Post Op Video #2 - Day 53(June 30)

So I had the time to make a quick video. Even though I'm 53 days in I round up to 8 weeks. I probably should have made a video at earlier points of recovery like a week, 2 weeks, or a month but I slacked.

Also saw the OS today and had a 5-10 min quick session with him. I tried to get an idea of the measurements. What I remember is that the top jaw was expanded 6 mm, the top jaw went up 5mm, and the bottom jaw went back 4 mm. There were a ton of numbers that I couldn't remember, but these ones I did. I'll try again later and see if I can get the details.

So far I've just been taking summer school so I have been a bit occupied. Basically I'm trying to integrate myself back into the normal routine. Some things I've noticed:

Opening - I can open my mouth to get a knuckle in, it's been increasing with more and more talking/eating.

Eating -  Can eat tougher foods, having bbq sausage, chicken when cut into pieces that fit into the mouth.

Mouth orientation - I've been biting my lip and tongue a few times when I eat, it's been really annoying, my new placement of my mouth has been playing tricks on my mind.

Numbness - still remains on my chin. Also a little bit on the upper lip, but not as noticeable as my chin numbing.

Exercise - I went to the gym and found myself getting light headed really quickly. Breathing was sort of thrown off, and finding the right breathing pattern was tricky. Working out at the same level I was pre op definitely takes a while. When I ran there, I found that my jaw joint on my left and moved out of place and then pressure built up on my left side. Throughout the whole workout my left side couldn't hear since it was stuffed with pressure. It went away 2 hours after when I moved my jaw around from eating.


If you guys have any questions, keep sending them.

DOMS/Rebracketed - Day 46 (June 23)

6 Weeks post op picture are now in before and after photos.

DOMS -  For those of you who have never heard of it, DOMS means Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness. It usually happens when your muscles are trying to recover from a totally new exercise that has torn the muscle in a way you haven't been used to. It's a good soreness, and it peaks 2 days after a workout. I can barely move my upper body. Be prepared for it after your first workout. Oh, and there's no proven cure to speed it up.

I went to the ortho today and had the bracket on my front tooth put back on. We didn't know if the archwire should be changed since it has the hooks. The hooks are for the elastics and we did not know from the surgeon if I still need to wear the elastics. I see my surgeon next week so we will wait until then(and I will keep on wearing them.) In the meantime I just have a small wire attaching the new bracket to the brackets around them. I can't wait to have my top teeth straightened. It's crazy how teeth will move apart in a short amount of time.

Speaking - I realize my f's w's and v's aren't being well ennunciated because my chin muscle has to pull up to say it and it's still quite numb. Until then.

Jaw joint cracks? - Yawning happens a lot. It just so happens that when I yawn it forces my mouth open farther than it is ready for, so I repress it. A few hours ago I let one loose and felt a crack or snap by my jaw joint. No idea what it was. It was on my right side which pops a lot. I can voluntarily pop my ear on that side, and it's getting a lot of work done throughout this recovery.

Mouth - I can open far enough to fit one knuckle in my mouth. 

Eating - I tackled 2 filet o fish today from Mickey Ds. Not only am I happy I got a quick 800 calories down but it went down really fast. I couldn't fit the whole thing in, so I would rotate biting the top part, then the bottom part. It is fairly easy to chew this late in the game. I'm also noticing that my appetite is coming back slowly. My jaw joint is going to be in a bit of pain for a while but I hope it heals quickly. I find that it gets sore when I open all the way, and then when I close I can feel a small sting of pain. We'll see how it goes.

I'm also planning to make another video soon. I did a pre op and intend on making a post op around week 8 if summer school doesn't get busy.

The Train track is fixed! (Sort of)

Finally back to the gym - Day 44(June 21)

Yesterday was the first day of summer school so I'm going to be living on campus for half of the week. The change of scenery is quite refreshing from living at home for so long.  Class is forcing me to focus for extended periods of time and I am able to keep up. I remember the first 2 weeks I was mentally exhausted at watching a show for less than 5 minutes. It's good to be back in this state. Since I'm living off campus without a magic bullet, grocery shopping came down to these soft foods:

Bananas(can't blend, so sliced into the mouth)
Pancakes(eggo ones that you microwave)
michelinas frozen entrees(meatloaf, macaroni, alfredo)
Canned flaked tuna(eaten with crackers)

I have to say I am decently stocked for food despite my eating disability of a weak jaw and jaw opening of a finger.

