good thing i learned to beer bong in college.

day two with my jaw banded shut. one may wonder: hilary, how do you eat? because we know you LOVE to eat. a lot. 
well kids, this is how i eat. and drink. and take medications:

sexy, no?

good thing i learned how to beer bong like a boss in college! this may be the most frustrating thing so far. because i do, in fact, love to eat pretty much everything and a lot of it. now i'm down to eating liquids and super pureed, watered-down mushiness. it's also really time consuming. it takes me about a half hour to forty minutes to drink an 8-oz chocolate Ensure, and about 45 mins to drink the same amount of cream of mushroom soup (pureed the mushrooms, add chicken broth and whole milk). 

on a positive note, i've found some really interesting baby food flavors lately. the peach cobbler smoothie, cut down with some whole milk, is pretty much delicious! tomorrow i'm going to try the mac n' cheese. the main problem is keeping my intake somewhere close to 2500 calories a day. that's next to impossible. 

one really awesome thing is that i'm not dealing with very much numbness. the doc warned me that during the surgery, the big nerve that runs along your lower jaw can get damaged or torn and people can end up with permanent numbness in the lips, face or chin. so i've been pretty numb for a couple of days but i'm starting to get all the feeling back. it was numb from the bottom of my eye sockets to my chin, and is coming back in random patches. that's what all the itching was from! today, i can feel my nose, the very front of my chin (my new chin eee!), and about 85% of my cheeks. i keep getting these weird little shooting, fluttering *ping* feelings across my chin and face. they don't hurt, so they're kind of fun...i just hope they don't keep me up all night.

this morning, my lovely relatives Chris, Mick, Cara, Megan, and their little gang of animals sent me some absolutely beautiful flowers that came with a little white bear:

then, my little brother (he's 20 and i was honestly surprised he even thought about this) brought me these:

he's a good lil bro. i'm a pretty big fan.

as you can see from that picture, i'm still pretty swollen, still got some gnarly bruises, and my lips still hurt from being stretched during the surgery (curb your funny jokes, please), but otherwise i'm still considering myself lucky in terms of the lack of complications and the tolerable pain levels i'm dealing with. thanks again to all my wonderful friends and family who keep sending me kind words and wishes. i love you all and can't wait to be back with you guys again!