Day Twenty

I haven't updated in a few days, because not too much has been changing.
I can eat pretty much anything, as long as it's soft, so that's nice. I still imagine of the day I can bite into a big gross cheeseburger with tons of pickles and shove french fries in my mouth until I feel sick. That will be the day!

This morning I started experiencing a lot more pain than usual. Most of the time I don't feel much of any pain, except for a little discomfort after I wake up in the morning. But last night I started getting this "shooting" pain through my chin/jaw on the right side. I'm totally numb in that area, including my lip on that side, so I figured the nerves were starting to "wake up." When the nerves begin to heal and regain feeling, it's normal to feel pain. So I didn't worry much. But, this morning when I woke up, it hurt pretty damn bad every time I moved my mouth the slightest bit. I looked in the mirror and noticed that my chin in that area on the right is "dipped in" and curved a little more than the other side, and I totally lost my shit. I got so obsessed with it. I stared at it in the mirror for a good thirty minutes, poked, prodded, made faces, everything, to the point where I felt nauseous and faint from thinking about it and panicking. I know I'm a nut job, but If I were feeling just pain, I would deal with it and say it's just the nerves. If I was noticing just a little asymmetry, I would think "oh, that's just the swelling going down faster on this side than the other." But since I am having both pain and looking different than the other side, I just cannot stop thinking about it and imagining every single thing possible. I finally called my doctor, because he said to call him about anything. So there I was on the phone with my voice cracking because I was about to burst into tears and hysteria, trying to explain to him what I was seeing. He said exactly what I said earlier about the nerves waking up, and that's normal. But said he couldn't comment on my "curved chin" because he can't see it, obviously. He said if I am not seeing any new significant swelling, he can't imagine anything being wrong since I looked great last time, but if I would like, I can come in on Monday to have him look at it. I said "I'll see how the weekend goes" when I knew damn well I'd have my butt in there ASAP Monday. But it doesn't look like that will be happening either because we're supposed to be getting several inches of snow then. Hopefully I will be feeling better about this by then.

I continued with the day, and met Aida at Phipps where we looked at every single thing in Tiffany & Co. and died a little inside. I stared at myself in every mirror, and made her examine my chin and asked her about it 29542 times and what she thought. She thinks nothing is wrong and it's just the nerves healing and uneven swelling. So I called her a liar and said to tell me the truth haha. We then went to The High to see the magnificent Dali exhibit. WOWWWW. Ugh it was SO GREAT. What a psychotic, talented, genius (like me, haha just kidding. Sort of.) Art is just astounding to me. I feel fortunate for getting to see all of those works, especially "The Persistence of Memory!" ...Which is very small by the way. I know, you were thinking it's big, but no, it's little. We did a lot of walking, which wears me out easily now, but Aida and I had so much fun in there!

Then I went home and obsessively stared at myself in the mirror some more and nearly cried again and made myself sick, then decided I was insane and needed to get ready to go have date night with Aid. Of course he said "I don't really see what you're talking about" and I told him he's lying too. But he said that it looks like one side is just more swollen and it's making it look uneven and was really sweet and supportive! Our date nights have gotten a little less exciting and haven't been much more than seeing a movie since I can't go out to eat or do much, so we went to see True Grit, which was really good! Then I had a little mini breakdown in the car because that same area started hurting really bad and I was so frustrated with it and myself, but Aid made me feel better.

In addition to this crisis, I noticed my numb parts of my lips tingle a lot, so that is a good sign. Also, the left of my nose, on my cheek from my eyelid and down was totally numb but it seems to have some feeling coming back already. It also seems like the roof of my mouth is regaining feeling too because I feel these strange sensations from food when I'm eating sometimes. It doesn't feel like how it should, but it is starting to regain feeling. Yay!


I'm just going to try very hard to not worry and stress myself out over the uneven-ness anymore.

Early today:

Seems like I look a lot more swollen/chubby on the left side:

Tonight:

You can see the difference in my chin here.