Since I'm back at uni with a gym I decided to get a workout in for the first time. I had been anticipating my first trip back to the gym for a very long time. First of all, I got noticeably skinnier and really want to change that back. How did I find it? Mentally I found myself challenged to keep up with my usual reps and sets but I stayed with it. Physically, my body should have coped better. I found that I had lost a lot of strength, dropping down from the weights I used before. It was still a great feeling to know I could take part. One concern I had was clenching my jaw when facing strain. It never happened once. I found that if you keep relaxed and just focus on breathing your facial muscles should not be working hard and therefore my teeth did not touch when I worked out.

Now after workout the most important thing is to make up for the calories burned. Over the past month I have noticed that my stomach is much smaller than pre op. I've found constant eating and eating more times a day helps expand your food tolerance. I was able to put down a michelinas dinner, can of tuna, and 2 glasses of milk. It felt good to eat the normal quantity again. Cheers to bigger meals.

Sunburned - Day 42 (June 19)

Yesterday I had the chance to do some mother - son golf bonding in a company tournament. It was a great time for golf followed by a banquet. Being outside for 5 hours however does not bode well after being inside for so long after these 6 weeks. Wear sunscreen when you start getting outdoors. As much as I've been outside, I've never been out for that long in 30 C weather. I'm now fully cooked on my arms and face, and it looks like I took a trip to Cancun. After golf, the banquet dinner was, interesting.

Salad: I couldn't chew lettuce leafs, they were far too chewy and thin to be ground up. Bread rolls? Politely declined.

Main Course: consisted of a thigh of chicken, steak, baked potato, assorted vegetables. Of the vegetables, a soft baked zucchini and tomato were both consumed with ease. I was also able to eat the chicken in finely cut pieces. The baked potato was the best part, when combined with the chicken and some sour cream it made my day, not the incredible 15 foot putt.

Swelling - hasn't changed much at all, I believe this to be about 90% of what I'm going to look like from now on. My chin feels like it has the most residual swelling at this point.

From my experience, I believe the face goes through a few phases before it heals:

1. Tenderness/bloating - your phase is fresh from surgery and it feels very tender when you touch it. It's also as puffy as your skin is willing to stretch.

2. Swelling goes down - your face still hurts when you touch it, but it doesn't feel like it is exploding out of your face.

3. Numbness/Itchy/Sharp - your face goes through this sort of weird sensation stage where you get these odd itchy feelings under the skin and it alternates with these pins and needles sensations, and in addition a numbing feeling the rest of the time. This is probably the majority of the recovery.

4. Another swelling going down phase.

5. You can now poke yourself in the face and it doesn't hurt. If you press with enough pressure it does, but you can now feel your face without feeling any pain.

6. The area feels completely normal, feeling and everything. I feel like my cheeks are hitting this step.

All in all the chin and the areas directly to the right and left of my nose are the only spots bugging me. My chin especially feels nothing still, and I don't notice any food there at all, which can be embarrassing. I also think my nose isn't as pointy anymore with my upper lip swelling going down.

Muscles - I can move all of my facial muscles very well. However, the fine motor muscles of my lips are still not there. For example I can't buzz my lips like a horse does. I think my smiling is pretty normal at this point.

Speech - I can't enunciate f's, v's, and w's without using a lot of effort. The upper jaw expansion is certainly noticed by my tongue, and it feels a lot bigger.  Talking can sometimes be a lot of effort, even after 6 weeks.

Eating like a Uni student at home - Day 40 (June 17)

 I added a page dedicated to recovery tips. It's pretty much just straight pointers to recovery and things that may help someone adjust themselves for the better. It's very much an ongoing work in progress.

I have very few regrets about this surgery. One of them however is that the chances of me sampling one of the world's greatest foods are at peril. I don't know if I will be fully healed to eat it in time. I am, referring to the limited time only:

2 pieces of breaded chicken over bacon and cheese. Kentucky Fried Chicken has for once in its lifetime served a higher purpose. It's here for a little while longer, I just hope my jaw is fully healed in time to open my mouth wide enough to fit this in. (No, cutting it into tiny pieces is unacceptable.) My recovery is going very well and day to day activities are probably the same to what they were before surgery. The only problem is that my mouth still isn't opening very far and it's still difficult to close down on food. If I try and chew too hard, my ear has a small popping sound in it. My guess is that the joint is not yet adjusted to the new position of the jaw and moves when I chew on something creating any pressure. Here's a picture of my current progress.

