Day 21 of Recovery - 3 Weeks Down!

3 weeks into my recovery means halfway through the wired jaw phase! I'm halfway to eating like a real human again and I can't wait!

Today was a bit of a double celebration in terms of happy events because not only did it mark my 3 week post-op point but it was also a birthday outing for one of my best friend's birthdays! We spent the day at Bicester Village, which is a big outlet shopping village a few hours away from us. The shops there are mainly high end designers so if you're in the market for a new handbag etc you can get a really good deal but it's not quite so great for people who haven't got any money because they've been off work sick...

I still managed to pick up a few things including a really cute jumper from the Superdry Luxe range in their outlet shop, which was reduced to something crazy like less than a tenner! It's really soft, cosy and toasty warm so I can foresee that I'm going to get a lot of wear out of it as the weather's turning colder.

We went out for lunch at an Italian restaurant called Carluccios and, let me tell you, it was absolute torture being restricted to the Zuppe (soups) section of the menu when all the meals looked delicious! I chose the minestrone soup but obviously I had to have it blended, thinned and sieved, thus rendering it immediately less enjoyable. By another magical coincidence the waitress who served us had had jaw surgery last year to correct an underbite and was really interested to hear about my experience as she had not been wired. She was really lovely and so helpful when it came to meeting all my stupid demands haha! The staff were all really friendly and when they found out it was Maddy's birthday they brought over a little cake with a candle for her.

I slept all the way home as I was absolutely worn out from walking around the shops, although my perfectly-healthy friend, Sarah, also slept the whole car journey home so I'm inclined to think that sleepiness is just an average young adult trait ;)

I was so tired that evening so I just relaxed in front of the telly and tried to get an early night to catch up on some sleep.

Day 20 of Recovery

Today I got up early to hit the local car boot sales with Dad and thought I'd take a few photos to show how the bruising looked slightly less obvious and the drain sites were healing nicely.

Not really sure why my neck is rivalling that of a giraffe in the photo above but you can barely see the scars on that side of my neck!

You can see in the photos how the orthodontic team had REALLY made sure my teeth were wired together. As I didn't have a metal plate implanted across the incision in the bone I had to have my jaws held in the exact same position for six weeks in order to allow my bone to heal itself back together naturally. It's difficult to see the plastic splint between my top and bottom teeth but trust me - it's definitely there!

Today I went out to lunch with Mom, Nan, Nic and my cousin, Adam. We went to a really cute little cafe and, coincidentally, the owner's wife had jaw surgery a few years ago so they were really helpful and accommodating. I had leek and potato soup that they kindly blitzed down, thinned out and sieved - I was even provided with a straw, haha!

I've always been one to feel the cold but since the surgery I swear I've been colder than I've ever been before. Even just sitting downstairs in the living room I had to wear two coats to be a comfortable temperature! It's not boding well for the colder weather in the upcoming Winter months!

Day 19 of Recovery

I had another ridiculous lie-in this morning but this one has been the most medal-worthy yet (in the laziest girl Olympics); I managed not to wake up until gone 4pm! In my defence however I didn't get to sleep until almost 5am last night as the feeling has been coming back to my chin whenever I lie down and it's excrutiatingly annoying. It isn't painful as such but it just feels unbearably tingly, much like the pins and needles you get when the feeling returns to a leg you've been sitting on funny, and almost makes you want to scratch it like an itch but of course when you do scratch it you can't feel it so itching it provides no respite whatsoever. I'm taking it as a positive sign that my nerves are slowly healing though and hopefully I'll regain the full sensation of my chin.

Once I'd finally torn myself from bed I got dressed (Topshop Baxter jeans and Primark floral Jurassic Park t-shirt) and headed downstairs for tea (ridiculous - I know). I heated a whole can of Heinz cream of tomato soup and melted a knob of butter into it to up my fat intake then thinned it out with about half a can's worth of boiling water. I was really pleased that I managed to drink the whole thing as I've been making a concious effort to eat as much as I can over the last few days in order to avoid any weight loss.

