i made it! i made it!!!

oh my gosh, it's over. and it wasn't anywhere near as bad as i thought it would be. before i go into the post-op details, i wanted to post the pre-op pics i promised. if you want to see a cute picture of how i usually look, just look at my profile picture, because these are after i got out of the shower and are not flattering!

my grimace

totally awful unflattering retrognathic jaw i've had all my life. it always reminds me of henrietta, the chicken who was in love with foghorn leghorn :)

surgical hooks: probably the worst thing ever

and they go allllllll the way back, and tear up the inside of your mouth :(

The Surgery:

i showed up at Grant at 10am. they pretty much took me right back, took my weight, some blood samples, an EKG, and put an IV in. then i got to wait for about a half hour and started falling asleep. my mom left work and got there just in time so that i could give both my parents a hug and a kiss before the procedure. then, they wheeled me off to the operating room.

literally all i remember was them hooking up my IV and then i woke up in another room. that day was spent drifting in and out of sleep, periodically getting antibiotics and diloted put into my IV. speaking of diloted, that stuff WORKS. holy crap. i mean, within seconds my body turned to jello and i was heading toward naptown again. so i slept most of yesterday. i woke up almost every hour during the night, but luckily i had awesome nurses who would always come in to check on me, bring me water, help me use the restroom and wipe my bleeding nose for me, all the while joking around with me to keep my spirits up.

this morning, my dad showed up at about 8:30 to visit and watched tv with me as i dozed in and out of sleep. i ate a lunch consisting of chicken broth, italian ice, red jello (good thing it was green, that stuff is gross), apple juice, hot tea, and tons of water. i felt so much better after i ate!

dr. jackrit came in and checked on me and was super pleased to see me wide awake and in good spirits (the diloted, i swear!). he gave me today to breathe and be semi-comfortable, and tomorrow i get to have my jaws wired shut, which i have a feeling will not be comfortable at all. the inside of my mouth is torn up and i'm really really bruised, but honestly, i don't feel like i have two broken jaws and a broken chin. so, here are the post-op pictures i have so far:

I HAVE A CHIN!!! yay! well, i will have a chin once the swelling goes down. man i am stoked for that. i'm so happy with my doctor and his staff.

well, i'm going to go drink a smoothie and eat some chicken broth, so thank you everyone for all your kind words and wishes. i'll try to keep this updated with daily pics so i and anyone else who wants to can keep track of the progress. 

best!

p.s. just for me, cuz i want to see them side by side:

arch bars

ohh man. got my arch bars put in today and they HURT! my jaws feel like a bad trip to the orthdontist, and the hooks are tearing up the inside of my mouth . i plastered them with braces wax but still. feels like i got hit in the face with a baseball bat.
so there's no turning back now. i go into grant medical center at 10am, and my surgery's at 12. hopefully i can sleep through tonight. wish me luck! :(

Lateral Ceph X-ray with Soft Tissue

this'll be a shorter post, i'll add more later. but i wanted to put my x-ray on here so you can see what i'm having done. this picture makes me hate my face!! ugh. check out that giant italian nose. and the big fat chin! that's what a retrognathic jaw looks like! i'll have to post some face pics once i get them taken.

this is the x-ray itself. below, i put lines indicating what's getting done. the green lines are where my face is going to be broken, the blue arrows show which way everything's going, the orange shows how narrow my airway is, and the yellow shows the spot that gives me the most trouble with my sleep apnea. after the surgery, once everything is healed up, that passageway should be about twice as wide.

gnarly.

T-Minus 2 Days

hello everyone! i guess i should explain what's going on for my first post. about 4 or 5 months ago, i was diagnosed with severe obstructive sleep apnea. during my sleep study, i stopped breathing for over 10 seconds about 130 times. also, i sometimes snore like a truck driver. my doctor validated how i've been feeling by telling me that interrupting the sleep cycle like that basically makes me feel like i didn't sleep at all! since it has started to seriously affect my cognitive abilities in school, work, and in general, i began looking for treatment.
the first course of treatment was to try using a CPAP machine. yes, the fighter-pilot face mask machine that forces your airway open while you sleep...that is, if you can even sleep at all. i had a horrible time with it. i couldn't get comfortable, the mask hurt and chapped my nose (like when you blow your nose too often and it starts to hurt), and the sounds it made kept me awake literally all night. did i mention that i'm a 22 year old college student? having to wear a CPAP machine for the rest of my life at this point was a very depressing thought. it's not practical, it's not easy to use or take anywhere, and it's not exactly...uh, sexy. darth vader status for sure. 

needless to say, the CPAP machine was not going to work for me. my sleep doctor sent me first to an ENT, and he sent me to an allergist (i'm allergic to my cat and to horses, both of which i am around a lot), and then to an oral surgeon. since i am far younger than most sleep apnea patients and not overweight, there had to be something else that could be done. after looking at my jaw and face, Dr. Jackrit Mongkollugsana (what a mouthful...no puns...) decided that the best course of treatment would be jaw surgery. i have a very short lower jaw, which i HATED all my life due to the 'double-chin' effect it gives in profile, and the x-rays showed that my airway was nearly half as wide as it should be because of the way my jaw sits in my face. i'll post the soft-tissue x-ray here a little bit later.
so, months later, i'm going in for surgery on june 29th. i will be having mandibular BSSO, maxillary osteotomy, and advance genioplasty. the video below shows kind of what i'll be getting done (the lady is having her jaw pulled backward; mine will be moved forward, but the general mechanism is the same). in addition, the doctor will be breaking horizontally across the base of my chin and advancing that in order to move the base of my tongue forward from my airway.

it's only 2 days away and i'm starting to freak out a bit. last thursday, i went to the red cross and gave a pint of blood in case they need to do a transfusion during the procedure(eeek!).i go in tuesday to have a stabilizing bar put in the night before my surgery. so today, monday and most of tuesday, i will be eating everything i possibly can in preparation for being stuck eating liquids only for 4-6 weeks while my jaw's wired shut. also, since i'm apparently an idiot, i smoke cigarettes and will have no choice but to quit forever (this is a plus, actually). dr. jackrit told me repeatedly that the first week is horrible and super depressing, and once i get through that, it will still be about 3-6 months until i am fully recovered.
i've read a lot of other people's blogs to learn about jaw surgery, and i try to make sure i listed them all in the "other bloggers" section on the right side of the page. so, if any other jaw surgery patients happen to stop by, i hope my blog will help you out like theirs helped me! at least now i know realistically what to expect and how to deal with it.