Patience

I am completely unbanded now and I am slowly progressing up through the range of soft foods to harder stuff. I pushed the envelope with some harder tortilla chips yesterday and it was rather strange to chew again. Everything in you mouth feels out of place to what you've known your whole life. In addition, your jaw muscles have moved and been banded closed for over a month. Laura observed that I look like a baby that has just been given its first cherrio and is learning how to chew food. I chew slowly and have to think about what I am doing as my jaw muscles just don't seem to be as strong as they were before.

In addition, my speech is starting to return to normal. After talking like a ventriloquist for the last month through the rubber bands, I am starting to sound more like myself. My cheeks still seem to be thick and tight, so I sound like I have a few marbles in my mouth, but it gets better day by day.

Finally, the chin is slowly progressing each day, but it is still pretty numb. I've been told it would be about a year before I would recover complete feeling in most of my chin. I just got through a very annoying stage where my chin would tingle much like your foot when its asleep or you hit your funny bone. That lasted a few weeks and I am glad that stage seems to be gone. I am getting brave with a blade razor and starting to shave most of my chin now, which is rather scary. You almost feel like you might accidentally slice into your chin and not know it.

This stage after the surgery seems to be about patience. I am still very happy with the results but I am looking forward to being my old self again.