Jaw Jigsaw

Hello, all! I can't believe it's been 3 months since double-jaw surgery! Amazing, really! These past few weeks I have been back to eating salads and man I missed them sooooooo much! They are so much easier to eat now then before surgery! It's amazing! Here's a few basic updates then we'll get into orthodontics. Swelling : Still hanging around on my upper cheeks, but lessened from last month at least! So annoying, still. Numbness:  Can now feel PARTS of my upper palate (YAY!) but my upper gums are still pretty numb in the front. A little less numb closer to the back of my mouth. Pretty annoying actually, but whatever. Pain:  Sometimes when brushing (top teeth still sensitive). And after ortho adjustments (TODAY!). Yay! I love my smile! My nose still looks a little big when I smile, but I don't really care. As long as I can chew - it's alllll gravy, baby! Had an orthodontist appt this morning! Good news all around! He had a resident shadowin...

Wow! I can't believe it's been 2 months already! SO much has changed within the past 2 weeks. I'm hoping it's all thanks to my splint removal! That thing was miserable. Things are really great right now. Amelia, 10 months old ahhhhh, is sleeping through the night now and that makes a HUGE difference. Swelling: It still varies, but it's mostly not noticeable to random people. I notice a little bit. Still around my upper cheeks but it's definitely not as bad as it was. Now that I'm chewing I think that has helped a lot. My lips are back to their regular size! Numbness:  My upper palate and upper gums are still numb. Makes things a little hard to chew but I'm getting the hang of it. Not sure if I'll ever get feeling back there. It's a little annoying because I think I have a cavity on one of my upper teeth and it hurts to floss, but only at the root of my tooth, haha. I guess that's a good thing? Pain : Only after ortho adjustments. No r...

I know this varies from hospital-to-hospital and country-to-country, but here's the breakdown of most of my costs. Thankfully, I have health insurance so I do not have to pay the full amount. Hospital Costs: Semi-Private Room Hospital Stay (recovery + 1 night) - $3,199 Supplies, medications, labs - $21,175 Anesthesia - $14,035 Operating Costs - $42,716 Surgeon Costs - $12,700 Total $$$ - $93,825 My insurance only had to pay $11,119 of that. So after all those crazy charges... Insurance was charged 12% of the actual cost. Seems ridiculous, right? My co-payment - $250 My co-insurance- $659 (hospital) + $399 (anesthesia bill) Braces cost ≈ $3,900 (Not covered by any insurance, sadly. I pay $164 monthly.) Total I owe ≈ $5,208 That doesn't include my co-payments from visits, blood work, x-rays, medications, jaw surgery supplies, etc. So when it's all said and done it will have cost me about $5,400 . The braces being the bulk of the cost, but it's still qui...

Don't know why the orthodontist thought it was a good idea to rubber-band my crown that had only temporary cement on it.... So it came loose on Wednesday night. Called ortho frantically and they just HAPPENED to be at my office on Thursday afternoon. They are only there every 6th Thursday. So weird. So he said there was really nothing else he could do so he unhooked the crown (and changed my band configuration) and I took it with me to my dentist. Yes, I took a photo of it. ;) FOR MY BLOG OF COURSE. Hahahaha.  Just let me say that my dentist is amazing. I have never had any problems with anything he's done in my mouth. He is the sweetest and just shoulder surgery like 4 weeks ago and is already back in the office. He can't raise his arm very far but he doesn't need to while working on people's mouths I guess, haha.  So he had my crown back on in like 5 min and it didn't even hurt even though my tooth was so sensitive to air and liquid. And my de...

THE SPLINT IS GONE!! I chewed chicken and vegetables today! It was great! Although a little sore. It took me a while to get the hang of it. Mostly because my upper teeth are still numb. I kept chewing on my cheeks. I don't even care. My mouth feels like 10 lbs lighter without the splint and all my surgical hooks! Last photos with the splint in! My swelling has really gone down. Although still noticeable to people who don't see me often. The surgeon appointment went well. It took all of 2 minutes to get the splint out. A lot of facial stretching and then I got to BRUSH MY TEETH. That was amazing. Said I was okay to work-out, just no contact sports, lol. Took x-rays. Said everything looked good. The gross splint!!!!!!! You can see all my plates and screws! (And crowns, lol) My teeth touch!! Amazing!! Between the surgeon's appt and the ortho appt- I got chicken nuggets, lol. They were awesome.  I walked into the orthodontist's office and the ...

Okay so I wanted to make this post about what items were useful during jaw surgery. I think everyone does this but everyone's recovery is a little different. Things I loved (the good ): Jaw bra - it held bags of peas and ice packs so beautifully. And it was so easy to take on and off Aquaphor - Amazing for my lips that were all cracked, etc. Still use it!!! Stool softener - Trust me. Boogie wipes - My nose was the grossest of gross. These were SO amazing. Protein powder - Put it in all of my smoothies Neck pillow - Wore it around the house. Loved it. Vaporizer - Get one. Now. Recliner - It was the only way I could sleep for the first week. This was one of the main reasons I stayed at my mom's, lol. Their recliner is seriously the comfiest chair in the world. And it's biggg. Although the cats usually take claim over it so I had a few cats jump on me in the middle of the night, but nothing too painful, hahahaha. Squeeze bottle for water - Only way I got m...

April 24. One month after jaw surgery! I can't believe it's been a whole month. My baby girl just turned 9 months old. And I had my jaw broken one month ago! It's been a ride. I'm still the kind of tired that sleep can't fix, haha. Perpetually tired. Swelling : It comes and goes. Always worse on my left side. Still look like a chipmunk. Makes me very sad. I just need to remind myself that it won't be there forever. And I had major surgery a month ago. I can't expect things to go back to normal so quickly. I think I just had expectations that after 3 weeks most of the swelling would be gone from looking at others' blogs. I guess everyone is different. Whatever. I'm trying to get over it. I just make people take pictures of me from my right side. It's a little less swollen, haha. Numbness : Been getting a lot of upper lip and below the nose tingles! Little tingles on my cheeks, too! That's a good sign! In the past few days a lot of feeling ...