Status update, morning of 2023-08-24
Aug. 24th, 2023 11:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brin_bellway[cw: injury, (fairly mild) food, (arguably) illness, (arguably) death]
Four days ago, Day 20 of surgery recovery, I was very nearly all the way better. It hurt a *little* to eat *unusually* difficult foods like chunks of stale baguette, but other than that I was pretty much fine.
That night, things started getting worse again, and they've been getting worse ever since.
I'm in substantially *less pain* now than I was a day and a half ago (I needed both an acetaminophen *and* a naproxen to get to sleep that night; I haven't taken any painkillers today), but I'm definitely *more sensitive* than I was then: the reduced pain is because I've been living on nothing but Ensure and applesauce and scrambled eggs since yesterday morning's fibre bar (which hurt more and longer than previous fibre bars). Last night it started hurting to talk again, which it was not doing as recently as the afternoon. Also this morning there's some discomfort below my eye, albeit much less than in the jaw hinge and (to a lesser extent) surgery area.
I have heard it said that jaw infections are in the category of "extremely treatable *if* you catch them, but ignoring them can easily kill you".
Yesterday, I called my dentist. The earliest available timeslot was the following afternoon, one hour from now.
I'm almost *hoping* it's a jaw infection, because at least then we'll know what the problem is and what to do about it. Like that one post going around a little while ago about how actually the worst news a doctor can give you is "everything seems fine", because it's the medical equivalent of "the killer is still at large and we have no leads".
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(next post)
Four days ago, Day 20 of surgery recovery, I was very nearly all the way better. It hurt a *little* to eat *unusually* difficult foods like chunks of stale baguette, but other than that I was pretty much fine.
That night, things started getting worse again, and they've been getting worse ever since.
I'm in substantially *less pain* now than I was a day and a half ago (I needed both an acetaminophen *and* a naproxen to get to sleep that night; I haven't taken any painkillers today), but I'm definitely *more sensitive* than I was then: the reduced pain is because I've been living on nothing but Ensure and applesauce and scrambled eggs since yesterday morning's fibre bar (which hurt more and longer than previous fibre bars). Last night it started hurting to talk again, which it was not doing as recently as the afternoon. Also this morning there's some discomfort below my eye, albeit much less than in the jaw hinge and (to a lesser extent) surgery area.
I have heard it said that jaw infections are in the category of "extremely treatable *if* you catch them, but ignoring them can easily kill you".
Yesterday, I called my dentist. The earliest available timeslot was the following afternoon, one hour from now.
I'm almost *hoping* it's a jaw infection, because at least then we'll know what the problem is and what to do about it. Like that one post going around a little while ago about how actually the worst news a doctor can give you is "everything seems fine", because it's the medical equivalent of "the killer is still at large and we have no leads".
---
(next post)
