depressed after that. I can't talk very much because of the stupid plastic splint so I just sit there with a grumpy look on my face. Even trying to smile hurts!

Lunch consisted of cream of mushroom soup, had a Chocolate Boost at tea time and mashed potatoes watered down with tomato soup for dinner.

My nose is all crusted up since I no longer have the benefit of the oxygen mask under my chin to moisturize my nasal passage. Q-tips and the Otrivin nasal spray help but it's still feels pretty gunky up there.

I guess the one positive is I did finally bathe today. I wasn't sure if I should be going under the shower so I sat in the bath tub with my rubber ducky.