Day 32: Soft Food Diet

Day 32 of Double Jaw Surgery

Even though it was such a struggle to eat those mashed potatoes and fried rice a couple days ago, I had to keep trying to eat soft food and not just stick to liquids. The day after, however, I did just eat thicker soups, but at least they were more substantial.

I started with my great breakfast shake again, which filled me up pretty well because of the oats. In fact, I couldn't even drink it all because it was a lot and since my diet has been so light, my tummy gets full quickly.

Then I treated myself to a relaxing pedicure and started reading this book that my former Regional President gifted us when we worked on a project together last year. I can't believe I'm just NOW reading it. I only got through a couple chapters but I'm intrigued.

The last couple weeks I've been craving some Chinese Congee, a.k.a. rice porridge. I've never made it myself and remember my mom making it as we grew up. It was hearty, filling, and warm. So I scoured Pinterest and Instagram for recipes because I wanted to make sure I did it right. You typically would cook it with chicken, which also provides the stock, but since I can't really chew on anything yet, I used chicken stock instead. Below is how I made it:


Servings: 4

4 Cups Chicken Stock
6 Cups Water
1 Cup Jasmine Rice
3 thick slices of fresh Ginger
White Pepper and Salt
Sesame Oil
Low Sodium Soy Sauce

1. Rinse rice 4-5x until water runs clear to wash away all the impurities and "flour"
2. Soak rice in water for 10-15 minutes in a bowl
3. Pour chicken stock and water into a heavy bottom pot large enough (rice will expand on top of water amount)
4. Pour water out of bowl and dump rice into pot and bring to boil at medium high heat
5. Cover and lower temp to medium low. Let simmer for 1 hour
6. Stir occasionally and you'll notice the rice to break up. Stir frequently the last 20-30 minutes to prevent it from burning on the bottom
7. Check the consistency, I like it medium thickness and turn off heat
8. Remove the ginger pieces, season with salt and white pepper and some sesame oil
9. Pour yourself a bowl of congee and add some soy sauce if you want and enjoy!

You can save the rest for the following couple days to reheat. It's super easy to eat with this jaw situation because you can still slurp it off of the spoon if you can't properly insert a spoon in your mouth yet. Once I can eat better and chew, I'd garnish it with some chopped green onions, poached egg, shredded chicken, and whatever else I feel like. You can play with it too!

I know I said this was filling, but I still was hungry... so I heated up some leftover Tomato Bisque and made some scrambled eggs, feeling extra ballsy. The combination was delicious, however eating the eggs was pretty tough. Even though they were scrambled, they still had a thick consistency and it was hard to slurp it off my spoon because my jaw still didn't open wide enough.

 I'll just wait to eat eggs for another week or so.. lol.

Day 30: Eating Struggles

Day 30 of Double Jaw Surgery

Since I can sort of open my mouth (still a little less than the width of my finger), I decided to try out some mashed potatoes and fried rice from my local grocery store's hot bar. I also bought some thicker soups (butternut squash, tomato soup, and chicken soup).

Uhhh... It looks easy to eat, but boy was it difficult!! It took me 30 minutes to eat that little box above! I did not realize how much my jaw had to move and tongue action I needed to even feed the utensil in my mouth and scoop the food off it. It was very uncomfortable and hurt a little because sticking your tongue out was really awkward. You don't realize how much goes into eating until you can't properly do so. I ended up just holding the spoon full of rice or mashed potatoes up to my lips and sucking it off it. I guess that means I'll keep practicing my jaw movements until I graduate to this level and stick to full liquids.

Day 29: Fruit Shake

Day 29 of Double Jaw Surgery

I'm nearing 30 days, at which point, I'll switch my posts to every 2 days or more since there's not much to report these days.

I've had an incredibly lazy morning and watched show after show lounging around. I was happy to finally make a fruit milkshake! I used to make a shake almost every morning because it was filling (with all the ingredients I put in mine) and it's fast.

Milkshake consisted of:
- Frozen Strawberries
- Frozen Blueberries
- Frozen Peaches
- Peanut Butter
- Honey
- Oats
- Milk

I blended it all up and it was delicious and a lot! Had no problem drinking it besides some of the oats getting stuck between my braces, nothing that a swig of water can't fix.

