For over three weeks now I've been recovering from my surgery. We all thought I'd be
sitting in bed in major pain, just staring at the TV and sleeping. However, I was only
really stuck in bed for two and a half days.

Don't get me wrong, I was still super swollen, couldn't turn my head, could only eat
through a syringe (and still do), and had to sleep sitting up. But I was able to get up and
walk around.

Justin thought it would be a good idea to get out. He suggested the dog park. It's a really
nice and relaxing dog park right under the Hollywood sign. It's a lot of fun to sit and
watch the dogs (even though I don't actually have one).

We went to the dog park with my disproportionately huge face, bruising on my neck and
chest, and my inaudible grunts mixed with made-up sign language (and a jaw still rubber-
banded shut). I think people thought I was either deaf or had some sort of fatal disease. Or
both.

Because we went to the dog park a few days in a row, I started to fantasize that maybe
people thought I was fatally ill and I was spending my last days at the place I loved most.
I mean, I'm sure no one really noticed my swelling and noises (although I did pretend to
be a little sick when I noticed people looking at me, just so they'd know my swelling was

from a procedure and not how I normally looked).

Here are some of the other fun things we got to do while I was recovering.

Movies
Tron, True Grit, Gulliver's Travels and a Netflixed Charlie St. Cloud. I think I was
annoying the guy in front of me during Tron. Every time I took a drink of my soda, I had
to turn my head sideways, push the straw into the side of my mouth, and (kind of
successfully) suck up some liquid. I thought I was doing it all quietly, but I noticed every
time I did it the guy in front of me would turn his head and kind of look behind him...

Monk
I have recently discovered how awesome Monk is, along with the Sleuth channel. Sleuth
has provided me with many Monk episodes during my recovery, including an awesome
Monk marathon on Christmas day!

Ensure Melt Down
I had to drink Ensure, a protein drink that, I've been told, sick people or surgery patients
drink to get all their vitamins. Everything else was too thick, so it was all I was able to
eat. It wasn't that good, and it had me dreaming of all the foods I could eat once I could
open my mouth, even a little. I thought that at my one-week-appointment my rubber
bands would be loosened a little, and I'd be able to squeeze in some food. They were not
loosened, and at my next Ensure meal (after shooting Ensure in my mouth so fast that it
went everywhere) I had a breakdown. I was so hungry!!!

Worrying about my jaw
I would constantly keep Justin and my mom busy by making them tell me if they thought
I messed up my jaw surgery or not by: a) sleeping on a certain side b) hitting a wire with
a syringe c) defining certain pains, and d) wondering if my swelling would last forever...

Forcing Justin to take us to Target
I couldn't drive, so Justin had to go with us everywhere, and at one point we were going
to Target every day. Justin was great and happily took us everywhere we needed to go.

But he finally hit a breaking point.

For like the tenth day in a row I was like "TAKE US TO TARGET!!!" and he was
like "no more Target!!!" but he took us anyway. When we got there I could tell how much
he didn't want to be there, and I felt like we needed to really hurry. I was so worried about
hurrying that I wasn't even looking where I was going, and practically ran over some guy
with my cart. He turned around and gave me this annoyed look (understandably) and I
looked at him with my swollen face and rubber banded shut mouth and squeezed out a
muffled "SORRY!!!". I was so embarrassed I ran away with the cart to where my mom
was.

Running into the back of some random guy with my cart (plus my huge face letting out a

noise that certainly no one knew meant "sorry" but me) played through my head until I
reached my mom. I cried out of embarrassment when I re-told her the story and that was
the last time we forced Justin to take us to Target.

Organized My Apt.
I thought I had cleaned my apt. before my mom got here, but then she got here and I
realized I hadn't. We spent two days really cleaning it, and then every few days we would
re-organize cupboards. It is so much easier to find things now, and I have so much more
space!

Saw a Rainbow
It rained for like five days straight… and when it finally stopped there was this double
rainbow!!! We saw it out the window just as Justin called and was like "look at the
rainbow!!!". Obviously, it was quite the event.

The bottom part of the double rainbow.

Stalked by a Roach
I have a studio apt., and in the middle of the night my mom got up to go to the bathroom.
I sat up and turned on my lamp to take my antibiotic. Just as my mom came back out
and I reached to turn of my lamp, I saw this huge black thing kind of trailing behind my
mom's heels. I turned to see what it was, and it was this MASSIVE roach. It was huge!

I started screaming and my mom, not knowing why I was screaming, ran for the door
and started unlocking it in preparation to leave the apt. I announced it was a roach and
we spent the next ten minutes smashing it and trapping it so that Justin could get rid of
it when he came over. We piled so much stuff on top of it, and when Justin came over
and uncovered it, it was gone. Gone!!! We slept the rest of the time with a small light on
(because we think that roaches don't like light...). We never saw him again.

The dog park.