ladies and gentlemen, i give you...
the first eight days after having a bilateral osteotomy
(please hold your applause until the end)
**these are probably the most unflattering and down-right ugly pictures of me ever, but i promised you people the real deal so enjoy!**

DAY 1--Thursday, July 13th, day of surgery

ahh...fresh out of surgery! here i am in the recovery room supposedly "waking up". i have no memory of this moment and thus i am scandilly clad in my untied hospital gown.  oww! granted, i would have rather been rockin' padre with my old roomies, but this was my fate.

i'm not just closing my eyes, i'm sleeping in a nice drug-induced sleep.  i like this picture because you can really see my swollen angelina jolie lips!  whoo hoo!  in case you're wondering, i have some ace bandage thing tied around my head to "help reduce the swelling" (as you'll see in pictures to come that didn't help too much) and those white things are ice packs tied around my face.  they were my favorite thing besides the morphine.

look at that teamwork!  THAT is marriage!  the first night was insanely hard.  around 10:00 that night, i experienced the most pain i have EVER experienced (and i've had many broken bones and surgeries)!!  the culprit? muscle spasms! that may not sound like much, but you can just shush 'cause you have no idea! they would only last for a few seconds but it felt like my jaw was ripping apart and they came one right after another. the hard part was that whenever i would stress about them coming or cry because it hurt so freakishly bad, it would only make it worse. dang irony. thankfully, my mama was there (i gave steve the night off). she used to work in a hospital and she said that she had never seen anyone in that much pain...EVER! i've tried to block out that experience (it came and went ALL NIGHT LONG) but i do remember just curling up in a ball, squeezing the crap out of my mom's hand, and just screaming through my wires, "What's happening??  Something's wrong!  It hurts so bad!" whew, i'm getting misty-eyed just writing about it now. to give you some insight, the average person in my condition would get 1 or 2 mg of morphine every four hours.  in my case, they were giving me 4 mg of morphine every two hours around the clock.  the nurse finally got on the phone and woke my surgeon up in the middle of the night and that's when we found out that they were spasms. i later told my doctor that he should really warn people about those things!

DAY 2--Friday, July 14th, going home from the hospital

i'm home! yay! don't i look thrilled?! by this time, i am realizing just how many muscles and tendons are connected to your jaw...my entire head, neck, and shoulders swelled up from the pain and inflammation. check out the hair...nice, huh? i admit i'm pretty swollen in this picture, but really, you ain't seen nothin' yet...read on.

DAY 3--Saturday, July 15th, the "peak" day (of swollenness, pain, etc.)

ahh!!!!

again...ahh!!!! look at that rounded and blown up head of mine!

DAY 4--Sunday, July 16th, still incredibly swollen and beginning to get sick of everything i had to drink

ENSURE was what my surgeon told me to drink before i took my pain pills because i needed "food" in my stomach and this was supposed to do the trick. remember, i'm on an all LIQUID diet! i have no choice.

DAY 5--Monday, July 17th, learning how to brush my teeth (don't worry, it wasn't the first day i did it!)

not a great shot of the wires, but check out my druggy eyes!  haha!

i think the toothpaste drool really gives me some character...don't you?

DAY 6--Tuesday, July 18th, mental meltdown day

this is the day that it all hit me. i was so sick of not being able to kiss my husband, sick of having to pee every twenty minutes (literally), sick of being swollen, sick of the little flecs that are building up on my tongue (disgusting i know), sick of being so lonely during the day, sick of the incredibly disgusting tastes of all the meds i'm on, and just sick of being broken. thankfully, God helped pull me out of that pit that satan wanted me to surrender to. this was meltdown day.
i had an appointment with my surgeon this day and i got to see x-rays of my jaw. they broke the bone straight down from where your skull meets your jaw (by your ear) and on the x-ray i got to see that on both far sides of my jaw, the bones they broke look like dracula fangs. he also made my appointment to (hopefully) clip the wires off and replace them with rubber bands.

DAY 7--Wednesday, July 19th, ONE WEEK!

oh, the tylenol! i am VERY proud to say that this is the first time in four months that i haven't been on pain pills! whoo hoo! my doctor was quite proud as well. yay! so, to combat the pain from having a broken jaw, i'm downing the tylenol.

nothing much here, just entertaining myself...it almost looks as if my mouth is slightly open...NOT SO MUCH!

still lonely during the day.

