Going Through Jaw Surgery: The Lessons I've Learned

1,500,000. That the number of people who get jaw surgery each year. This past year I was one of 1.5 million people. This surgery had been on and off for the whole time that I have had braces, at first I was told I didn’t need it and then I was told I did need it. Before my doctor had told me the news I never thought anything was wrong with my jaw. She told me that if this surgery didn't get done sooner than later in life I wouldn't be able to eat solid food and we all know that the outcome of that wouldn’t be pretty. Officially I was informed that they were going to perform Jaw surgery on me this past December. This was easily one of the scariest moments in my life, I am someone that always thinks that the worst thing is going to happen. All I could think about was now was whether I would make it out of surgery alive or not. I know that so many surgeries go on each year and the chance of me dying during surgery is slim to none, but there is always that possibility that something could go wrong. All I could think from December to February was the possibility that something could go wrong. So two months had passed and it was time for my surgery, I remember it like it happened yesterday.

I remember waking up early and being there at the hospital around 7:00 am. They then took 3 hours to prep me for surgery and by 11:00 am I was in the operating room ready to get going. Right when I got into the room they got started right away, they started to count down 10 and by the time they had gotten to 4 I was out completely. So there I lay fast asleep for the next 7 hours and there I sit after surgery in the hospital for the next two days doing nothing but existing.

After the two days were up I finally went home, and by that time I would say I had hit an all-time low. For starters, I was told that I would have to go on an all-liquid diet for two months, which did not make me happy, and then on top of that I was as swollen as a squirrel carrying thousands of acorns in its cheeks. From the car ride home, to me getting home nothing was enjoyable and I had realized that this was just the beginning of a long road ahead. As the days passed it seemed that I was getting worse and worse and not better at all.

The hardest part for me was finding foods that sounded enjoyable to eat. I thought this was going to be the easy part of my recovery, but it turns out that I do not like many foods that are all liquid and that right there was my downfall. It felt as if I was going down a hill that kept going down and never stopped. Nothing was going good, it started off with me losing 25 pounds and then continued when I wasn’t able to eat any foods that I wanted to.

Ad bad as I made my surgery out to be I will say that it taught me many things about myself that I didn’t know before. This experience taught me that I could overcome any obstacle in life as long as I push through and not let anyone get in my way. It also taught me that in life it's not the obstacle itself that defines you but it's the way you overcome the obstacle that defines who you are as a person.