I deliberately took a few snow days recently to regroup and rest my body instead of heading to the gym. I took it as a sign to slow down and spend time at home. It was nice to rest and get away and I was right back to it the following week.
Then, I had oral surgery. I scheduled it on a Friday so I could spend the weekend recovering and get back to work and normalcy by Monday. I hadn’t realized when I scheduled that I was doing it on the weekend of the big football game and Valentine’s Day. I just knew that in therapy, I’d agreed to finally stop putting off taking care of myself due to the cost and anticipating other costs being more important than something I actually needed. After all, putting myself last got me into the mess of many of my teeth being beyond repair.
The oral surgeon’s office rescheduled with me twice before calling me the day of surgery asking me to come in early due to a cancellation. So, after I ate a breakfast at McDonald’s that I hadn’t eaten in years, I went. It was supposed to be an extraction of two teeth and a consult on getting an implant in another tooth space they’d extracted in recent years. After they assured me that I could save a little time by having it done on that day, I agreed to have the implant done as well. I prepaid for it all while the novacaine seeped into my face making me feel as if a heavy mask rested upon it. I was anxious because my last extraction, I wasn’t numb enough and I writhed in pain in the chair. This time, I felt nothing while they extracted.
When the surgeon began the implant, he asked assistants for tools and asked me if I was ok. He explained each step. At one point, he started telling me that he had to use a tool on me that would be very loud to me and would feel very odd. He assured me he would show me the purpose after surgery was complete. It sounded like a jackhammer was inside my head and I felt it jar my entire skull a few times briefly. After surgery, I was shaky. I had an xray done for them to look at the work. The surgeon stopped me at the computer screen and showed me the implant. He explained that my sinus had been where they needed the implant, so the tool was used to move my sinus up to make room for the implant. So, it was a sinus lift, bone graft, and implant.
I went home and rested with ice. I thought I’d rest the remainder of Friday and the entire day Saturday. I figured I’d be fine by Sunday morning for volunteering at church. I was wrong. The pain became unmanageable. I took the maximum dose of ibuprofen and a prescription pain pill and it felt like my face was being squeezed in a vice or ran through with a sword. I used [legal] gummy edibles after my 6 prescribed pain pills were nearly gone.
I went to work anyway on Monday and thought the right thing to do was to “tough it out”. I brought some ibuprofen with me and I had smoothies for both breakfast and lunch. The lunch wasn’t planned, but my husband brought it to me. I called the oral surgeon’s office and they said that pain tends to peak around day 3 and call if it was still hurting Wednesday. I went home in so much pain that evening, I used the last bit of my pain medicine and stayed in bed except to have a baked potato for dinner. When I went to work Tuesday, I couldn’t function over the pain. I went home after an hour, climbed into bed, and slept until 2pm. Wednesday, I went back to work feeling slightly less pained, using 2 naproxen every 8 hours, and rubbing Beam CBD on the pained sinus every hour. I called the oral surgeon in the afternoon, and got a last minute appointment. The surgeon changed my antibiotic and gave me a prescription mouthwash to brush directly onto the implant site [ouch]. The antibiotic has made it a little more bearable, but it still aches. I still take ibuprofen every 6-8 hours because I ran out of naproxen. When I’ve eaten anything harder than a potato, it has ached for a while after.
I haven’t been to the gym this entire time. I wasn’t told anything about limiting activity. I haven’t been able to because I’ve been in so much pain already that I’ve used all of my energy on basic human functions. My husband has taken care of everything around the house including feeding me separate meals that I can actually chew.
I know this is only a season and that looking back, this moment in time will seem much shorter. In the thick of it, I’m done. I don’t want to be in so much pain. I started this post meaning to talk about how being part of something like the gym makes me both happy and frustrated. I have friends now that check in on me and care, but I missed my Deka competition today and I’m extremely disappointed. Then, there are the social aspects that are mostly annoying when any people are in a group. I’ll get around to talking about it one day.
Thanks for reading! I’m sure I’ll be back soon to talk about some good stuff. I’m still in the process of eating for my body and not for a body I have in my head. I think it’ll be easier when I can chew.
Here’s some photos from that day:
Jenn's Journey 