Red beans and rice never tasted so good

Today is day six since the jaw surgery last Friday. I’m kind of amazed that tomorrow it’ll have been a week since the surgery. For the first few days, I wondered if I could make it to a week from surgery. Fortunately, I did! The swelling is really starting to come down now. I’m still pretty swollen and fairly uncomfortable, but compared to last weekend, this is a walk in the park. I’m also getting the hang of the elastics and the splint. Part of my first check-up was adding an elastic to fix up my lower jaw a bit and how to take the plastic splint in and out for cleaning. The splint prevents my upper jaw from contracting as the incisions heal. I have to take it out a couple of times a day to clean and to sometimes to eat. I made myself some red beans and rice from a box tonight and it’s never tasted so good. I’ve had pretty much nothing but juice and protein shakes for almost a week so solid food was pretty darn good.

I got brave enough to post some pictures. You can get a sense of how swollen I still am (mind you six days after the surgery). I was much more swollen over the weekend. You can also make out some of the bruising which has mostly shown up on my neck. My face is kind of red because starting today I’m under orders to apply heat to my face a few times a day to help reduce the swelling. So my nose got a little red. I unfortunately don’t have any true before and after shots yet. I’m going to try and get those from my orthodontist as well as copies of my x-rays if I can to post. Until then, take a look at the vacation pictures from earlier posts to see what I normally look like. :)

Swelling at day 6.

It's hard to tell until I get better pictures but the point is
that my lower jaw is behind my upper jaw and centered just right.
Also with the sutures and the swelling, smiling is kind of hard and painful.
You can kind of make out the elastic for my lower jaw in this one.