Day 17

I realized that I can open my mouth and get two fingers between my bottom teeth and the splint.  Woo hoo!  I am having an easier time brushing my teeth too.  It isn't as scary getting my tooth brush everywhere it needs to go to clean my teeth.  I also think some of my swelling has gone down in my upper lip.  Not much but it doesn't feel as tight and strained.  One really cool thing was I was able to move my lower lip.  Double Woo hoo!!  I was able to move the left and right sides of my lower lip independently even.  My chin still feels weird to touch it but I'm still happy I can feel me touching it.  Ended up eating my yummy corn chower 4 times today and my husband made me homemade POG juice.  Soo good.

I am so excited!!!  The amount of drooling has drastically gone down!!  Last night when I was attempting to go to sleep I noticed that all of a sudden I wasn't drooling as much.  I thought I might be dehydrated since I didn't drink much yesterday.  And if that was what it was I would be totally fine being dehydrated to keep the drooling to a minimum.  This morning when I woke up I was still drooling less than normal.  I was actually able to take my naps without a towel and even walk around the house without a towel beneath my face.  Let's hope this is permenant progress.  :)

A strange thing happened tonight.  Andy and I went to the movies and it was lightly raining when we got there.  As we were leaving I thought it felt quite cold but no big deal.  Well, halfway arcross the parking lot I told him that my face was hurting a little.  Pretty much as soon as I said that my face started hurting a lot.  Then my lower jaw started chattering.  I couldn't stop it.  I didn't think it was that cold but my jaw joints were super tight and my lower jaw wouldn't stop chattering.  We rushed to the car and blasted the heater but nothing was helping.  Andy took off his flannel and wrapped my lower half of my face in it got me home.  It helped a little.  It hurt to chatter and it really hurt to have my face sooo tight.  As soon I got home I put our little heater on in the bathroom and Andy suggested that I get in a hot shower.  Finally my face started relaxing under the hot water of the shower.  Don't know why that happened but it wasn't fun.

My attempt at a smile.  It looks more natural than it feels. 

 I think I look more like the joker than I would prefer.  Hopefully it looks and feels more natural as the size of my lips goes down.

A better view of the splint in my mouth.  Again this is for the jaw surgery people that are going to have this thing in their mouth for 6 weeks.  :)  Don't know if you can tell but this thing is really thick.  It is wider than the length of my thumbnail. 

My range of motion (ROM) is 2 fingers plus my splint.  My Dr was very happy with how wide I can already open my mouth.  The first week of surgery I could only open it one finger wide.