As you can see I can just get one finger into the side of my mouth. While there are many foods which can fit into that space, the soft foods are still what I prefer because it's easier on the jaw.  The two foods that I have recently been going consistently with are: Kraft Dinner, and Mr. Noodles. I thought it was a phase during University but it has returned. The benefits of these foods are just unbelievable. The most obvious is that they are soft enough to fit into my mouth when I am starved. The noodles consistently work its way into your mouth when you are in an unsatiated swallowing frenzy of food. In addition to what seems like an endless supply of starch, it's tasty, cheap, easy to make, and easy to modify. That's a bunch of pros. I also haven't gotten sick of it because I've learned adding an egg to mr. noodles near the end of boiling can add a yolk sac to the noodles which makes it really tasty for actual beneficial nutrition. I've also pulled out my old tricks from 2nd year uni and add various seasonings to my kraft dinner like: Montreal steak spice, Roasted Garlic and Peppers, and the taste never disappoints. I guess I will never evade these foods.

Also, if anyone has seen that Adam Sandler movies " Just Go With It" there's a scene where Adam is at a party and talks to Kevin Nealon who's gotten plenty of botox done to his face. He said he can't feel anything from his eyes down and I suddenly realized how familiar that sounded. When he started laughing it sounded like he was making this retarded cat like noise, and when he drank water it ran right down his face. I couldn't breathe after that scene, would totally recommend watching it.

Tossing the syringe/Chocolate Blended Chocolate - Day 37 (June 14)

 The syringes were taking up space in the kitchen, and since I've been drinking from a cup for a while now, I frankly don't want to see another syringe for a while. These are the things one will bond with post surgery.  On the left, the facial ice pack which was filled with ice cubes I don't know how many times.  The syringes. There were 4 of them. 1 was used for the codeine(the one thing I am keeping out of this picture) which I used maybe once or twice after the surgery. 1 was used for the antibiotics. The other 2 were 60mL syringes for the food, liquids. I don't know how many times I pumped those things, but at 2L+ of fluids 60mL at a time, do the math. The measuring print is completely rubbed off of the syringe from overuse. I surely will not miss this. A pack of gauze which found it's moments to catch drool was invaluable, and I'm happy I somehow snagged that from the hospital. Besides the big bottle of codeine is the myostatin cream which is applied to the lips post surgery to avoid infection, and beside that is the Otrivine spray which helps the nose constrict and narrow the blood vessels within, reducing blood flow, swelling, and feelings of congestion.

I digress a bit but I was so stoked, I got my tony the tiger shirt in the mail today! Kellogs cereal was giving out these t-shirts in the mail and I finally got mine!

Since the smoothie taste was getting stale I decided this morning that I would blend the ultimate chocolate smoothie.

Ingredients:

half a banana
1 teaspoon nutella
1 teaspoon peanut butter
1 scoop chocolate whey protein
1 double chocolate chip muffin(was made at home the day before)
1 scoop cookies and cream ice cream(I didn't have anything more chocolate around)
Topped with chocolate milk

It was disgusting. I don't even like chocolate that much.

My Preo Op Video - Day 36 (June 13)

I was going through my laptop and found a video I had made Pre Op for myself for future records of what I looked/sounded like . I'm sure I've blogged about everything in this video before, but it's a lot easier to watch than to read. Finding this video felt like a blast from the past, despite only being nearly 2 months ago. I thought what the heck, why not upload it.

I'm starting to see the difference now.

Barbeque - Day 34 (June 11)

My day started off really slow as I slept for 12 and a half hours. It was really relaxing and I hadn't slept that well for a long time. I went to the OS yesterday and cleared some things up:

• I had a Lefort 1 osteotomy, meaning the upper jaw was cut at the mouth area. Here's a picture of the different types of osteotomies. I believe the majority of upper jaw surgeries are Lefort 1.

• I can now blow my nose! This also means that I can also use my neti pot. For those who don't know, it's this tea pot shaped thing you can get from any drugstore that runs saline water from one nostril to the other. It cleans out the insides pretty well. 
• I shouldn't worry about how far I am opening my mouth. currently I can get 2 fingers in, but Tocchio said wait until the next appointment in 3 weeks(8 weeks post op) and then he will show me some resistance exercises and other techniques I can use to get my jaw open farther.