I spent a couple of hours browsing my favourite blogs and stumbled across this post by A Thrifty Mrs. I'm a sucker for a biker jacket (and a bargain) so I cajoled my sister into taking me to our local Lidl in search of bargain biker jackets. We scoured the aisles and found the small clothing collection and lo and behold there were only two jackets left - the asymmetric zipped (faux) leather biker and the monochrome tweed biker (the exact two styles I had most been lusting over) both in my exact size. I took it as a sign from Jesus (because who wouldn't?) and decided that I definitely needed both. I also picked up a pair of suede boots for Nic (she chose them and asked for them as part of her Christmas present), a maroon long sleeved top with faux leather edging and a few little surprises to send to my cousin, Fiona, who is currently living in Munich (Fi, if you're reading this, don't get your hopes up - they're only little silly things). I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised by the quality of the clothing I picked up, especially the faux leather jacket - I'm sure it'll crop up in an OOTD at some point in the near future.

We headed home from Lidl and called in to see our Granddad on the way back as I had ordered some shoes for him from an online stockist and they had been delivered to our house. We stayed for about an hour just having a good old natter and then headed home for tea (in my case, my second tea).

Mom made me my usual cauliflower cheese for tea and it was absolutely delicious. I'm a big cheese eater normally and quite often I'll sit around eating chunks of cheddar as a snack so that's been one of the foods I've really missed over the last 3 weeks or so. I've been eating a lot of Mom's "cauliflower cheese" just because it tastes so cheesy and is really filling, plus it's good for combatting any weight loss as it's absolutely packed with full fat milk and cheese. I had two GIANT mugs of it tonight (I'm not joking - my giant mug is at least twice the size of any normal mug, if not bigger) as I felt really hungry.

Rich came round after tea and we ended up chilling out in front of a film until he went home at about 11pm. Me, Nic and Mom watched Dragon's Den and I made myself a real-chocolate-hot-chocolate using Milkybar but it was a bit of a disappointment as it turned out to be a little too sickly for me as I'm not a massive sweet-tooth at the best of times. Saying that I still drank a whole mug of it so it clearly wasn't unbearable - haha!

It's now nearly 2am but again I'm not feeling tired and I just know that as soon as I lie down in bed and the blood rushes to my face I'll get that horrible tingling sensation in my chin again. I better get some sleep though as I'm up early tomorrow morning to hit the car boot sales with Dad and Nic then I'm heading out to lunch with Nan, Nic and Adam (my cousin). See you tomorrow, everyone!

Day 18 of Recovery

Today I woke up at 2:30pm, which again is absolutely ridiculous but I figure if I'm asleep for large chunks of the day then at least I'm not hungry! I woke up with a really dry mouth though and found that I'd cut all the edge of my tongue on my splint in my sleep so it's felt really sore and tender all day, which made it pretty painful to drink anything as the motion of swallowing was making my tongue rub against the splint.

I got myself up and dressed into tights, a black skater skirt (H&M) and a really cute pink jumper with cream lacy shoulders that Nic bought for me (Zara). I headed downstairs and made myself a quick and easy lunch of Heinz cream of tomato soup, with butter melted in and thinned out with boiling water. I've been drinking more of this soup than any other just because it's so smooth and thin so it's really easy to drink even when you have absolutely no gaps between your teeth. It feels as though I've done nothing other than drink every meal from a mug for years too as I've found that's the cleanest and quickest way to eat anything; I've not tried to use a spoon yet as I can't really fit one in to my mouth without spilling food all over myself.

As it was a bank holiday here in the UK today Rich didn't have to go in to work so he came round this afternoon and after he'd told me all about his weekend at Creamfields (I'm feeling very jealous as it sounds really great) we settled down to play some good old computer games. We initially planned to play Roller-coaster Tycoon but we couldn't find the disc for it anywhere so in the end we decided to download the old Sims 2 games to my laptop. I dug out all the expansion packs but after it took about 40 minutes to install the original Sims 2 we decided to leave the expansions for another day and just start playing instead.

