The Other Side

So I actually got the surgery done. Right now I'm 10 days Post Op and feeling pretty good. The insurance company approved everything we thought it would so on December 18th I went to the hospital to have everything done. I ended up having upper jaw, lower jaw, septioplasty, genioplasty, reduction of interior turbinates, removal of all wisdom teeth and my upper jaw split into three sections. The actual surgery only lasted about four hours, but I was in recovery for about two more hours after that.

I was in the ICU for two nights and the hospital experience was overall a good one. The nurses were a little slow, but the pain medicine worked well and I was comfortable most of the time. The worst part was trying to drink with no syringe because hardly none of the water made it into my mouth. Once I got my syringe from the nurses though I was good to go. I'm very happy to be home and have been taken care of great especially by my mom, my dad, and my boyfriend.

The worst part about the whole process I would say would be not being able to open my mouth and talk. I'm rubber banded shut and on a liquid diet for five weeks. The splint in between my upper and lower jaw will also be wired to my upper jaw for five weeks. The splint is uncomfortable and any food that has any consistency to it seems to get stuck in it.

My primary diet right not consists of apple, juice, chicken broth, ensure milkshakes, tomato soup, strained chipped beef, and some fresh squeezed fruit drinks. I'm hungry pretty much all the time, but eating is it a lot of work and I'm still getting tired pretty easy.

The picture above is 24 hours post op while I'm still in the hospital.

This picture was taken at 48 hours post op as I'm getting ready to leave the hospital! I'm very swollen.
This picture is from 4 days post op. My cheeks and chin are still very swollen.

The bruising has really set in, but I only turned yellow around my neck and under my chin. The bruises went away after about 5 days. This picture was from 6 days post op.

Braces and Insurance Companies..

I went to my orthodontist to get Invisalign to straighten my lower teeth, oh what have I gotten myself into ;) I got my upper braces on July 7, 2008 and my lower ones on July 22. I'm scheduled for upper and lower jaw surgery in December and I cannot wait!! This is my third time in braces and I really hope three times really is the charm! I have ceramic braces on my top teeth and the metal ones on the bottom. Although at times I do feel self conscious about them it's not nearly as bad as I had anticipated. The ceramic braces are great and not noticeable at all from a distance so I can't complain at all. Hopefully I'll be in braces for less than a year for the whole process so I consider myself very lucky :)

The reason I'm getting surgery is mostly due to my difficultly breathing. It's impossible for me to breath through my nose because my lower jaw grew vertically instead of horizontally and it is constricting my airway. I also have some speech problems and I have a lot of difficultly biting off foods and chewing since only my back molars touch on each side of my mouth. Plus some jaw popping when I move my mouth in certain ways which is uncomfortable.

My surgeon submitted by paperwork to the insurance company on September 11th and I was told I'd more than likely have an answer within 2-3 weeks. Well a month went by and still no word. My mom (whom I'm so lucky to have because she's helped TREMENDOUSLY with the insurance company through this whole thing) decided to call the insurance company to check on the status of things and they said they never received my paperwork! So my surgeon's office called and the battle began. Just two weeks ago I was told that my surgery had been approved and I was so excited! I later found out that only half of the surgery was covered because they never received a request for the upper jaw surgery. Don't even ask me how that happened. So my surgeon had to resubmit the codes and as of today they said they never received the new codes. Unbelievable. They really do try and make this process as long and painful as possible to discourage you. But I'm determined to get this done so I'm going to keep going.

Only a little over a month to go! It's so crazy how close it is, I just want December to be here!