I know it's been about 3 months since my last post but I felt it was important to take a few steps back and let the healing completely take over.  I have to say, this was probably the smartest thing I've ever done.  I have never felt so good! Praise be to God that everything has turned out the way I had imagined it to be. I have not had any of the "classic" pain symptoms that I had before the surgery, such as swelling, HEADACHES!!!, neck and shoulder pain, limited opening and pain while eating, yawning, coughing - okay, just generally being awake!

 It has been 4 months since my surgery! Can you believe it? 4 months!! I have been reading over my old blogs and I can't even associate that person who was writing them to the person writing this blog now. It seems like a completely different person.  I have NO pain. None. Not even a little bit, not even microscopic. None.  It's funny, today I was talking with a lady during my kids' VBS and she flat out asked me what measurement my mouth was at before the surgery.  I told her the doctor took a measurement right after I walked into the operating room and I measured at 8mm. Most "normal" people have a mouth measurement at 40mm. So that is a tremendous difference. 8mm is not even being able to get 1finger measurement in the mouth (Try opening your mouth and using your pointer finger as a measurement and not even being able to get that small width passed your teeth!).  Jump ahead to April 1.   This was my first day of Physical Therapy (or rather torture that happens 30 minutes once a week).  My opening FINALLY made it to 10mm. Not bad, considering I had just gotten the wires removed.  As of June 7th at PT, my meausrement (hold your breath everyone!), my measurement was 24mm and was able to be stretched to 28!!! Talk about mind blowing. All the torture, stretching, exercising that I do EVERYday got me to 24. No words can describe....

What I haven't even gotten into is the infection that I developed almost 6 weeks after the surgery. I woke up one day in March with a slight fever, an overall flu-like feeling permeating my entire body. I sucked it up and went through my day. When I was giving the little one's a bath upstairs that night I happened to be looking at the progress of the incisions in the mirror. I noticed the redness, slight puffiness and pain around the left neck incision (remember the left side bore most of the complications during surgery). I just happened to be lightly, and I stress lightly because the incisions were still painful then, squeezing around the area and it exploded with blood and pus. Totally didn't seem to concerned at first until I mentioned it to Brad and he demanded I call Dr. Poor the next morning. Well little did I know that an infection with metal hardware is one of the worst infections a person can get for fear of Biofilm forming over the plates and screws. Cue rapid heartbeat and pulse. Cue the heart palpitations, cue the panic. I was immediately ordered to get my fanny into the car and head to Oakland to see him and have cultures taken. 3 to be exact. That's a lot of pushing, squeezing and grossing out. Turns out Staph may be involved. Cue picc line (google if you don't know what that is) for the next 7 weeks!! I had an IV in my heart for 7 weeks! Ahhhhhhh!!!! Medicine twice a day for an hour each time. Cue allergic reaction to the medication 9 days after starting it, on Good Friday, on my birthday! Happy Birthday to me, we're sending you to the ER. Really? Really?? Would the torture never end? I went to Oncology once a week for seven weeks for them to assess the picc, change the bandages, flush the line,etc. After Oncology, had labs drawn to test kidney and liver function (this was actually done twice a week Mon & Thurs), after labs tortured in PT for half an hour. This went on for 7 looonnnngggg weeks. Then one day, the picc was removed, no more lab draws and I only had to go to PT once a week. Cue happy girl!

All in all, now that my surgery memory has been pretty much wiped away (thank goodness!) I have to say finally having this surgery done was the best thing that ever happened. I even got to experience Texas Roadhouse with my family (Thanks Heidi for being the one to push me to that goal!). I even had steak (with no chewing issues) for the first time in quite a few years. And boy was that heavenly. And I had no pain! How long has it been? 6 years. For the first time in 6 years I don't wake up or go to bed or sit and watch tv or eat or yawn or cough or just be with pain. Nothing. Now I know what I've been missing out on all these years.

Thank you friends for all the support over the past 4 months. I still have quite a bit of healing still to do, but that's nothing compared to what I've already done. And I honestly couldn't have done it without you.

Sherri