We spent a good few hours designing a ridiculously huge mansion and we spent so long obsessing over little details, such as which tiles to use in each bathroom or how to space the windows and lights, that we didn't even manage to get the house entirely furnished before we gave up for the night. We tend to do this every time we play the Sims though and we just build and furnish house after house without ever playing the families' lives properly.

I've also downloaded a slew of new apps to my iPhone so I can tell that I will be addicted to those for the next few days. The games I've been really addicted to already include Hay Day, Covet Fashion, Episode, High School Story, Snoopy Drop, Farm Heroes, Pet Rescue, Candy Mania and Cookie Jam. I know it sounds like a stupid amount of games to have on the go but I just check in to each of them for a couple of minutes every few hours and it's been keeping me busy when I'm too tired to do anything more productive with my time. I've finally succumbed to Rich's pleas to download Clash of Clans so I expect I'll be playing a lot of that over the next few days in order to catch up with him and I've also, somewhat embarrassingly, gotten slightly addicted to the Kim Kardashian game, which is a lot more addictive than you might think. If you're looking for a good way to kill some time on the bus/train or just a way to waste a bit of your life then I can highly recommend all of the above games!

It's getting pretty late now but I find that no matter what time I get up in a morning I've not been able to sleep very well at night for the past few days. It seems like the earliest I've been nodding off is around 2am, which isn't ideal but it's not like I've got any routine that I need to stick to. The one thing that's really been bothering me at night is the strange sensation of feeling returning to my lower face. For some reason I can only ever feel it once I'm lying down in bed but it's like a strong tingling, almost itchy, throughout my chin that I just don't know how to get rid of. The feeling in my lower lip is almost back to normal but just feels slightly deadened, although I'm pleased about that because I don't care if I never regain the feeling in my chin but I feel like having no feeling in my lower lip would be very inconvenient when eating and drinking in public.

I'm going to sign off here for tonight but I've got a long day of nothing ahead of me tomorrow so I might write up a blog post that's slightly more beauty orientated (and slightly less about having to thin soup, getting out of breath walking upstairs and dribbling down my chin) if I can muster the energy and enthusiasm. Goodnight, all!

P.S) I've been looking at my blog stats and I'm amazed to see how far and wide my readers come from! I'd be really interested to learn a little bit more about you guys so if you want to please leave a comment below letting me know where you come from, whether you're going through similar treatment and how you found my blog. Of course, feel free to leave me any questions too and I'll answer them as soon as I possibly can! I'm really looking forward to hearing from you guys. (Feel free to tweet me instead if you prefer, I'm just really interested to learn more about my readers).

Day 17 of Recovery

I had an absolutely ridiculous lie-in today as I hadn't got to sleep until nearly 3am last night. I ended up waking up at about 2pm, which is ridiculous, but I've been trying to sleep as much as I can at night so I don't feel the need for a nap in the day and if that means sleeping for 11 hours straight then so be it.

I got up and dressed into my comfy clothes today as I didn't have any plans to leave the house and headed downstairs in time to have two massive mugs of Mom's home made Leek and Potato soup for lunch. Shep's been feeling a little bit under the weather today as well but Charlie very sweetly spent the day being very concerned about him and giving him kisses on the nose.

Nic bought Toby a new fleecy cat bed and he has literally spent the whole day reclining on it in the middle of the living room. My great-aunt popped round in the afternoon to see how I was recovering and said she was amazed to see how well I was doing. I was pleased to hear that she thought I didn't look at all swollen and just looked "divine", which flattered me no end!

