18 days post-op

As you can tell I've been FAR too busy watching 20 epidsodes of "The Tudors" to update my blog!

OS Update
Saw the Oral Surgeon on Monday (20th) & he was very happy with my progress. He wants to see me when I have my splint out. He thought that the Ortho should remove my splint when I saw him on Tuesday.

Ortho Update
No such luck with the splint!! I wasn't biting into it properly, so had to have it for a further 10 days. Getting it removed next Friday 31st October (yay!). Apparently Dr K did his Masters on the length of time a splint should be in for after surgery & he says its extremely rare to get a splint out after 2 weeks. It will be be 3.5 wks for me when I get it out.

Splint adventures
I think the splint is probably the worst part of this whole experience. By the time I get it out it's going to have 3.5 wks worth of stale food - yuck! Plus it's attached quite tightly so it makes my teeth hurt. Also, because my upper jaw was expanded they had to cut my archwire in 2 places (near each canine) & my teeth are trying to move around. There are gaps opening up & my archwire has slipped back on each side & is slicing into my cheeks (ouch).

Other stuff
Swelling is improving even though I started sleeping flat again on Thursday night (instead of being propped up by 3 pillows). My back is finally starting to recover! Looking back at the pictures so far, there is a big improvement in my swelling particularly in my neck! I had the neck equivalent of cankles for a while there! Bruising has been pretty much gone since the 2-week point (Tuesday). My energy levels are pretty low still - I get very tired & although I'm sleeping well at night now, I sleep 9-10 hrs a night which is very unusual for me.

Why the toast always lands butter side down (Murphy's Law)
I just need to vent about the day we had yesterday (Friday)... there was some serious karma going on & I'm not sure what evil thing we did, but it must have been bad!
1) It started off when we decided to go out for dinner & our first 2 choices were booked out (nothing to complain about yet!). We finally got a table at a great Italian place in Spearwood.
2) As we pulled into the parking bay there was a loud hissing sound... I had a flat tyre! We decided to enjoy our dinner & deal with it afterwards.
3) As we walked out the restaurant after dinner to go & change the tyre there was an almighty downpour accompanied by gale force winds! We dumped the spare tyre & jumped in the car for 10 mins until it abated.
4) It was still drizzling when we got out the car to get the jack, spanner/tyre bar and adapter for the lock nut (for the alloys) out the boot. The adapter for the lock nut fitted fine, but the tyre bar was too big for the standard bolts!!! Arghhhhh!!!
5) Walked in the rain to BP - no spanners/tyre bars, so we resorted to the RAC. Luckily they were super speedy & were there in 10 mins to change the tyre for us. Initially the spare tyre wouldn't fit on & we were thinking it was going to be a looong night, but luckily it was just a spacer ring for the alloy rims.
6) When we got home, our darling dog Ralphy had rifled through the garbage & eaten a pile of stale chips from fish & chips 2 nights before... Having just spent an hour in the rain, cleaning up garbage at 10.30pm was a lot of fun. Plus we were thrilled at the propect of being up all night with a vomiting dog! Luckily though he didn't seem to suffer any ill effects, so we hopped into bed.
7) The day was topped off by our final adventure - an hour after getting into bed we woke up to a howling storm outside and an ominous dripping sound inside! The gutters were overflowing into the roof cavity & dripping through the door frame above the french door in the bedroom... great! We piled up the towels & went back to bed (we'll deal with this in the morning!). Ahhh the joys of an old house!

Today we're buying a lotto ticket & a scratchie - our luck's bound to change!