My Double Jaw Surgery: Day 7 After Surgery:

So it's been a week. Gotta say I'm glad that week is over...

Overall, there has been significant improvement in the amount of swelling, and the bruising is fading now with much more yellow in it than before. My speech is still pretty difficult to understand and I can't speak on the phone yet because of that. In person I can get by though. Enough for me to see my wonderful hair stylist, Angie, for some overdue highlights.

So for comparison, here I am at immediate post-op day by day through the first week. I've regained some of my jaw line back, but still a little puffy around the nose and upper lip. A pretty good improvement for just 6 days though.

My lip mobility is still pretty poor, but I have noticed that I can move the corners of my lips a little bit wider. Slowly but surely....

A note on food: I'm still doing LCHF (Low Carb High Fat) and my ketone levels are moderate to high (still a safe level though, not extreme). My routine is Bulletproof Coffee for breakfast, some sort of non-diary-low-sugar smoothie for lunch, and Bone Broth (often mixed with some other type of soup or stew) for dinner. But I added in homemade Bulletproof Get Some Ice Cream and that was a nice treat. It's difficult for me to actually consume it though because of all this hardware in my mouth and poor lip mobility - I needed to let it get a bit runny and had to use a tiny baby spoon and put it upside down against my tongue. But still, a very nice treat. And I use even less xylitol than the recipe calls for, so it's still fairly low carb. I haven't wanted to fast for the past few days, so I've just listened to my body and haven't done it.

I feel like the LCHF diet has significantly helped two aspects of healing: my inflammation, and my level of hunger. My swelling and bruising went down faster than expected and I believe this is because other than the acute level of inflammation around the surgical sites, the rest of my bodies' inflammation is low. And even though I haven't wanted to fast for the past few days, it's not because I feel like I'm starving to death. I think it's more of a comfort issue at this point - I'm a little tired of feeling uncomfortable and over feeling deprived of what I can normally consume, so it's nice to at least have something to eat. But I know despite the extra fats I've been consuming, I'm definitely not consuming the same amount of calories as I was pre-surgery. Now normally I pretty much ignore calories, as I really don't think a calorie on its own means much - what I'm interested in is what is the quality of that calorie. I've been very particular about high quality during this healing period. But in this case I'm just saying that I'm consuming overall less food and therefore overall less calories, and I know that my body is utilizing its own fat to break down for an additional energy that is needed. Your body has its own fat as a fuel source just sitting there ready to be used, and I'm confident that's what my body is doing right now.

This does not mean that I believe this is the only diet that will support post-operative healing. There are many real food diets that can support the regenerative process, and that the key is the quality of what you are consuming, and avoiding foods that trigger inflammation, especially sugar. I have found that for me, this the LCHF diet works particularly well, as I can actually feel an improvement. Plus, I find it fairly easy to follow.

Overall I'm very pleased with the progress that I've achieved in only one week since a major operation, and I'm grateful that I've been able to support my body as well as I have through this process. I would not have been able to heal this quickly without the support from my wonderful husband, and all of the prayers and positive thoughts from my family and friends.