The monster jaws

before

Well here we go..... My name is sierra and for as long as I can remember I have had the monsters for jaws. Don't take monster for meaning ginormous because that is not the case, in my book monster means painful and hard to deal with... A good friend of mine Liz Tate said hey why don't you blog about this journey you are on so here we go im gonna try to blog.

Over the last four years my jaws have become progressively worse no one knew quite what was going on so i went through a lot of physical straining to correct the problem. In October 2010 I went in for a MRI and a month later we found out I have displaced cartilage. Which meant I had to get the problem fixed now or it would get worse and worse So it was off to surgery for me.

On January 19, 2011 I had a bilateral osteotomy -Ramus which means they were cutting through the bone.

 top pic was right after surgery.
bottom is probably the most swollen it was.
Notice the indention from the jaw bra. which held the muscles and jaw in place the first couple of days.

it has been a crazy journey the first 10 days I was wired shut and had a completely liquid diet clear liquids EWWW, Chicken broth or any kind of soup will not enter this mouth for quite sometime!!!! and this is the truth. I was allergic to just about every well every medicine they gave me. When I got in to recovery they gave me  morphine which gave me a rash which put me another 2 hrs in recovery. The guy next to me went ballistic and kept waking me up. The first night was a complete nightmare probably got a whole 30 min of sleep! I was in so much pain... But thanks to my Boss and Friend Amber Hunt for staying with me that night when my parents left!  when I got home the next day My not-mom Constance came and brought me some things I needed. I was taking Tylenol 3 with codien and we realized three days later I was allergic i had a adverse reaction and had to take benadryl to take my pain meds that sure got old after a while. It turned out i was also allergic to the antibiotic  they gave me  and i had to be switched to another med.... so as you can see i had a great time with all this.
after a few days when the swelling went down I realized I have screws in my gums literally like Philips head screws!!!! I almost freaked but Hey with every day I am getting a lil stronger and  I have come to realize how amazing food is and maybe I wont be as picky well i doubt it but maybe I will be more willing to try knew things. There are many things I could go into about all this but lets stay on topic!!! on Jan 28 i got the wires cut and got rubber bands and i go in for evaluation on feb 23....
so over this whole journey I was at the hospital probably 4 times with in two weeks.

I must go now but i will let you know how everything goes on the 23!!!
~~~~~ and remember Keep you head held high with poise and grace you are gonna do great things in life!!!!
-Sierra