After my great-aunt had headed home I settled in with my iPad to relax by reading all my favourite blogs and was overjoyed to see that I'd won a Lancome Genifique serum in a giveaway over on Ruth's blog, A Model Recommends. It really cheered me up and I'm so excited to receive it as my post-operative skin has been absolute hell to deal with as it's been really dry so I'm hoping this serum will be its saviour. I think I'm going to write a little review of this serum once I've had a chance to properly test it so keep an eye out for that in the not too distant future!

For tea I had cauliflower cheese again but for some reason I was finding it really hard to drink as it just would NOT strain through all my wiring so I only managed one mug of it before I gave up. After tea I relaxed with Mom for a bit and then headed upstairs to do a bit of blogging. I've spent the last hour or so dissolving Rainbow Drops in my cheek, which is surprisingly tasty. My tongue is feeling really sore along the right hand side now but I don't know what I could do other than phone the hospital and ask my consultant to take the splint out, smooth it down and replace it, which seems a bit of a drastic plan and, to be honest, unfeasible considering my jaws have to be held together constantly until they're healed.

I'm signing off now to get some sleep and I'll post my next update tomorrow; goodnight!

Day 16 of Recovery

I had a massive lie-in until about noon on day 16 of my recovery as I'd not been able to get to sleep until late last night. I got up and dressed in some comfy jogging bottoms and a big baggy jumper as I'd decided it was about time I did a bit of make-up maintenance and tidying. I had a quick lunch of tomato soup and headed back upstairs to sort out my ridiculous collection of cosmetics.

I gave all my brushes a thorough clean, which was very much overdue, and left them to dry using my very sophisticated hair-bobbles-and-drawer-handles technique. Then I sorted through all the stuff that had amassed on top of my dressing table and put all my make-up back where it belonged so it wasn't strewn about and distributed between about seven make-up bags that I had on the go (lord knows why I had that many going as I haven't exactly been travelling a lot). It was really satisfying to have all that back under control as I'd been meaning to do it for weeks but it hadn't exactly been high on my list of priorities.

Apologies for the somewhat graphic picture below but I realised my stitches were on the OUTSIDE of my mouth as well as the inside and I just had to take a photo showing how big and disgusting they are. Those little twists of wire you can see in the photo have also given me the mother of all mouth ulcers! You can also see the plastic splint that's wired between my teeth and at the moment it's really been irritating the right hand side of my tongue as I think the splint has a little sharp edge that's been rubbing.

It was my friend's 21st birthday party at 7pm so I got changed into a navy floral-embroidered shirt dress with a chiffon-y skirt (Primark) with thick black tights (Primark - I've always been one to feel the cold but I've got even colder while I've been restricted to this liquid diet) and the navy high heels I snagged for £1 from the car boot sale on Wednesday (originally Primark - spot my favourite retailer).

I decided that since I had just sorted out all my make-up I would do something a little more dramatic than I usually do and did a little bit of a smoky eye using the Night Palette (Primark - could you have guessed), which really impressed me in terms of colour pay off, blendability and staying power considering it was only £2.50 (I think). I used the matte blue shade as an all-over lid colour then blended some of the darker navy shade through my crease. Finally using the Real Techniques Liner Brush I used the darkest shimmery navy colour to line my upper lash line, add a little flick and smudge underneath my lower lashes. I used the Olay CC Cream and a bit of MAC Pro Longwear Concealer with a dusting of MAC Mineralize SPF15 Loose Powder Foundation to set it as my base. I also added a slick of Loreal's Color Riche Lipstick in shade 233, "Taffeta".

I really enjoyed my friend's party as we all just sat around eating pizzas (although I very sadly had to have a mug of chicken soup instead) and played Cards Against Humanity, which was one of the presents we bought for her. I ended up staying at hers until about midnight and then my friend very kindly drove me home in her brand new Mini, which is amazing and has really made me want my own car (although I do love the little Kia Picanto I share with Mom).

When I got home I made myself half a mug of my special Aero hot chocolate and then went up to bed but I couldn't get to sleep so I watched Tumble on iPlayer and ended up falling asleep at about 2:30am (ridiculous, I know).

