Five weeks...

This past week was a mixed bag. Had my sixth post-op appointment today, though it was uncharacteristically late starting--Dr. Jelic and his staff is usually quite good about having appointments on time, but this time it was twenty minutes late, another ten before Dr. Jelic came in. His assistants are quite good, though, and his secretary came to visit me as she normally does to chat for a bit, tell me how good I look and how well I'm doing. Maybe she's just saying it, but I still appreciate it.

Highlights of last week...

Food

Answering another craving, I got a 12" Italian sandwich from Jimmy Johns yesterday for lunch. Cut it up and pureed it in 2% milk for a couple minutes, and it tasted wonderful. Had half for lunch, half for dinner. It's been a small degree of torture at work, however, as people have been bringing in food like cookies, bagels, cake and doughnuts every day for the past week. None of which I can touch.

I'm supposed to hit the soft food stage in two weeks, but Dr. Jelic threw some cold water on that, saying that I couldn't actually chew by then given the large jaw advancement that had occurred. His exact words were: "If it was just a 5-6mm advancement, maybe, but for an 18mm advancement with a bone graft, there's a lot more healing that has to occur first." Basically, near as I can tell what that means is that I can have it as long as I can smush it up with my tongue, which still severely limits me even when I'm allowed to take the rubber bands off during the day.

Well, that allows for mashed potatoes and scrambled eggs, at least... I plan to make and eat the latter as soon as I'm allowed.

Sleep

My sleep has been poor of late, averaging 5-6 hours a night the past five days. Not because of apnea, but because I simply can't seem to kick myself out of old sleep patterns. Part of it's my own fault--I'm going to bed too late and waking up between 6 and 7. But even on weekends, I simply can't sleep in. I try, but I can't. I'm up at seven and can't get back to sleep. That was one of the things I was really hoping I'd be able to do post-surgery, but apparently, the problem goes deeper than that. I may have to resort to chemical means to finally break that pattern, something I REALLY don't want to do...

Numbness diminishing

A couple notable things happened in the past week. On Monday, I woke up and realized that I'd regained some feeling on the right side in my lower lip and upper chin. Literally, it happened overnight. It's not normal yet, but there's genuine sensation out of there now. I also discovered I was regaining some feeling in my lower gums--which is notable because I didn't even realize that was numb. I only discovered this because it had suddenly gotten sensitive to brushing. Curious, I pressed my finger into the gums, and found that there was the same kind of numbness I felt in my chin, now lessened on the right side.

Then this morning, I woke up and found that the left side of my upper chin and lip had joined the party, a couple days behind. So the nerves are definitely coming back online. Still nothing in my lower chin, but as that got stretched out the most, it'll probably be the last to regain feeling.

Orthdontist

I saw my orthodontist, Dr. Mol, on Tuesday. The appointment was so she could install another 'cleat' on the back of tooth so I could have another 'in-to-out' rubber band which hooks on the back of a top tooth and then comes forward to hook around two bottom teeth. However, I couldn't open my mouth far enough to for her to do the job. I can only open my mouth the width of one finger, and she says she can't do it until I can do at least two. So basically, I call her back when I hit that stage. As hard and occasionally painful as it is to open my mouth further even when the rubber bands are out, that may be a while.

Overall...

So on the one hand, Dr. Jelic says I'm doing quite well. Says my crossbite is steadily diminishing thanks to the rubber bands, I'm doing a very good job keeping my teeth clean, and I'm well ahead of schedule on regaining feeling in my chin. On the other hand, I'm still not able to open my jaw more than the length of one finger and I've not been getting enough sleep lately--again--and my body still seems locked into old sleeping patterns I don't know how to shake.