We had a barbeque today and I wasn't as left out as I anticipated. I was able to eat grilled salmon mashed into little pieces, mini potatoes mashed into little pieces with butter, and fresh bread with butter and without the crust. Cake is also quite edible as thin slices slide right in. I'm pretty happy this all went down so easily and feel like it only will take a little while longer before I can eat like normal. It was a great day, however the more you sleep, the less day is left, so it felt really short.

Gymnasium Blues/Facial Deception! - Day 33 (June 10)

 Added new Post Op Week 4 photos.

I'm a gym addict. During the year I was hitting the weights 4 times a week before classes really hard. I think I had acquired exercise dependence because I felt sluggish when I missed the gym for a week. I'm now on a month hiatus and yearn to get back there. Perhaps more than food? *Gasp* yeah I said it. En lieu of this, I've been trying to add some exercises into my daily trudging around the house. I set the chin up bar above my door and do 2 pull ups every time I walk by. I also ran a 5.5 km run last night and although it felt nice to run about 18 lbs lighter, a 22 minute run took me 29 minutes. When running I was constantly thinking, "Please screws don't fall out, please don't fall out" as the up and down impact had me paranoid of something rattling loose. That's a first while exercising!

 Pain with this whole jaw surgery remains minimal. The first question people ask is, "Does it hurt?" but in reality if you stay on top of recovery with nutritious foods and liquids with plenty of rest, there is tiny pain, if so none at all! I notice that my face is a tad sensitive in the areas to the right and left of my nose, but otherwise I can move my lips around just fine, and the other areas I could put mild pressure on. I remember only 4 weeks ago I could barely touch my cheeks as they were too tender and painful to even just put your finger on. I also notice that my neck muscles are somewhat sore when I look to the right and left, the same feeling you get when you work a muscle for too long. This surely must mean it is coming back. Lastly, if I use my lower jaw and pull my chin up and flex my chin muscles that area is still hurting a bit, but only when I flex it. If I'm just sitting there's no pain at all.

I upgraded to meat pasta last night! I cooked a batch of white pasta(whole wheat would probably be a bit tougher) with ground beef and pasta sauce. It was nice to have real food. It was really important to get the beef into real small chunks beforehand(either when you are cooking it or when you are eating it), as my jaw really couldn't handle the bigger chunks, but the smaller ones broke down and tasted quite nice. Chewing remains up and down, and therefore time consuming. I ate a small bowl and it made me really full really fast. I guess I'm going to have to build up a food tolerance. I noticed that the taste of this more natural pasta tastes way better than the canned stuff. Maybe it's just me but the canned pasta uses sauces that taste way too sugary, or like they used V8 tomato juice as the sauce, I'm not a fan.

I saw some people from my high school that knew I was getting the surgery the other day, and everyone just seemed sort of shocked. Different opinions ranged from: the nose has changed, my face looks broader and less long, my jaw is more defined. Some suggestions including getting my student ID and drivers license taken all over again because no one's going to believe me. The best moment of the day happened when my friend decided to try out the new look on my friend Matt, who was the last person to say hi to me. "Hey Matt, come over here I want you to meet someone."  Matt came over and I quickly blurted hi to him.  "I'd like you to meet my friend Jordan(close enough but not) he also goes to school in Guelph."  We then waited for his response to see if we duped him or not... "Oh hi Jordan, you look familiar, did I meet you at David's party?"  Incredible. We just laughed for a solid minute while he just looked at us. He said that he didn't recognize me because I looked skinnier. Fair enough, it was worth the laugh. I now know that I can pretend to be someone else, or people will think a doppleganger has replaced me.

Late Night Show - Day 30 (June 7)

I'm posting at 2 in the morning because my sleep schedule is off, and my mind is in full gear at the moment. I had to register for courses online this morning and it took 3 hours for me to just get on the site to pick the courses I wanted. McMaster does not have a very good system in place, since it's essentially a black friday rush to get in. I'm also making this habit of watching movies at night around this time. I tell myself I'm going to watch a bit of the movie so I can fall asleep within reasonable hours, but just get hooked and the 2 hour film conquers me.