Day 15 of Recovery

I woke up at about 11am on day 15 of my recovery but I'd dreamt that I'd had all my wires removed so it was really depressing to wake up and find that my jaws were still very firmly attached to each other. I got myself up and dressed into real clothes (the same maroon skirt outfit as last week) as me and a few friends were going shopping to sort out our friend's 21st birthday present!

We set out just after lunch and trawled the shops in search of good presents for our friend. We'd got her main presents sorted already but we still had a bit of the budget left over for buying lots of little meaningful presents. We ended up buying her a few bits of makeup (because I will force her to be as obsessed as I am), some baking and crafting goodies (because she's mega creative), a few Disney goodies (duh) and some chocolates and sweets too. My friends enjoyed pushing me round in a hired wheelchair (because our local shopping centre is MASSIVE and I still get tired and out of breath really easily) and it was nice for me to get out of the house for a few hours.

When we'd finished shopping for all the presents we headed back to one of my friend's houses to eat soup (so considerate) and wrap up the presents ready for my friend's birthday party on Saturday night. We wrapped everything up (if a little messily) and made a little gift voucher to say we were taking her out shopping for the day and buying her a Ted Baker purse she'd been lusting over for ages. Nic came and picked me up at about 6pm so I could have my tea at home.

I'll apologise now for the selfie-heavy slew of photos below but I'd actually made an effort to curl my hair, put contacts in and put a bit of make-up on so I decided to make the most of it and take lots of photos of my new face shape and current (awkward) smile. I'm also able to (sort of) smile with my lips closed for the first time in my life but I'm still learning how to do it without looking plain weird.

I had another relaxing evening at home but ended up having quite a late night as I couldn't get to sleep. I watched a couple of programmes on iPlayer and finally fell asleep at about 2am.

Day 14 of Recovery - Two Weeks Post-Op!

I woke up late (about noon) on day 14 of my recovery and discovered that the horrible hospital taste had come back. I got myself up and dressed and brushed my teeth for about ten minutes until I finally felt like I'd managed to get rid of the disgusting taste in my mouth. I also used some individual floss picks to try and clean my splint as best I could but it was really difficult to work around the wires and in between the tiny gaps between my teeth.

I headed downstairs and found that Mom had made some Leek and Potato Soup so I had two big mugs of fresh, strained, home made soup, which was delicious (although I am still having to add a fair amount of salt to my meals in order to make them taste normal).

I spent the morning relaxing and watching TV with Mom as I was feeling really tired as I'd woken up a couple of times in the night. My friend sent me a Snapchat of a present she'd made me (because she's super organised and has already started making her own adorable Christmas decorations), which really cheered me up.

After tea Rich came round to chill for the evening and I ended up with both Rich and Shep asleep on me on the sofa. Once Rich had woken up from his nap we spent the evening watching TV (I swear this blog makes me sound like I spend my life in front of the TV but I don't even watch it normally) and watching YouTube videos. Rich stayed quite late as he's off to Creamfields (a big music festival in the UK) this weekend and we wanted to spend a bit of time together before he went so I didn't end up going to bed until about 1am.

Day 13 of Recovery

On Wednesday 20th August (day 13 of my recovery) I woke up relatively early (at about 8:30am) as me and Dad had decided to head out and hit the local car boot sales. I left Toby all snuggled up in bed and headed out into the nearby fields full of bargains. 

I snagged myself quite a few bargains, which were made all the better by the fact that Dad treated me to them rather than parting with my own cash. I bought a pair of River Island wedge trainers that were still in their box for just £5 and I already know I'm going to get loads of wear out of them in Autumn and Winter so I'm excited to start wearing them. The biggest bargains however were the shoes in the photos below! I got this brown pair and the same style of shoe in navy too for just £2 (ie- £1 a pair) but both pairs are absolutely unworn and still had the £14 labels on the soles etc! I really love car boot sales for picking up bargains and I'll be sad when summer's over if only because it means car boot season has ended too.