Opening Wider

Within just 3 days, I'm able to open my jaw bigger than Day 1 of my bands off. Yay. Just gotta continue practicing. 

Day 28: 4-WEEK UPDATE + Thanksgiving

Day 28 of Double Jaw Surgery

Here we are! We've made it to the 4-week mark! I can't believe it's already been a month and I'm so happy to be off the Ensure diet. Now that I have the bands off, I have to practice opening and closing my jaw so I can at least fit utensils into my mouth to have mashed potatoes, flaky fish, scrambled eggs, etc. Until then, I at least upgraded to thicker blended soups that won't get caught up anymore with the band barriers.

4-Week Comparison

Not depicted here, but my left side isn't as swollen anymore and everything seems to be falling into place well. Still numb on my left cheek and upper lip area, along with my entire upper gum line and portions of my nose. You can also definitely tell from my past photos and this one above how my weight is changing just by looking at my collar bone. Below is a comp of my body changes.

Facing Forward: Before/4Weeks After ...... Facing Right: Before/4 Weeks After

Everything has slimmed down.. my chest, waist, hips, booty, thighs, etc. I'm drowning in my clothes. Now that I'll consume more, my weight should stabilize and increase again.

Starting Weight: 142.3 lbs / 32.9% body fat
7 Days Later:  134.2 lbs / 32% body fat
14 Days Later: 132 lbs / 30.1% body fat
21 Days Later: 131.6 lbs / 30.7% body fat
28 Days Later: 130.8 lbs / 30.3% body fat
TOTAL LOSS: 11.5 lbs / 2.6% body fat

 
Happy Thanksgiving!
Since I already celebrated Thanksgiving with my mom last weekend and my dad and step mom are unfortunately too far for me to drive (without the risk of falling asleep at the wheel), I stayed home for the holiday. I was invited to spend Thanksgiving with a good, old friend and it was really great. His mom made delicious soup and I enjoyed 3 bowls full of it!! hahaha.

I am so thankful for my recovery and progress thus far and all my family and friends who have been so incredibly supportive. Throughout this journey, I've grown closer to some of my friends and also further from others. Thank you to all those who have helped me, visited me, checked in on me, provided for me! Big kisses!

Day 27: 4th Post-Op Appointment - BANDS OFF!

Day 27 of Double Jaw Surgery

I changed my 4th Post-Op appointment earlier to the day before Thanksgiving, instead of the day after Thanksgiving because I did not want to get caught up in the traffic and mess that is called Black Friday. The purpose of this visit was to hopefully get all the rubber bands off that held my jaw shut.

Waiting patiently to see what the verdict is.

With Bands / Without Bands / The amount I'm able to open

Bands That Make Me Dance.. Finally!
Dr. Baker examined me and then went ahead and removed all the bands! Yayyyy! He told me to open my jaw.. and I pretty much couldn't. I asked what type of jaw exercises or timeline expectation I should have to regain better mobility, but he didn't really give me any specific instructions besides just practicing to open and close my jaw. I read on other blogs of folks going through the same that they were told that they should be able to fit a stack of 3 fingers with the jaw fully open. So I'll use that to gauge my progress, one finger at a time.

Opening Struggle
As you can see in the above photo, the last photo depicts how much I can open my jaw without bands right after the appointment. It felt really tight, but no pain. In fact, I still talked as if my jaws were still shut because I was so used to it for 4 weeks! I can talk much clearer but def have a lisp because I have to learn how to talk again with my new jaw positions and where the tounge now hits to pronounce words. At least I can open my jaw enough now to have much thicker soups and smoothies. I'll practice opening and closing by singing, reading aloud/talking more, and just simply opening and closing. It's tough because I have to break up the scar tissue I think and my jaw has been immobile for 4 weeks.

Things that feel awkward:
- Sticking my tounge out (especially when I want to lick some soup off my lips)
- Rubbing my lips together (when I apply chapstick and want to spread it)
- Yawning (just slightly opening my jaw)

Pay It Forward
After that, I headed downtown and because it was right around the corner from the hospital to go furniture window shopping and get more interior decor inspiration. As I'm looking for a parking spot, I saw a guy enter his car parked on the street to leave. I'm waiting patiently with my blinker on and all of a sudden he jumps back out of the car and walks towards me. I roll down my window and he gives me his parking pass he paid for and says he only used 5 minutes of it. I thanked him! and looked at the pass and I still had 55 minutes left! I have to pay it forward this week! How nice of him!

