On the Mend

It's been just over a week since I was discharged from hospital and I'm starting to feel a lot better than when I was first discharged! I've had elastics across my mouth keeping my jaw closely together, but just loose enough to allow me to slighly open them. I'm still only on liquidy/soft food though which is a bit of a struggle!

While I was very weak the night I came home, the next morning I was feeling better and a lot more optimistic, despite being frustrated at how difficult it was to eat. On that day my youth group at church were meeting together for lunch at On and Fiona's (our youth group leaders who happen to both be pharmacists AND married!) house. I originally wanted to attend but I still wasn't feeling completely up to it, plus I still had my Stats assignment to START that was due the Monday after the weekend! So I ended up staying at home just watching TV coverage of the Waitangi Day coverage and the rugby 7's with my mum while doing my stats assignment, while my brothers went and had fun with the youth group at their lunch. My Aunty Noeline and Uncle Peter, who had just had an operation on his hand came to visit on their way home too.

They came home later that night though and brought home some leftovers, including part of a cake they had to celebrate everyone who had a birthday in January (which includes me). They also gave me a card everyone had signed for me which was really nice of them!

While my face was still quite swollen the next day, I was fortunately well enough to check out the Lantern Festival the that day with my family. We didn't arrive till about 8pm and it was so packed! I had to watch out that I didn't get knocked in the face by anyone nearby or else that'd be very painful!

The festival was quite similar to past years, and so we just walked around checking out lanterns and trying to take good photos with our SLR. Ben, an old high school friend was there on his own so I got him to join me and my family for the night, and so he became an honorary 'Anderson' for the night! It was very tortuous walking down the road with all the food stalls though, since I couldn't buy or eat anything on offer!

It was really cool coming back to church on Sunday though; they were all excited to see me again and thought I looked a bit funny with my big, swollen face. I wasn't able to talk much as talking too much would make me tired. I think I sang a bit too much during the service though, as I got a bit of a headache when I came out of it at the end! During lunch a few of my friends sitting with my brothers and me found it amusing how I was only eating yoghurt and drinking Up and Go! That has pretty much been my diet for the past two weeks!

I did mange to get my stats assignment done in time and handed it in on Monday afternoon while on the way to pick up Aonghas's new laptop. He bought himself a Sony Vaio, I bet Alice will be very pleased with that! His laptop is 13", slightly bigger than mine, but a lot lighter, and a bit more expensive!

Tuesday morning was my follow-up appointment at Middlemore Hospital where the surgeon checked up on me. I was hoping I'd be able to get rid of the elastic bands restricting the movement of my mouth. He did take them out, but gave me a pack of elastic bands and told me to replace them each day when I brush my teeth! Noooo! He did take the stitch out of my forehead though, after the nurse struggled to get all of it out!

The surgeon did warn me to eat soft/liquidy food for the next six weeks...the next SIX weeks!!! I was thinking - how am I going to survive that long?? Up till that point I had been eating spaghetti, salmon, yoghurt, ice-cream and nothing more everyday and already had doubts on how long I could last on just that. I can happily report that after a few weeks I'm still eating the same thing, but I'm trying to expand into some other food, just breaking it up with my tongue since I can't chew! Today I attempted half a pie, which was extremely tiring! I guess having ice-cream a few times a day isn't too bad, but it gets tedious, and when the rest of the family gets to eat sausages, corn-chips, bread and other yummy solids, it gets really depressing!

The surgeon explained that if I ate hard food before my time I might rebreak my jaw. I have a titanium plate that is connecting the part of the jaw that was cut in surgery and if it gets loose then it might not reform properly. That scared me a little bit, and after that follow-up appointment, I became quite conscious of every little thing. I did take all my pills everyday, but whenever I heard clicks when I opened and closed my mouth I'd get a little freaked out, worrying that I had damaged something. I was especially worried at church when I laughed too much my jaw hurt, and then after that moment whenever I opened my mouth I heard a click! I started to wonder if I had rebroken my jaw!

When I got home though, I decided I'd better check if it was my elastics rubbing against my jaw, and turns out it was! Phew!!! Knowing that won't stop me from continuing to be cautious though, as I definitely don't want to return to hospital!

I did ask the surgeon if he could fill out an Aegrotat application form for me, which would allow the examiners to take into consideration my impaired preparation for the upcoming stats exam. He was well and truly generous and ticked the boxes that my performance in the exam was impaired by a SERIOUS degree and so was my preparation! I hadn't even sat the exam yet! Oh well, I won't be relying on Aegrotat to help me pass the exam though!

I had the exam on Tuesday afternoon, and it wasn't too bad. It was all multichoice. The air-conditioning was quite strong though and I was only in a t-shirt so I was starting to freeze. What made it worse was I was starving too! It was good catching up with my pharmacy friends though and I also caught up with a few health science friends after the exam too!

I spent my (sorta) last free day yesterday mucking around and decided to check out Trademe, and found a pharmacy textbook for only $4!! What a discount! OK so it's an older edition, but at $4 who cares! I love you Trademe! I'm going to keep a closer eye on Trademe for good discounts!

I also did have a little squizzy at AUT's website and noticed how entry into Law at AUT is only around B to B+ average! I've now decided that I want to do law after I finish pharmacy,and I'll use that as motivation for me to do a whole lot better in these last two years I have of pharmacy, so I have a better chance of getting into law at AUT or Auckland University! Either that or Commerce...

Anyway, time to sleep. I've got Uniguide training in the morning...(is anyone else a uniguide this year?)