When we got back I found a package containing a 21st birthday gift for one of my best friend's had arrived and it was stamped with the cutest owl logo! The necklace we had bought for her was really beautiful and delicate and I'm on the verge of ordering a similar one for myself but I'm trying not to spend any money at the moment (easier said than done).

After lunch I cracked open a Lush giftset I'd been saving and treated myself to a really relaxing bubble bath, using the Candy Mountain Bubble Bar, complete with hot chocolate to drink while I watched beauty videos and hauls on YouTube - Bliss! My teeth had been aching a bit so the hot chocolate felt really soothing.

I had my usual relaxed evening watching television with the family, including the Great British Bake Off (quite possibly my favourite TV programme ever) and headed up to bed at about midnight. Tonight was the first night that Shep was allowed to sleep "on my feet" again after my operation but I think he misunderstood the whole arrangement as he decided he was going to have the entire bed.

Day 12 of Recovery

I woke up relatively early (around 9am) on day 12 of my recovery as I had invited my friends round later in the morning. I got up and dressed into some comfy palazzo pants (F&F, Tesco) with a vest top (Forever 21 - side note: Forever 21's basic vest tops are the best ones in the entire world and they're so cheap!) and then whacked on a cardigan (Primark). For breakfast I had my usual yoghurt drink.

The first of my friends arrived at about 11am and everyone else gradually made their way round after finishing at work etc. We all just chatted for hours and they filled me in on all the gossip I'd been missing by being somewhat housebound. They all headed home by 3:30pm and I made myself a late lunch of Heinz cream of tomato soup with butter melted in and water added to thin it out.

I spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing, as did Shep and Toby (the cat), and just watching videos on my iPad. Later in the evening I just hung out with the family as Dad had woken up from his afternoon nap, Mom was home from work and Nic was back at home with Charlie in tow. Charlie had some toddler's socks put on him and his face looks so sad but he was loving walking around in them.

For tea I had cauliflower cheese again and I made myself a "real chocolate" hot chocolate for pudding. I had a relatively early night and I was asleep by about midnight.

Day 11 of Recovery

I slept in until about 1pm on day 11 of my recovery, which is ridiculously late but I'm recovering from jaw surgery so I'll do whatever I want. I got up & got dressed but decided that it was probably best to just start immediately with lunch rather than breakfast considering the time. I came downstairs to find that my Glossybox had been delivered, which cheered me up as well.

For lunch I had the last of the homemade Cauliflower, Cheese and Bacon soup that me and Rich made. For pudding Nan had sent round a bowl of stewed apple (it sounds a bit grim but in reality it's amazing). I had a mug of stewed apple, thinned with boiling water and then sieved to get any large lumps out, with about half a teaspoon of brown sugar stirred in to sweeten it slightly more.

After lunch I went round my Nan's to visit her and her partner and we spent an hour or two chatting and working on a jigsaw puzzle, which was very relaxing.

For tea Mom made me Cauliflower Cheese (heavy on the thin cheese sauce and blended [of course]) and it tasted so familiar and "solid" (if that makes any sense whatsoever) so that really cheered me up. I've been adding salt to literally everything over the last few days though as my sense of taste is somewhat muted at the moment. For pudding I had a Munch Bunch Drinky+ (if they're still called that) drinking yoghurt.

After tea my aunt and uncle visited and they bought me some flowers and a pack of M&S Percy Pig juice, which I'm excited to try and am desperately hoping tastes like real Percy Pig sweets. They stayed for an hour or two chatting about everything and it was nice to catch up with them.

I spent the remainder of the evening just relaxing in front of the telly and then went up to bed at about 11:30pm. With my newly found facial movement I managed to take a few photos of the wiring holding my jaws together but it looks disappointingly minimal.