Day 4: A little better and a tough shave

My sinuses started to clear a little last night. That made it significantly easier to breath and did wonders for my ability to sleep. It was probably the best night I've had since the surgery.

One worrisome thing is that I caught myself snoring a little. It's probably from all the post-nasal drip and swelling and such, but the last thing I'd want is to go through all of this and not make a big dent in my apnea.

Like just everyone else whose mma blogs I've read, my sleep has been spotty these last few days after surgery. I go to sleep and wake up about 10 or 15 minutes later. I'm not sure if it's the medicine or the aftermath of the surgery or my body just used to all the years of waking up from my airway closing.

I have had dreams but they aren't particularly vivid yet, probably because of the pain meds. I've been able to back off on the oxycodone quite a bit and hope to be off completely today. The dreams have been pretty much non-stop, and that's pretty much unheard of for me.

Before I got up this morning, I decided I wanted to start the day at least somewhat normally. So, for breakfast, Mary made me some oatmeal and ran it through the blender. She also cooked a soft scrambled egg. That's more like the kind of breakfast I had pre-op.

Keeping my teeth clean has become interesting yet again. I already had adapted to the more stringent regimen that braces require. Now, I've got a new routine that I have to get into. I've got all sorts of new hardware in there, including a splint and new wires and god knows what else. Plus, my lips are still pretty swollen, which creates pockets that weren't there before, and I can't really move my mouth much. I'm not wired shut. Instead, I have these little rubber bands on either side of my mouth. They attach to hooks on the top and bottom and help hold my jaws in place and keep the lower jaw forward. I have to take them out to eat and clean and then replace them.

So, here's my routine:

Rinse: First, I swish and gargle with warm salt water. I go through about two or three glasses.


Syringe: Eventually, I'll use my WaterPik, but I think it's just too dicey right now. So, I have this Monoject syringe that a dentist once gave me to rinse out my mouth.

Kiddie toothbrush: The surgeon's office gave me a stash of cool junior toothbrushes. I can just barely get the head to go between my cheeks and teeth and to fit between the upper and lower jaws to get the eating surfaces. I use just a tiny bit of paste and very, very carefully, try to clean the teeth.

I guess I do the best I can, but it is far from perfect.

This morning, I also tried to shave for the first time since Tuesday. I have a pretty light beard, but I tend to just get Yasser Arafat-scraggly after a couple of days. It was very difficult, in part because of the numbness, but also because my face is swollen. I made a few dents in the fur, but I gave up after a couple of minutes. It just wasn't worth it. Hell, when you're already drooling and puffy, a few days' growth sort of goes with the outfit.

Mary talked me into getting out of the house for a while. It was just a short road trip, but I didn't feel like staying gone more than a half-hour. I felt wiped out and a little woozey. I felt better after lying down for a while.

I don't think my looks have changed much from yesterday, perhaps a little less swelling than yesterday morning. Oh, and my lips aren't shedding skin quite so much.

Tomorrow, I'll post some progress pictures.

A REALLY GOOD PART OF ALL THIS: I've gone back into this post to mention something that I've been meaning to say from the beginning. A lot of folks have listed must-have items and they're all great lists. The one that would be at the top of mine would be to have someone who really, really loves you with you 24/7. I don't know what I'd have done these last few days without Mary. She hasn't blinked an eye through all of my sloppy eating, drooling, teeth cleaning and general physical scariness. I hope everyone who has gone or will go through this is even half as fortunate as I have been.