Perception and reality

I had an appt with my surgeon, Dr. Kallal, yesterday. He asked me to open and close and apparently I can barely open my mouth still. When I try to open it feels like I'm opening very wide and big, but when I look in the mirror it's open about 1-2 mm. In order for him to pull my splint out, he has to be able to put two fingers in (height-wise). So between now and my next appt with him in 3 weeks, I have a lot of "mouth yoga" to do. And I'm motivated!

Perception: My mouth is open as large as a lion's.
Reality: I couldn't stick a cracker in my mouth if I tried.

Last night, Marc and I went on a "date". The first one since surgery. Normally food is a part of any date(for us). We both love food! Since I can't eat we improvised. I got the OK from Dr. K yesterday, to drink from a straw. So we used some coupons we had and got a free cherry chiller, and a $1 strawberry lemonade. Just because I had the OK to drink from a straw didn't mean I was physically able - I discovered that quickly! It took about 5x as long but I managed to drink most of it until it was mostly ice at the bottom. Marc and I spent our date driving around looking at houses that were for sale in the area. It was actually a lot of fun and I didn't have to exert any energy. :). However when I came home and did my daily drill of waterpik-ing, brushing, and elastics changing, I found my mouth was bleeding. Turns out while drinking from the straw I cut my gums with the straw but since I'm still mostly numb I couldn't feel it. It's scary to think parts of my mouth could be totally cut up and I wouldn't even know. On the flip side I'm extremely thankful my mouth was and is numb considering what was done during surgery!

All right I'm off to do my mouth yoga...