Say, what did Dr. O actually do to you?

I went to lunch with Brooke, Susan, Rachel, Susan from Helsinki, and Jamie, who I hadn’t seen in quite a while. During lunch, I found myself having "tired" spells and would shut my eyes for short periods of time. After that, Brooke went with me to the mall to find some camisoles. We went straight to J. Jill where I was able to finally find some decent ones, then we were out of there. I stayed out way too long though...close to 5 hours. The drive home was difficult as I found myself becoming sleepy. Luckily, Tyler called as I was driving home, so I was able to stay awake long enough to get home safely.

Around noon today, though, my short term disability company calls to ask when they think I will be returning to work. I tell them I still tire easily, and that I hope to head back to work on Wednesday, which is the recommended three weeks of recovery for Dr. O’s surgery. It’s kinda funny...they sent me a letter dated February 26th and postmarked March 1st, which I received on Thursday, March 4th. It basically said that they felt I should be able to return to work on March 1st, and that if didn’t, then they would need a ton of information from the physician who was treating me. I have my follow up appointment with Dr. O on Tuesday, so hopefully I can take care of the subsequent information at that time.

On a lighter note, I think I’ve sneezed three times since surgery, and during all three sneezes none of my brains have come out my nose. Whoo hoo! No, seriously, most of the "air rush" comes out my mouth, so I haven’t really let anything go through the nose yet.

Mira basically told me that I shouldn’t blow my nose until early April, and that I should try to inhale any....uh...schtuff...back through my mouth. Nice!

I’ve also noticed "strings" along the bottom edge of my mouth where the sutures are. It appears they are either dissolving or just being more noticeable. I can feel them on both sides of my mouth. I wonder how long I’ll have those sticking around in there as it’s getting harder and harder to distinguish the strings from bits of residual food.

Uncle Jack emailed wondering what exactly I had done with FFS, and looking back at my entries, I realized that I didn’t exactly talk about what I had done. So....I had my forehead recontoured, my hairline was moved forward, my nose was feminized, the distance between my upper lip and my nose was reduced, the back flair of my jaw was shaved off, the chin was shortened and narrowed, and my Adam’s Apple was shaved down.

The specifics include that Dr. O made an incision from about 3cm above my ear, along my front hairline, and down to just over the other ear. Total length of cut = 35cm. He then peeled the skin and tissue forward exposing the forehead bone. He then cut the boney brow off and reformed it into a smoother surface. Because the cut exposed the front sinus cavity, it had to be reformed. He used titanium wire to piece it back together and then ground down the surface to a nice round shape. As he was sewing it back together, he cut out 2-3cm of the forehead skin and moved the hair-covered skin forward to make a new hairline. He made an incision right under my chin and was able to shave off my Adam’s Apple that was about 4-5cm below the incision. He cut inside the back portion of my mouth to expose the jaw bone, shaved off the back flair of my jaw bone, and removed some of the muscle that was also quite prominent there. He then cut along the bottom portion of my mouth, between the base of the gumline and the inner cheek. This exposed the chin bone. He then cut out a horizontal wedge to shorten the height, then tapered the chin to narrow it...I think. He then modified my nose by doing an open rhinoplasty. He made an incision in the base of my nose and lifted the flap up to expose the interior of the nose. He narrowed the nose from the forehead down to the central base. He undeviated my deviated septum, and slightly reshaped the bottom portion of my nose. Sometime while working on my nose, he also cut out a 1-2mm section of the skin just under the nose, then resewed the skin back together. He installed tubes in the jaw cavities that led to little plastic bags. They would create a vacuum in the bags which would pull excess blood built up in the area he cut and ground on along my jaw. I also had sutures along my hairline, and metal staples in the incision actually in my hair. There were sutures along the bottom of my nose, dissolvable sutures in my mouth, and internal and external sutures along the incision under my chin. I had two splints up my nose that were attached to one another through my septum, a nose cast, and bandages along the base of my nose which covered the nose packing that was shoved up into my nose (which made it impossible to breathe through my nose). Finally, I had a chin strap to keep the skin tight against my chin and in place, along with dressing over my entire head. Wanna see a picture?

Nice, huh?

The numbness on the top of my head will hopefully return over time, which can be months to years, and some people never fully regain sensation there. This is all due to the way he reforms the forehead. He basically has to cut the two nerves that run up to the top of the forehead because he peels back everything to expose the bone. The chin/bottom lip tingly sensation should hopefully return to normal inside the next few months, along with sensation in the tip of the nose. Since he removed some of the jaw muscle, I’ve had trouble fully opening my mouth, but over time it’s returning to normal. I’m not supposed to return to very hard foods until early April.

Oh yeah, another funny thing I’ve noticed is that once I got home from the Cocoon House, I felt cold (still do slightly), and turned up the temperature in my apartment. I noticed the same thing with Claire immediately following her surgery. My mom and roomie both felt the place was getting hot since I’d turned on two heaters in the main living area, even though I felt quite comfortable. I turned them off when I realized that I was the one that was off on the temperature.