Today I woke up with some feeling in the crevices of my lips. Weird, I know... but that's all I can feel still. My tongue is completely back but everything else from my big huge Jay Leno chin to my big bulbous nose and cheeks up to my eyes is still numb. There's little bits of tingles all over nowadays here and there but for the most part I still have very little feeling. Good and bad really. Good because I know if I could feel it it'd be even more painful but bad because... well... every other reason! Its annoying first and foremost, it's impossible to eat or drink with no feeling in your mouth, lips and palette as well. Also which I'm finding a lot lately because I am getting little tingles more and more is the itchiness... OMG I itch and nothing it there! Its horrible. Nothing can solve that itch! My stitches inside my mouth have been coming out over the last couple of days so I've noticed I must be healing ok in there. I still have one big huge sore right in front of mouth on the top inner lip that is the most painful. It looks to either be an open wound from the arch bars or the surgery itself... I don't know... but it's not pretty or nice. Because of that wound my top lip remains the most puffy and swollen and my mouth remains in an always semi open position which brings forth lots and lots of drool. It's really sexy! I'll be texting on my phone or on my laptop and I'll notice a string of constant slobber down over my chest onto my phone/keyboard. Uhg.
I've been doing better pain-wise lately. I'm still on all my pain drugs and when it gets close to taking them I can definitely feel it but if I stay on top of them I'm at about a pain level of a 4 or 5. When the pain is bad now days it only gets to about a 7. Because I've been feeling better I made my first non doctor related adventure out of the house. I had my sister come over and get me to bring me over to our parents' house to go over some stuff for the anniversary party we're throwing them. I took a shower for the first time this morning all by myself standing up (wahoo!) in preparation. It was exhausting and I was sure this would have to be a short trip. Thankfully it was. I stayed about an hour and a half and then came home. I had mashed potatoes and beef broth on top to water them down with some apple juice that I was pretty impressed made mostly to my tummy and very little on my lips and chin. I did do a lot of talking while there and so when I got home I took some liquid pain meds and went to lay down. Upon waking I not at all shocked by how swollen I was. I knew it'd be a lot but I needed to do it. I am now paying for that little adventure by not being able to open my mouth and my lips and chin are so swollen I couldn't even shove a baby spoon in between with mashed potatoes for dinner. So sad. I guess tomorrow I'll have to go back to my Boost and Slimfast shakes and see if I can manage the swelling better with ice and no talking. It should be better because I'll be home alone most of the day.
Originally I had only planned to take 2 weeks off of work. That's what I had begged Dr S to put on my FMLA papers and what I had turned into HR before leaving. Everyone at work laughed at me and my boss even said he already marked me out for the month. "Oh no" I said... "I'm gonna be fine!". Um, yea. I take that back. Thankfully after getting out the ICU I knew that already was not going happen so I texted my boss a picture of my Rocky Balboa warface and said..."Just kidding...there's no way I'll be back in 2 weeks". He again just laughed at me and said ok. I called HR last week (or actually my mom did while I sat by anxiously wanting to cut in with a paper and pen writing down what to say) to let them know it's going to be 4 weeks instead. Dr S's office faxed over the paperwork to make the change and this week I just need to get things straightened out with the short term disability people at Hartford to get the 2 weeks paid for by them at the 60% rate. Lovely... even more less pay... right before Christmas, Anniversaries and Birthday end of the year crap! Oh well... nothing I can do about it. Here's my latest swollen face photo from a couple days ago... it also shows how the bruising is coming along on my neck/chin:
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