Part Two

I have more gross pictures. :) The morning of the surgery I woke up feeling really ill. I have been through 2 previous major surgeries on my jaw, so I wasn't sure why I was so nervous about this one. I don't even remember being wheeled back to the operating room. I hate gaps like that in memory. Usually they give you a warning that you are about to go to sleep, but all I remember is them asking me if I was ready and that's it. Next thing I knew I was in the recovery room having a hard time breathing and speaking and my left eye felt really weird. Nate came in and checked on me and then left. I just remember telling the nurse over and over that it felt hard to breath and my eye was feeling really weird. I had some strange reaction to something because my lips were swollen and so was my left eye. Like really gross lid gooey swollen. That took a couple of days to go away. Nate got me home and up to my room where I stayed for a week. I had a walkie talkie and called for help when I needed anything. For the first couple of days Nate even had to carry me to the bathroom. Loads of fun. I usually just didn't tell him that I had to go and made the long trek to the bathroom by myself because I hate not being able to do things myself. A few days after surgery I had to get my bandages changed, so my friend ,C, drove me because Nate was back at work. This is what things looked like under all the gauze. Pretty, right? lol

My Dr. was really impressed that there was hardly any swelling. That is thanks to my husband who wouldn't let me get out of bed and dosed me up with anti inflamatories. The kids were also great about keeping the ice packs coming. So, now you can see my toenails. The nail beds are a bit misshaped from years of being curled, but hopefully they will flatten out a bit and not look so freaky. My toes are also a bit shorter than they used to be. They look about the same length though because of how curled they were before. At this point I am wondering if I will ever wear a shoe again and the thought of squeezing my toes into a high heel sounds extremely painful.
2 weeks after the surgery it was time to go in and get the stitches out. Boy was this fun--NOT! You can see that things are a bit more swollen and you can see all the bruising that is there now...along with all the nasty orange stuff from my feet being prepped. Completely gross! Why are you even looking at these!!!! :)

It didn't end up being that terrible to get the stitches out except for on one toe. I had been experiencing extreme pain on my second toe on my right foot. You couldn't even just barely touch it without me screaming in pain. So, getting the bandage off and then getting the stitches out and rewrapped almost did me in. After that I had adrenaline coursing through my veins for awhile. I hate that. But, I survived and the nerve pain in that toe has lessened quite a bit.
The lovely assistant taking out my stitches. She was very nice and didn't make fun of me for crying. Of course I cried! It hurt like heck! This was also the first time in 2 weeks that I wasn't wearing sweats! Yay, jeans!

This was my, holy crap I can't believe that is over "are my toes still there?" I was also having a "what the heck did I do to myself" moment. After this I gimped into my favorite burger place and refueled after my traumatic experience. :) So, that's what I've been up to for the past 3 weeks. I have seen more tv than I think I have in a year. I'm hoping that my lack of exercise mixed with my bummed out eating doesn't produce a rather large butt! I hate running, but all I want to do right now is run. I want to be able to push off from the balls of my feet, dig my toes into the ground and run...for about a block!