Post-Operation (Day 1-5)

 Pre-Operation: Night Before

I'm sorry for being so ugly and I hope it doesn't keep you for reading further, haha. But I took this picture the night before surgery just so I can have a "before" photo to compare to.

Post Operation: Day 1 

I stayed the night in the ICU. My surgeon prefered this because he feels that any sort of surgery that takes place within the vicinity of your airway and/or any major artery's should be closely monitored right after surgery. As I said, I stayed the night in the ICU which was more or less filled with sleeping, watching tv and icing my face. After surgery, I kept ice on my face constantly, and I think that is why I didn't have any extreme swelling, as you can see above. One thing that is uncomfortable is the numbness of my teeth. Obviously the surgery is in close range to the nerves of my teeth, and because of that I have lost all feeling in my top teeth and gums. I guess this is a good thing during and after surgery as if you didn't, I'm sure there would be a lot more pain involved. Lets just hope that the sensation will come back because it is a pretty uncomfortable feeling. The hospital experience was good, and I didn't experience too much discomfort.  

 Post Operation: Day 2

My 2nd day home was pretty un-eventful. After surgery I was pretty tired and most likely slept for most of the 24 hours. The surgery takes quite a toll on your body, and exhausts you which causes you to spend most of your day re-cooperating by sleeping.  Swelling began to increase minorly, specifically underneath my eyes/on the side of my nose. My face felt pretty tight in the areas of the bone cuts, but I guess that is pretty expected and obvious. Eating is a little difficult as mobility of my upper lip is pretty limited. My mouth didn't really have the motivation to open anyway, but even when attempting it will only go so far as the stitches limit how much movement is possible.

Post Operation: Day 3

Pretty much a whole bunch of the same. My cheeks swelled a good bit more as being able to apply ice 24/7 became a bit more difficult without having a nurse there to constantly get me ice. haha As far as pain, again, it was at a minimum. Only time I felt any pain was upon waking up in the morning. I figured this was normal as I didn't have ice on my face for most of the night, so it was able to heat up, swell more and as a result; pain!

 Post Operation: Day 4

On day 4, some of my swelling started to go down a bit but my face was still pretty tight in the areas of the cuts. As you can see, I gained a nice little bruise under my right eye which is more then expected, and pretty surprising that it was so limited. I am a pretty decent healer in general, so I don't think it is to surprising for me, but I have heard that bruising is expected. Something new that I started experiencing on this day was sensitivity of my bottom teeth.

Post Operation: Day 5

Swelling started to go down a lot. My top lip was pretty close to back to normal, or at least didn't feel like a balloon anymore. I still had the bruise under my eye, but it is at the Yellow stage, so it seems to be on its way out. One thing I started to notice was an increase in pressure on the bone cuts. Often it would feel as if the two bones at the vertical cut inbetween my front two teeth where pushing against one another. It actually would become pretty intense and become uncomfortable.