DAY 8--Thursday, July 20th, HALF WAY POINT!

the swelling's going down and my wonderfully sweet husband ran out to the store to get me more tylenol and wax for my wires! yay! i still hate "eating" because it's just frustrating and i'm sick of everything. the young marrieds' class at our church has been feeding steve for me and they are so sweet for that! i like to smell the food and make sure steve doesn't take his ability to chew for granted. :)
i'm so glad that today marks the halfway point! my appointment to (hopefully) get my wires replaced with rubber bands is next thursday (the 27th)! i was telling steve that through high school in volleyball and basketball when we had to run laps, i would always have a hard time until i got to the half-mile mark. i found my stride and knew i was finishing from that point on. this is where i am now. for some reason, though, my whole head starting just throbbing and i had the worst headache and ran out of tylenol. when steve came home, i was just crying because every bone, muscle, and tendon in my head was insanely achey all day long. he rushed right out and got me my tylenol and some wax for the sores i'm getting from my wires. he has put up with so much and has taken care of me like i could have never imagined. he is truly the love of my life and i can't imagine life without him. so...he got a little present for himself that he wanted me to post...

BRAND SPANKING NEW '95 JORDANS! REAL ONES!

just waiting for the day to brush my tongue,
molly

well xanga peeps, it has been decided...a bilateral osteotomy it is!  i am so relieved that my surgeon knows exactly what he's doing and that this major surgery will hopefully resolve the severe and chronic (and sucky) pain i've been dealing with for months now.  i'm nervous because they will surgically break and lower my jaw, resulting in me being wired completely shut for 4-6 weeks...yikes.  it's not how i envisioned things going, but my tmj specialist has done all of the non-surgical treatment he can do so now it's up to the surgeon.  please pray for my anxiety to be calmed and for this surgery to FINALLY be what fixes my jaw problems!!  (there are no guarantees with any surgery...that's the bummer).  i will be having it july 13th and will keep you all posted with some wicked pictures i'm sure.  i'm thinking of taking a "before" and "after" picture since it will force me into annorexia...just kidding...i'll just be on all liquids for 4-6 weeks.  a friend of mine said, "gosh molly, i'll be kinda jealous that you'll lose weight" and i said, "don't worry, girl, as soon as i can chew again, i'll gain it all back--GLADLY!"  haha.  but seriously, please pray for me and for steve as well--it's hard for him, i know, not to have me fully myself and major surgery won't really help that and i need to make sure i get the right amounts of vitamins and minerals my body needs during the recovery process.  ANYWAYS...feel free to swing by if you're able.  i do have one rule though...if you come to keep me company, you've gotta talk with your teeth together too!  :)

i miss my umhb roomies!!!!!!!!!!

-molly

Currently Reading The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language : Numbered Edition see related

i've really been smacked in the face lately.  i was stressing out SO badly about my jaw stuff (whether or not to have surgery...the PAIN i deal with every day...which surgery to have...etc.) and couldn't even really talk about it without tears welling up in my eyes because it has been so BEYOND frustrating!  so then i got to reading my bible (the good ol' thick one from old testament class at umhb) and God turned me to Isaiah 26 and completely knocked me down so that i could realize my own stupidity.  the verses that really stood out were talking about how the steadfast in mind have peace because they trust in the Lord...duh, molly!  i had no peace at all about my health stuff!  i was just freaking out that night because i am PETRIFIED of choosing the WRONG jaw surgery to have (details to come later) and was SOOOO worried at how hard the recovery will be (both on me and on steve)...blah blah blah.  i know he's sick of hearing me complain about my jaw pain (it's taken over my LIFE) and i'm sick of literally only wanting to lay on the couch all day with ice packs on both sides of my face.  anyways, it's been sucking pretty bad.  to all of my amazing friends out there, i am so sorry for not calling more or hanging out...the past three months, the real molly has been absent somewhere.  i apologize.
back on topic...
so i was reading those isaiah verses and i realized that i was freaking out and stressing out because i wasn't completely trusting God with it all.  so i started some really heart-to-heart prayer and came to the conclusion that by only saying, "ok, God, i'll trust you with my marriage, my finances, my job, etc...but i'll hold on to my health issues myself" i was only asking for this feeling of defeat i've been experiencing lately.  so then, by not trusting God COMPLETELY with my life was i even trusting Him with it at all?  do you get my point?  what are your thoughts?  is trusting God partially or with "most" of your life even trust at all?  let me know, i'm interested to hear!

broken and nothing but a closed mouth with words to say,
molly

p.s.--kee-um, i am SOOOOO ready for padre, my love!  SO ready!  oh, and aubree can come so YAY!  :)  good times, good times...and if it turns out that my jaw has to be wired, i'm still going!  yes ma'am!

