[ot-caption title=”I have compiled a list of ten things I have learned throughout this first month of my jawbone journey. (via Alexandra Oshinsky, senior)” url=”https://pcpawprint.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/IMG_9556.jpg”]

As of this week, I am four weeks into recovery after having lower orthognathic surgery. In order to help explain the process of recovery for those who have not and will not go through this mandibular ordeal, I have compiled a list of ten things I have learned throughout this first month of my jawbone journey.

1. In real life, surgeries look just like they do on Grey’s Anatomy. There is a big whiteboard where all the very serious doctors stand in hope of getting in on one of the day’s surgeries, and a very big window in the operating room. Although neither McDreamy nor McSteamy take part in breaking my jaw, the very nice doctors who do allow me to take a giant box of crystals into the operating room with me based on my insistence that they are magical.
2. Immediately after surgery, you genuinely believe it is possible that modern medicine has accidentally turned you into the exorcist. Enough blood will come back up from your stomach to fill an entire tub, and, although it is awful in the moment, you will look back fondly on the moment you best resembled a demonic entity.
3. You feel like a sufferer of body dysmorphic disorder in the twilight zone. When you look in the mirror, the face of a six hundred pound woman stares back at you. While your face is in possession of more chins than Meryl Streep is Oscars, your body is getting smaller and smaller. The two won’t look like they belong with each other for at least two weeks.
4. Your entire chin and bottom lip are numb, and you quickly discover that a smile in which one has no control of her lower lip does not look much like a smile at all. As the feeling slowly returns, it comes back unevenly. While Katie Holmes in Dawson’s Creek rocks the adorable crooked smile, your crooked smile is decidedly not adorable.
5. You will be able to understand the above Dawson’s Creek reference because two weeks of being bedridden means an absurd amount of quality time with the television. In addition to getting through two seasons of the aforementioned 90’s teen soap, you will exhaust all the movies and shows available. Out of desperation and lack of program variety, you will turn to the Food Network, where a combination of Ina Garten and Duff Goldman can be counted on to lull you to a hungered yet euphoric state of calm.
6. Your Food Network obsession will spill over into Instagram, and your friends will make fun of the very average pictures of very average food you have saved on your phone to drool over. For the first week, you only drink clear liquids through an eyedropper. After that, three more weeks of liquids, but you figure out how to drink from a cup and, eventually, a straw. You will become increasingly angry at your inability to eat food, cumulating in a screaming explosion around week three in which you lament the humble crunch of the chickpea for upwards of an hour.
7. The following people will share knowing looks and offer that they know what you’re going through: people who have had their wisdom teeth removed, people who have had a rhinoplasty, people who have had any surgery in which they were administered anesthesia, people who had braces briefly. None of them do.
8. Your dad will ask if you want to go to brunch and you will die a little inside.
9. You will discover that you now belong to a small secret legion of people who have also had jaw surgery. You will give the number of your doctor to people in stores, the very confused waitress at the Japanese restaurant at which you ordered soup as both appetizer and entrée, and friends of friends. You will find an entire community of people who have gone through the exact same surgery and lived to tell the tale.
10. The day after surgery, your mom will ask if you would do it again and you will scribble “NO,”along with some profanity for dramatic effect, on your whiteboard. A few short weeks, rubber band changes, and dropped jean sizes later, that answer will change to a resounding yes. I can’t wait until this Thursday, when I will finally get to test out what my new bite can do!