Recovery Day 36

This past week has been a bit of a blur for me. The holidays were good! Since I was told to take it easy and focus on recovery, Don took a few days off work and we were able to spend the whole week of Thanksgiving with his family out in the Berkshires. It was very nice and relaxing. On Thanksgiving, I was able to eat the whole Thanksgiving meal! It was wonderful not having to "fend for myself" or make something that I actually could eat. I was very thankful for that and for not having to cook much on Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving for us is pretty traditional/tame. We had turkey, gravy, cranberry sauce (had to do the can since I couldn't chew the real stuff), squash, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing and dinner rolls. We came home Friday evening since we didn't want to have to deal with any traffic and I think we timed it perfectly. We didn't go out for any black Friday shopping, we were lucky enough to find plenty of good deals online. 

Today marks 5 weeks since surgery which is crazy! I returned to work today which is also crazy. I didn't work a full day due to an issue with my return to work letter. They called me after it was clarified and I went in right after that. I only worked about 6 hours but it felt good. I'm very tired mostly from talking to everyone. Everyone at work was super sweet because they all wanted to check in on me which was nice. I'll be working full time but I'll be on light duty for awhile. I'm not scheduled to work in the OR until January so I've got a month to really transition back to my schedule again.

Nothing much has happened with the braces except... I'm pretty sure that I broke one of my brackets. Not sure when it happened but I noticed it tonight when I was brushing my teeth. I'm going to shoot Dr Klein an email tomorrow and find out if I need to get it looked at before my appointment next week. Don't want to ruin my progress so hopefully I'll find out tomorrow if it needs to be fixed immediately.

Week 5 Progress Photo

Week 5 Progress Photo

I took these photos last night since I'm pretty tired today. I can now smile without it looking super fake or looking super painful (smiling hasn't really hurt so much since I couldn't feel my face much but the stretching felt VERY weird). I still have stitches inside my gums which is a pain. But it looks like I only have about 3 left which is pretty awesome.

I've been kinda lame with not posting as often and I think I'll blame the holidays. Hopefully should get a little better from now on.