Day 4: Peeling and Bruising

So, what have I learned today? Well, truthfully, today was a difficult day and I felt kinda' miserable and down, especially this morning. I slept for three hours and then woke up with my jaw joints screaming at me and it was of course still very difficult to breathe. My mouth is completely locked shut as far as I can tell and I wonder what on earth I am going to have to do in terms of exercises to get my mouth to open next week. So, I had a bit of a pity party for myself I confess.

It is one thing reading about what is going to happen but another thing to actually experience it and quite honestly, I did not expect this combination of stiffness, nasal congestion, swelling, etc to work together against me. Ah well, such is life and we just have to get on with it. The various medicines have kicked in thankfully, as has the ice, and I was able to get another hour of sleep this morning.

In terms of food, I am drinking juice, yoghurt drinks, Carnation instant breakfast (strawberry!), and I even had some tomato soup for lunch! Getting adventurous in my old age I think. It takes an inordinate amount of time of course to actually syringe it in my mouth but it does the trick and I am getting, I suppose, the nutrients I need. I have zero appetite so it is more mechanical than any desire to eat.

One gross piece of information and something I have worked hard to avoid but alas, all to no avail, is that my huge A.J. lips are now shredding their skin for want of a better expression. I guess lips are not meant to be that puffy! The skin is just peeling off my lips which is not the lease bit comfortable afterwards as it leaves them raw obviously.

Despite all of this, I feel like the swelling is not getting any worse and I am learning to cope with the inconveniences of not being able to breathe, eat, talk, and genuinely function very well! :) I have read that days 3 and 4 are the worse so from here on out, it is all going to be positive!

So what do you think, am I more swollen? I have attached three pictures showing my front profile (with an attempted smile!), a side profile with bruising starting to show, and finally a picture of my bands inside my mouth. Attractive!

Front Shot








   Side profile

 Rubber Bands






The good news this evening is that my Father-in-law came around and modified the ice-pack (Jaw-Bra) with some special gel ice-packs that he had. It allows my entire face, from ear to ear, to be encased in ice. Feels sooooo much better already! Hopefully this will mean that I can actually get some sleep this evening. Four days down already!

You can see additional photographs under the ‘Photo Journal’ section above