Saturday, February 20, 2010

Infection???

So, 3 1/2 weeks ago when I saw Dr. N he was concerned about 2 inflamed areas, one on each side of my nose. He though that the two stitches up there were infected and put me on antibiotics. I finished the antibiotics last Sunday (almost 2 weeks ago) and the areas were still inflamed and painful to the touch. I called the office and Dr. N prescribed me another round of antibiotics. I finished those on Thursday night...and the areas are still inflamed and swollen. I'm worried that it's something serious...

I'm going home for spring break next week, so I'll see Dr. N a week from Tuesday. However, I don't know what to do in the meantime. There's not much that can be done when I'm in Michigan and he's in Colorado.

Monday, February 15, 2010

Before and After

So, I figured it was time for before and after pictures!

Before:



After:


Before:


After:




I'm really happy with my new smile, sometimes I find myself smiling when I glance into a mirror. It's just so different (and pretty, haha). Sometimes I can't believe that it's been 9 weeks!

I still feels like I'm swollen and I'm not really seeing any changes in that (though people who only see me occasionally say there is improvement each time they see me). The gaps on each side of my front four teeth are slowly closing-the one on the left is almost gone already!

Since the infection hasn't cleared up yet, I'm still not allowed to swim :( but I was feeling well over the weekend and decided to go hiking with my friends. A winter hike up Sugarloaf Mountain, might not have been the best idea; I was exhausted by the time we got to the top, but it was fun! I wore YacTrax (those grippy rubber things on my shoes) and that was really helpful, since falling would have been really bad!

I realized as I was writing this that I never wrote a reactions post about how some of my friends reacted to the changes in my face, so I'll have to write that soon!

<3 Stefane

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

8-weeks!

Well, tomorrow will mark 8-weeks since my surgery!

Bad news first: The infection in the stitches up by my nose wasn't cleared up by the first round of antibiotics. I finished the antibiotics on Sunday night, and the area was still swollen and painful to the touch, so I called Dr. N on Monday morning. He ended up prescribing me another round of antibiotics. Hopefully this round will clear up the infection.

On to the good news!

I'm feeling fine (most of the time) I still get really tired, especially when I get stressed out. I'm really making an effort to not let myself get tired out, but it's difficult with stress from school and my busy schedule.

The swelling is going down, but it's still there. I can usually feel when I'm more swollen, and it's usually the left side that's more swollen than the right side.

My chin is still quite numb, there's a little feeling coming back along the edges. That's somehow more annoying than the complete numbness...a lot of the time it feels like something is dripping out of my mouth, when it's actually just the nerves tingling!

I'm being really careful with what I eat, and I'm not really biting into anything with my front teeth. They still feel very loose, so being super careful is better then moving too fast!

I'll be home in 3 weeks for spring break, so I'll have my next check up then!

<3 Stefane