Day 11 - Renewed Strength and Flying Cows

Any other day I would love to sit around and play on my Mac, watch some television or read some of my latest Stephanie Plum book. But today I am bored. This hurricane seems to be fizzling out! All this hype for nothing! Better to be prepared than sorry.... dad even put our cars in the backyard. I would love to know what our neighbors think about that, it does look quite amusing. However, our cars are perfectly sheltered from any trees that may fall, which is the important thing. The gas stove has not flown across our deck and there have been no sightings of flying cows.

My nose is itchy and runny today. My right nostril doesn't have a whole lot of feeling in it and still is very swelled up, seemingly making me sniffle quite frequently. I still do not have the okay to blow my nose, but I can use Vaseline to swab the inners of my nose so that nose junk won't stick to the walls of my nose. My doc is very smart with that idea and it significantly helps reduce the amount of nose irritation.

Jaw pain is minimal, as long as I stay on top of my pain medications, and it is usually most intense upon waking in the morn. I've heard that as more feeling returns to my face, my pain will increase. This makes sense because when I lose my numbness and start feeling everything that is going on in terms of bone regrowth in my jaw region,  then I probably will be in a bit of pain. This pain will be inspiring, (and hopefully bearable) though because I will know that my jaw is going through an important stage in recovery.

I was just thinking that I am not totally aware of how many weeks long I will be banded shut. Mom said she remembers the doc saying either six or eight weeks. I recalled hearing six weeks, but am aware that after getting my bands off there will still be a week or two where it will be very difficult to open my jaw. This is expected as my mouth is forced shut right now, and when it is time to open it I can only imagine how difficult that will be. When that time comes I will probably continue on liquids for a bit and then move onto soft foods.

As a suggestion from a friend, I am working on writing a jaw surgery cookbook. Hopefully it will be of great use to other jaw surgery patients and those who are in need of a liquid diet. I will incorporate in it recipes I've found, as well as some of my own creations that I have blended up which are nourishing and delicious too. I will be working on that for my new project as I recover. I also am considering going back to work at Tj's next week, for a short morning shift or two, as my strength is greatly improving.

The Burwen's photo moment :)