Day 62: Multitasking Fail

  • Pain: 0/10
  • Inconvenience: 2/10

Elastics, elastics, elastics.

Big news: Two of my teeth on the right side of my mouth are now touching throughout the day! I have those annoying little elastics to thank for a job well done. They may be the bane of my existence, but they’re also putting out in a big way. I took the liberty of sticking one of them on my face so you can see just how tiny they really are. That small piece of stretchable genius goes around 5 teeth at a time. They also come in a cool bag with a cartoon moose on the front, so really, I have nothing to complain about.

I’ve started changing my elastics twice per day–morning and night–in an attempt to achieve the quickest results possible (to fit in with our society’s focus on instant gratification). The elastics stretch out really fast when I’m talking as much as I do, so they’re rendered fairly useless by the end of the day.

I’ve seen my family and several friends over the past week and they’ve all said the exact same thing (with quite a bit of excitement, I might add): “I can’t believe how different you look!” Apparently my face is a different shape altogether and my entire body is noticeably lacking weight. I still can’t accept that I look any different. Perhaps when you’re looking in the mirror every single day, the change is gradual enough that you fail to notice it, whereas for people who haven’t seen me since before the surgery, the change is quite substantial.

I tried my first solid meal at Julio’s Barrio a few nights ago. After scouring their menu for the meal closest to pureed, I settled with chili (or chilli, or chile, depending on what your ethnicity is). I couldn’t chew it very well, so I ended up swallowing most of it whole and felt a little uncomfortable as a result. The waitress kept coming by wondering if I liked it or not because I was taking so long to eat it (it took me 1.5 hours to eat half of the dish). I eventually explained my predicament to her so she would stop fretting about the meal. I think I’ll keep on blending for now.

From that experience, I realized that I need to learn how to chew again. You’d think it’s a completely natural process, but you’d be wrong. You can do it without thinking because you have decades of practice. I challenge you to not eat for 8 weeks along with having your mouth rearranged, and then try to chew again. You’ll be in the same boat as I am. It took 100% of my concentration and brain power to simply bring my teeth together in all the right places. I was honestly having difficulty chewing and talking at the same time!

I think I’m going to attempt to build a carrot cake soon. I’m confident I could mash it up with my tongue enough to swallow it in somewhat manageable pieces. On top of that, carrot cake is absolutely heavenly. And 2 goods reasons is more than enough for me!

27 Comments

  1. It’s been 5 weeks since my double jaw surgery to correct my underbite. I had a pretty hard time that first week but little by little I started feeling much better. I’m a big fan of food but my doctor still says I can’t chew anything. Even with that I still eat pasta daily (angel hair with pesto sauce) and the other day I ate an omelette and I actually dared take some sausage and cut it into little pieces and just mashed it with my tongue (my mom flipped out but I enjoyed it so much). I was able to eat triturated bacon the other day and it tasted pretty much like heaven. My doctor said as long as I didn’t chew I could get creative with almost anything and I have. A few things have concerned me, I actually thought I would come out of the surgery with everything already in place but that’s actually not my case. My bite was still crooked after the surgery (I still could only touch my molars in only one side of my face). I didn’t expect that, but the surgeon gave me some rubber bands to begin my orthodontist’s work (since I still can’t visit my orthodontist) and yesterday I finally started feeling everything fall into place. Yet it felt really weird and sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night concerned that something may be wrong. Right now, the hardest part for me, is not being able to play soccer or having to go out to rave parties and stay away from the crowd and be so concerned about my face. I just want everything to be fine and go back to normal already. It’s difficult when you feel completely normal except for the fact that everything else isn’t.

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