Swelling seems to have hit a sort of plateau. I don't seem to be going down much at all anymore, so I'm going to assume the rest of whatever's left will go down in due time. Taking daily pictures seems sort of silly as nothing changes. I will update my before and after photos with a 4 week shot, and then a 6 and 8 week post op shot. My facial muscles are also starting to come back. This really helps with my around the mouth and cheek muscles which felt generally very tight. I never noticed but it's now much easier to get to the back of my mouth to brush, as before when I reached back there with a toothbrush it would be really tender. I can now stretch my mouth out, and it helps a lot. I hope my lips heal next, as they had a childbirth like stretching in surgery that will only happen once in my life.

I'm starting to go out more and I get the "Wow, you look different" opinion a lot. Not better or worse, just different. I've personally also gotten the "You look younger" comment here and there, thanks as if I didn't look young enough. I hope the youthful 'Disney child star look' is in this year. Apparently the only thing that has stayed constant is my eyes. Note this is from people who I did not tell about the surgery. The social repercussions of this whole surgery is going to be really interesting. For the people that I have told about the surgery, I haven't seen many in person yet. I am curious as to what they will say, but it's not critical for me to get the feedback that makes me feel good. The point of this surgery personally was to get my bite back, and when my braces are off and I can bite into a steak burger with onion rings on the side, I will feel better than any compliment can make me feel. That's my sort of inner rant on this whole surgery, it's functional not cosmetic.

I can open my mouth to fit my index finger in, that is all. I don't know if that's a good thing or not, but it's enough to slide food in. The foods that I eat are essentially so soft that they break when I close my mouth. I've done some macaroni, vienna sausages, oatmeal, scrambled eggs, lemon meringue, imitation lobster, bread to date. I'm also beginning to think my stomach is shrinking a bit, with this lack of eating a lot of food. I have a feeling my gluttonous assault on food won't be what I predict once I can chomp again, but I guess I can live. This came to me this morning when I made an incredible 4 egg scrambled egg mix with 2 slices of kraft single cheese and montreal steak seasoning. It was delicious. I ate half. I was confused. Leftover food and me don't meet eyes often but today it stared me down and I lost. I'm going to make up for this by making softly cooked pasta tomorrow with ground up beef sauce. I hope it turns out well, as I would prefer to get my protein in food rather than a powder via shake.

Here's a quick picture of my grill. As you can see my teeth are a lot more lined up than my before (I will put the bite changes in before and after later). I'm also missing a top bracket for my braces. It popped off during the expansion of my top jaw, since the wire couldn't handle the pressure. I went to the ortho and he said that it's best not to replace it as the pressure might be too much for my jaw. I'll just keep the unfinished train track look for now. It's unique.

Blog Commenting Fixed! - Day 28 (June 5)

Just came in to say I believe I fixed the commenting situation. When trying to reply it has never worked for me. Comments now come in a pop up window and work. If someone is trying to post and it doesn't work, let me know!

Also the other day we cracked over 1,000 views. Pretty cool, this was just a small thing on the side and I'm happy it's gotten plenty of exposure. I hope others out there in recovery can empathize and hopefully it helps them in their situation.

Just happy to have hit the 4 week mark and I'm slowly becoming more and more adventurous with the soft foods I try. Yesterday was lemon meringue pie and soft pieces of lobster. The world is slowly opening up. This is just a quick update as I have to do my course selection for my upcoming year 4 of university, I'll post week 4 post op pictures later!

Thanks

The Sneeze - Day 27 (June 4)

Today I sneezed.  It all happened so fast, and after that I was just amazed it happened for a solid minute. For the record, no sneezing has been done since May 9. What this means in terms of progress, I don't know, but for this whole time that need to sneeze has been suppressed during recovery. I was actually stunned after it happened because it hasn't happened for so long. Weird.

Apparently, I look like a totally different person. It hasn't sunk in yet, but when I had a discussion with someone I hadn't seen for a year, he thought I was one of my brothers that he hadn't met yet. When I said it was me and he finally believed me, he was in belief that it was cosmetic, which I had to convince him otherwise. I'm actually curious who's going to recognize me when I go back to school in September. I just don't want to do this dance with every friend I meet again and again. I'm sure that once I see more people that I know they will give me better affirmation of how drastic this little change is. The current sample size I have used is too small, to be fair.

