2 weeks to go...

I had a follow up appointment with the surgeon today and he is still very pleased with my recovery and with the way everything looks. My swelling has gone down significantly, but with that splint in my mouth and the inability to make facial expressions, I still can't really tell how different things are yet. It is really awkward at work when you can't smile, because there are so many times when I briefly pass by someone I know and the proper thing to do would be to give a little smile and say 'hello, how are you' in passing but I can't actually form a smile so I'm afraid I am coming off as rude...Especially to people who don't know me well enough to know that I had surgery. Ah well, I'm not really that concerned about it.

The Dr. said my splint will come out in two weeks, and once it is out then my diet can progress to the next stage. Which in my head equals Raising Cane's french fries covered in Cane's sauce! Also, I do not need to wear any rubber bands during the day, just at night now. I was hoping he would take the splint out next week, but I will just have to be a little more patient. He told me that I have to go straight from his office to the ortho after he takes it out, because my ortho will need to do some stuff to my braces/mouth to ensure that my jaw doesn't collapse...his exact words, I'm not kidding! I'm sure it's not really that dramatic, but without the support of the splint my jaw can just have a field day and decide to go back to it's former state I guess. So that will be the downside because I am sure whatever happens that day at the ortho, I will look back and say that it was the most painful visit I ever had...Just a guess though!

The last bit of news is that I GAINED two pounds since my last check up! I have a super hard time gaining weight when I can eat whatever I want, so I am really happy to know that the routine I've got going with the liquids must be enough to keep me from wasting away. Of course, I only managed to gain back about half of what I lost in the first week, so I still need to gain more to get back to normal but it's a start. I figured the best case scenario would be to just not lose anymore while I was on liquids, so I am hopeful that I can gain more even while I have the splint in still...I really need to because I bought some pants at the Gap today that I know would fit perfectly at my normal weight, but right now they are a little loose in a few spots =(. They will serve as part of my motivation to pack on more pounds.

Last thing I will say doesn't involve my surgery, just my life in general...yesterday Franklin had a little adventure, and I'm still not quite over the whole thing. Basically, our fence has a few areas where the boards don't touch the grass, and there is enough of a gap that Franklin can squeeze under and escape. He had only done this once, when there was a rabbit in the yard that went under the fence and he wanted to chase it. I had to run next door and go get him which lead me to the decision that he would never be left alone in the yard...EVER. But then, Adam & I bought some wood beams and laid them on the grass to cover up all of the gaps the other day, and we thought, awesome now Franklin can play outside without us watching him. So Adam put him out in the yard, called me while I was driving home and said, hey Franklin is gonna be out in the yard when you get home. Immediately I started imagining all of the worst case scenario's if he was somehow able to escape and I was really anxious to get home...And by the way, Adam and I have a sort of joke whenever we leave Franklin somewhere outside of our own house (i.e. his parent's house, or my sister's apt, etc...) where when we are driving back we jokingly say 'wow, what's Franklin doing over there' as if he had escaped and was roaming around. It's not really funny, and when I pulled into our driveway lo and behold there is Franklin walking around the front yard! Meaning, he had escaped the back yard and was just wandering around the neighborhood unbeknownst to Adam! Luckily he didn't notice my car until I was almost at a complete stop in the driveway because once he DID see it, he came running towards it and I don't think he would have stopped even if it was moving! It was just so scary to me to see him all alone, walking around in a place he still isn't very familiar with (considering we haven't even lived here a full month yet and he never really is in the front yard). Once I was out of the car he came running towards me and I brought him inside where I proceeded to tell Adam how I found him, and of course I made Adam swear never ever ever to leave him alone in the yard ever ever again. When I went out and inspected the yard, Franklin had knocked over one of the wooden beams leaving a nice sized hole for him to crawl under the side gate. Bleh. I know he is an animal and not a person, but he loves us unconditionally and relies on us to take care of him so it just really made me sad to think of what could have happened and how lucky we were that he was smart enough to stick around the front of the house and not wander off or into the street. I don't know what I would do without the little guy! Anyway, that was a really long and detailed account of what happened so I will just end with that and in the meantime, I will be counting down the days until I can get this splint out of my mouth and replace it with some french fries!