Day 22: 3rd Post-Op Appointment

Day 22 of Double Jaw Surgery

Some Bands Off
Yay!! My 2nd post op appointment was today and I was excited because I was told that I'd be able to get some of the bands off. Before that happened, one of Dr. Baker's doctors came in to check on me initially and I brought up 2 questions/concerns:

1. I notice my left side seems to be lower or more swollen than my right.
   A: You definitely have some swelling there. That can take anywhere from several weeks to several months for it to completely resolve. We typically tell our patients you don't know what your final results look like until 6 months to a year because you still have edema in the tissues from the big procedure you had. That can take a long time to resolve. So that's not a surprise, it's normal.
2. What were the stitches for on my lip? The final stitch dissolved last night and there are now little bumps were the stitches used to be.
   A: When your mouth is spread wide open, your skin tore a little on the lips. It was superficial and it didn't really need anything, but we put a suture there anyway. The bump is probably just scar tissue which will smooth out, but everything was on the skin and not deeper.

I also let him know that I now have a bit more sensation on my nose than the week prior, but my left cheek is still numb.

Then Dr. Baker came in to get some of my bands off! He pulled some off and placed them on a sheet on the table, clipped and removed 2 wires that held me closed too (which I didn't even know I had), but then put some of the bands back on.. So I was confused. Turns out he removed 3 rubbers bands and 2 wires and switched the pattern. He advised me to still not open and close.

The reason why the pattern is angled is because my jaw wasn't centered so the bands will pull it to my right more. (EDIT 2 days later: which it did. I guess from just slightly opening and closing and the angle of the bands, my jaw is now centered).

Wine Outing
A couple of my best friends from work asked me to join them at the winery after they got off work. I have nothing else to do these days and we always have fun together, so I said I'll be there. It took an hour to get there with the traffic in our area, but it was worth it! I opted for 1 glass of mulled wine because I don't have much in my stomach as you can imagine and it was my first alcoholic drink since surgery. It was so delicious and warm and it didn't affect me much but I stopped it at just 1 glass because I had to drive back too. We chatted it up, laughed, cursed, drank, and had a great time as we knew we would. Love these girls!