Currently Listening A Collision By David Crowder Band Come and Listen see related

me and my hero at camp last week!
(don't mind that crazy kid pointing a squirt gun at steve's head)

well, that's right.  we went as leaders to a student life camp with our kids from church last week.  i didn't join the gang until tuesday due to an always "relaxing" emergency room visit in the wee hours of that sunday morning before.  don't worry, i'm not dead...it just felt like it.  it turns out that my doctor (i have about twelve by now--all the body parts are covered) thinks i have an ulcer due to the medicine i was on for my jaw's inflammation.  the sucky part?  i am off the medicine so my jaw is KILLING me!  the good part?  well, uh...i named my ulcer Uma.  coincidently enough, that's my stomach doctor's first name.  anyways, my jaw is still ca-putz and i, along with my poor steve, am VERY frustrated that any progress i think i make is only swept away by yet another complication.  however, our God is much bigger than all of the thirteen pills i have to take each day!!  i was talking to my grandma yesterday and she said something very insightful..."Molly, don't waste your pain."  AMEN, Granny!  what she meant was that instead of locking myself in a theoretical closet of self-pity, i MUST open the door and open myself into seeing what God will accomplish through this and with whom HE wants me to connect.

it might sound like such a "churchy" answer, but i've tried all the other ones and yet again, God wins.  i go to the hospital for an out-patient procedure on the 21st--an esophagogastroduodenoscopy or gastrointestinal endoscopy if you will.  i will gladly give you thirty-seven bucks if you can correctly pronounce that first term on the first try!  call me up, let me hear your shot at it!  the procedure is pretty simple--they'll put me to sleep (yay anesthesia!) and guide a camera cord thing all the way down to the bottom of my stomach to make sure it's what my dr thinks it is.  cool, huh?  so please, if you think of it, please pray for steve and i--these prescriptions, surgeries, procedures, ER visits, etc. are getting quite pricy!  thankfully, like i said, God is bigger than our hospital bills!  haha!!  fascinating! 

oh, one last thing...steve and i "adopted" a little (almost) eight-year-old boy named Nikomeze who lives in Rwanda.  Compassion International is an incredible ministry that provides VITAL health, social, physical, and spiritual needs to a child that you sponsor.  i just wrote our first letter (and birthday card) to Niko today and i can't wait to know that he's heard that he got sponsored!!  it turns out that in these countries that Compassion Int'l reaches out to, there are the centers where the sponsored kids get all the stuff i just mentioned and the un-sponsored kids literally line the outside walls of the centers just to get a glimpse--they press their ears up to the dirt walls just to hear what's inside.  crazy, huh?  and they say rain is enough to keep baptists from coming to church...

i am nothing...psalm 40:17

molly

Currently Listening Mockingbird By Derek Webb see related

don't worry, i'm still alive.  life has been insane the past however long since i've posted.  let me explain...

steve and i are in our new apartment now and life is incredible!!  however, the past month i have been dealing with severe, chronic pain in every bone and joint attached to my skull due to my years of struggling with TMJ disorder (it's a jaw disorder).  i swear people always think i'm faking a headache or an illness, but my pain was finally validated when i came to find out that my jaw is dislocated.  that's right, both joints are out of place--not due to an injury but just something that TMJ can do to you.  i was told by one surgeon that a bilateral condylotomy (jaw surgery where they break your jaw and move it down and wire your mouth shut for weeks) was the only solution.  then, i was a little freaked out.  anyways, God led me to the best doctor in the TMJ field in Houston and i am under his treatment (which is non-surgical for now, thank God!).  i just went and got my splint (mouthpiece thingy...like a cast for a broken bone...) today along with FOUR steroid injections in the back of my head.  i will be meeting with him once a week for more injections all over my head/neck and in my jaw joints (that will hurt).  but, like i said, he's the best and i honestly TRUST that it was God's hand that held me together long enough so that i could see this doctor.  i was battling depression from the pain along with a complete lack of motivation to do anything besides lay on the couch with ice packs glued to both sides of my head.  poor steve...but he has stuck by me through all of this and i am finally ready to stop throwing myself a pity party.  God interrupted my life with this recent complication from TMJ, but He is using me to minister to others in the process.  He is so good and i still don't know why He even cares about me and wants to use me.  who am i?

other than all that jazz, life is great!!  i adore my job because it is the most challenging ministry i've ever been a part of--the public school system.  this time i'm on the teacher side of it and i'm SO limited as to what i can say to the kids, but God says enough silently for me (i would just mess it up anyways).  steve is thriving like i've never seen before at his job and the kids LOVE him!!  it's so refreshing to see such life in him come out!  i have been chomping at the bit to work with the junior high band at church and had just gotten started when all the jaw stuff kicked in...obviously opening wide isn't happening right now so singing is impossible at the moment.  nevertheless, God is God and i clearly am not.  He is tearing me away from my resort to shyness and my insecurities are being challenged by the ministry opportunities He has blessed me with.  like i said, though, i don't know WHY He wants to use me.  i'm just a nerd with a bum jaw.  :)

let the beloved rest secure in HIM,
molly

Currently Reading The Heart of Worship Files (The Worship Series) see related