1 Week Later - How am I doing?

So, I've meant to join the ranks of the jaw bloggers (yes, there are a shocking number of play-by-play accounts of preparing for, enduring, and recovering from Maxillomandibular Advancement Surgery (MMA) aka Maxillomandibular Osteotomy, aka Bimaxillary Advancement, aka Orthognathic Surgery) because it was immensely helpful for me to read first-person patient accounts when deciding about the surgery and because I thought it would be a good way of updating friends and family about how I'm doing.

If you are asking, What in the hell is Maxillomandibular Advancement Surgery?, you can check out an informational page provided by my actual surgeon: Dr. Kasey Li

He even has a podcast interview about the procedure!

For now, i just wanted to give a quick update on how I'm doing, and then I'm planning on going back and writing a little bit more about what my experience has been like so far.

I had the surgery on Tuesday, August 30th - about a year and half after (finally) being diagnosed with severe Sleep Apnea. The surgery was conducted at Stanford University Hosptial by Dr. Kasey Li, who specializes in sleep surgery and is one of the (if not the) leading surgeons for MMA surgery in the country. I believe actual surgery time was about 4 hours, and everything went as planned.

I stayed in the ICU overnight and was moved to a regular room in the morning. After one more night in the hospital, I was discharged and, after a quick stop at Dr. Li's office, came home.

I'm doing really really really well - I tried not to think too much about the procedure ahead of time (those of you who clicked through to the surgery description will understand why), but vaguely entertained the suspicion that the experience would be incredibly awful, but then, eventually (months of recovery later), over.

Instead, the surgery was exhausting, disorienting, and not particularly fun... but all in all... not that bad. I've certainly been uncomfortable, unhappy at times, and in some pain, but not NEARLY as much as I worried. I'm gaining energy day by day and have even had a few friends come over to visit. I'm still pretty easy to tire, but Dr. Li wants me up and walking around when I feel like I can, so I've tried to do some good circuits around the neighborhood.

I'm off (liquid!) Vicodin and on (liquid!) ibuprofen, which is good - I feel a bit more like an actual human being.

Anyway, I'll post pictures of pre and post surgery (I do look a little different!) and add some more details about how everything went.

In the meantime, if you want to come visit me (I love the company!) shoot me an email or text. I can't talk on the phone (or at all) until early October - so don't bother with that. Please don't feel badly if I ask to delay by a day or two. I'm still really really tired a lot of the time, and feel under the weather some days more than others. And conversing via whiteboard is surprisingly tiring!

Also THANK YOU TO ALL MY FRIENDS AND FAMILY  - You all have been more lovely than I could have imagined. Your emotional, moral, and smoothie support have been both incredibly touching and unbelievably helpful.