Day 26: Cut Wire

Day 26 of Double Jaw Surgery

Today is very, very short and sweet. When the surgeon adjusted my upper jaw by breaking it into 3 pieces, he had to cut my wire on my braces so the pieces would move. The cut was made on my upper left corner near my canine and the end of it kept poking and catching the inside of my lip. Very annoying and sometimes painful. So I made an appointment at my ortho to get it clipped or shaved down.

When I arrived at the ortho office, everyone was so happy to see me :) My orthodontist, Dr. Ghatri, and all the assistants came over to check out my new face and were really happy for me. It was so nice to see their excitement. They ended up clipping the wire down to the surgical hook and shaved it down too. No more snagging!

Told ya this post was short and sweet.

Day 25: Social and Concert

Day 25 of Double Jaw Surgery

Shopping for Skinny Me
Today was a very active day! It's been getting pretty cold these days and in Game of Thrones fashion, Winter is coming! During this recovery process, I've lost a lot of weight, in addition to my past year weight loss, a lot of my clothes do not fit anymore. I haven't bought any proper clothes in a very long time.. the only things I've bought consistently are active wear for the gym, but let's be honest, as much as I want to wear active wear ALL THE TIME, it's just not that practical and civilized when you're going out. Other than active wear, I pretty much wear the same things at work due to our "uniforms"... which also consists of sneakers, choice polos and sweaters, and slacks. So again, I haven't bought any proper clothing for my new size in a very long time and it really was made evident to me when I put on my black wool coat today. 1. It's getting pretty raggid and 2. it's super baggy.

So I headed out to Burlington Coat Factory to go through a sea of coats. I figured I should be able to find something and find something, I did. I found 2 coats and debated which to get. They were both black, above the knee, and similar silhouette - despite that, I ended up getting both! I don't know why, especially since they were so similar, but I just thought I'd like to have a choice in the future.

I wasn't going to stop there though! What I really needed was a new Parka and decent leather jacket. I currently own both.. I completely drown in the Parka and the leather jacket isn't real leather and doesn't fit well. I headed to Madewell and already had been eyeing a parka there. I snatched it up and then came across a leather jacket they sold. It felt really great, sturdy, soft, and expensive. Boy, oh boy, was it expensive! The sales girl felt my dilemma and offered me 20% off to sweeten the deal. I couldn't say no. I am thrilled with my purchase.. It's probably one of my first grown woman purchases, besides my car - a real leather jacket to last a lifetime. What I loved most about it is that it didn't have any of the trendy frills on it - just a great cut and silhouette.

In the end, I purchased 4 coats/jackets! I may have a little buyer's remorse for those 2 similar coats but I'll sleep on it a few more nights haha.

Old Friends and Happy Hour
An old friend invited me and others out to Happy Hour at the Sugar Factory in DC. It was a lot of fun and we haven't seen each other in a couple years. Most of us danced together in a little crew for fun and camaraderie and all of us have a dance history, which is what brought us all together back then. Sugar Factory is a store filled with candy and sweet nothings. They offered alcoholic beverages that were nothing short of mesmerizing with their big goblets of colorful drinks we saw others order. Again, since my diet is sparse, I chose to have 1 drink and ordered a martini and asked the girl to halve the alcohol. Once I drank it all up, half the alcohol didn't matter because it definitely hit me. I immediately ordered a tall glass of water!

Impromptu Concert
When I looked at my calendar this morning, I had forgotten that I wanted to see a concert at a local venue in DC that night. I had not bought tickets for it, but after checking out the site, there were still plenty available. So I said, what the heck.. I'mma go and enjoy some live music of artists that I like listening to! It was ASTR, HOLYCHILD, and Ryn Weaver. I asked around to see if anyone wanted to join me, but no one really could because of work the next day or other obligation - it was Monday night after all. Then randomly, another friend hit me up and asked what I was up tonight and after letting him know and asking if he wanted to join me, he accepted. So we met up and headed out to the venue and had a great time. It was a pretty long day but I felt productive, saw some great friends and enjoyed live music. Can't ask for more. Less than a week until I'm back at work.