Day 9 - And the pendulum swings

So, today was a rough day.

Physically, I am feeling okay. I went without any medicine today and I did just fine. No Sudafed and no Motrin. Not a lot of pain today. The only "pain" to speak of is the fact that my mouth is torn up. There was so much swelling in my lips and cheeks that the skin pretty much stuck to the braces. Now that the swelling is down, there are sores in the shape of the braces on the inside of my mouth. Something is rubbing my cheeks in the back, but I can't tell if it's a wire or the brackets. The normal cure for that is dental wax. I can't get the wax into the back of my mouth. I know that a cure for these sores is gargling with salt water, which I HATE MORE THAN ANYTHING, so I will live with the sores. (I did find out that I am genetically cursed to have mouth sores. Explains why I have used dental wax at least once a week since I got the braces put on 23 months ago.)

On the other hand, I have chosen today to be my pity party day. Congratulations! If you are reading this post, you are invited! I don't have any other experience with surgery (yep, jumped right in the deep end with a doozy of a surgery!), so I don't know much about recovery. I am feeling better. I can see that the swelling is down and I stay awake for longer than three hours without taking a nap - see, better! Now I am ready to be back to normal. (Unrealistic expectation, I am well aware of that. But, it's my party and I'll whine if I want to!) I want to be able to eat something. I am tired of soup and protein shakes and applesauce. I am tired of putting everything into a syringe and catheter tube and gagging myself to make sure that the food doesn't get deposited on the OUTSIDE of my teeth. I am tired of being afraid that my children are going to hurt me if they come near me. (Again, unrealistic expectation. I have 3 little boys. They are busy. They moved and bumped and jostled me without thinking when I didn't have double jaw surgery.) I am tired of talking and not being understood. I am tired of being tired but unable to sleep. I just want to be better. I want to go home. (My parents are taking wonderful care of us! We are so thankful to be here and have their support. However, it's not my house or my stuff or where my husband is.) I want to be able to parent my children.

Challenges for today:
1) See above

Good things about today:
1) I got some Disney planning done! I have reservations for 3 meals at Disney and Sea World. I have an itinerary of what we are going to do when! I am so excited about our trip!
2) I am going to have some vanilla pudding for "dessert" tonight. Who would have thought I would be this excited over a box of instant vanilla pudding.

Things I Learned today:
1) I have super bionic preggo-like smell powers. When Russ was still here, I had to get out of bed because of his man stink. It was 6:00 in the morning and he had showered before he went to bed. His scent has never bothered me during a non-gestational time before. Joshua's can of baby puffs smelled bad today. I have never noticed them to have any sort of smell. Which may be why.....
2) Food tastes different. Some things taste different from before the surgery and some things taste different from day to day. Perhaps I am just crazy, but I am going to keep a tongue on this.

So...thus ends the pity party. Thanks for sticking with me! Can't promise it will be sunshine and rainbows from here on out, but hopefully today was the worst of it!