I'm now adding chicken vienna sausages to my diet. They filled my meat craving pretty well today. The good thing is that if you boil them, these can be really soft and when cut in half fit right between my teeth. I've also come to the conclusion that my stomach has shrunk a little bit with this surgery. I barely finished the can(well after some oatmeal)

Also, remember to take a multivitamin and any other supplements you choose to on the side. Getting the right nutrition, even if pill form helps speed up the recovery. I feel like it's really helping me get back to my normal self quicker. Mucho recommended.

Chef Boyardee - Day 26 (June 3)

It's another beautiful day and I am going to bike outside fo sho. This weather is finally starting to look like summer up in the northern hemisphere. I saw my surgeon this morning and he changed up the orientation of my elastics. The bite is looking straight, however the top of one side of my teeth has to come over the bottom. He reminded me that I should start some soft foods to get the calories. 

I tore into some bread today. One piece which would take me 10 seconds to carnage was 20 minutes. What. The. Heck. I went back to my blended stuff. I will however take a can of Chef Boyardee and pulverize it into an edible porridge. That actually helps me get the calories, and the slop goes down easy.

Oh yeah, 400 calories. Still not enough. Once upon a time I would eat at least 8 of these in equivalent food a day.

My face I think has sort of slowed down in terms of swelling. It's really not that bad, my left is definitely bigger than my right still but I can deal. There are other things going on in this world. Like a little Toronto girl nearly won the Scripps spelling bee yesterday.

Slowly but Surely - Day 25 (June 2)

I've posted 3 week post op pictures in the "before and after" page on the right side of this page. 

First of all, this silly Blogger doesn't let you post comments(at least for me) on other people's blogs. It basically just refreshes the page and deletes everything I typed! I hope people aren't having the same issue. 

I'm now 25 days in and I think I've gotten an idea of what my new look is like. I think it may be okay to frequent public a little more without feeling self conscious since it doesn't look too bad. It does however feel strange knowing that several days ago your face was exploding out of your skin. I still hope that the puffy michelin man looking me goes down in some areas, but the gist of it is here.

I'm also healing quite well. No bruising or anything left. Oh, and did I say that I teethe like a baby now? It drives me batty.

If anyone has ever seen man vs. food on the outdoor network, you get hungry. Personally I find new things to get angry at. How about a Man vs. Smoothie?

Day 24 - First Orthodontist Visit (June 1)

It's the first day of June, and the weather here in Toronto is starting to make up for what seems like a month full of rain. It's 25 degrees Celsius, feeling a bit hotter with humidity.  I'm actually penciled in to referee soccer (doing linesman, so speaking is not necessary) tonight, meaning I will be running up and down the lines. This is something I easily can do, and thankful that at after the 3rd week I am capable of doing. 

I had my first orthodontist visit yesterday. The secretary, a few staff, and the orthodontist saw me and said, "Wow, I didn't recognize you, you look so much better!" Maybe I can't take a compliment, but I didn't reciprocate the enthusiasm as I had liked because I was tired when I got there, and two, I was sort of conflicted on their opinion. Since they have both seen their fair share of jaw surgery patients they would be very qualified to recognize a difference, but at the same time, they've always been very nice to me and supportive, so I was taking it with a grain of salt, whereas I probably should have gone with the flow better. I feel guilty somehow about not being as excited as they were. I'm playing mind tricks on myself over nothing. Basically, the ortho trip was about getting my teeth looked at and how they were aligning with the elastics. Everything seemed fine, and what I was told was that my back teeth are touching more than my front teeth, so in a way I have a minor minor open bite. However, the benefits of braces and elastics is that it can manipulate the jaw in the finer movements, where the jaw surgery was meant to move the jaw over a larger area. That was pretty much why I needed the surgery and braces were not going to move my jaw as drastically as surgery could. A bracket had also came off my top teeth since my top jaw was expanded so much it must have snapped off. The ortho said that for now, they did not want to risk putting it on, since my jaw is still very fragile and still needs to grow back. The verdict was to come back in a month, and then put that bracket back on. Fair enough, I just have to wait.

I also made an attempt at some pre-made macaroni and cheese salad. I ate probably about 3 tablespoons worth the entire day and it took me like 45 minutes. Every noodle was eaten individually, and boy it's not as fun as I thought. As much as I look forward to food again, that experience was really just a reassurance that I will someday chew again. Until then.