My surgery is tomorrow Feb 18, 2022 with Dr. Steven Sullivan at Profiles in Oklahoma City, OK.

Here is a youtube link to me explaining every aspect of the surgery I am having:

He is a phenomenal surgeon, I have talked to many of his patients and have seen good results from his craniofacial reconstructions/TJR surgeries and have a lot of confidence in him! I still have fears from the risks this surgery carries, (the following are not specifically Dr. Sullivan’s statistics but more nationwide) like the 2.5%-4% or so infection rate, biofilms that would require a second surgery (the more surgeries you have the worse off your future prognosis is with jaw issues generally), and random aseptic loosening being my ultimate fear along with my pain levels not changing or worsening. I am not as nervous about nerve damage as I used to be.

And at this point, I mostly accepted the risks of this surgery and have just been dreading the recovery. I know what is is like to recover from scoliosis and my other jaw surgeries, but this will be the hardest of the jaw surgeries. I have also made the mistake of seeing message threads of recovering patients this week, love my online ICR friends but I went into total freakout mode 😂!!

Earlier today I was anxious, but spending time with my family and Ricky has calmed me down, I feel the prayers that loved ones and total strangers are saying on my behalf and I feel the warm blankets of love being wrapped around me from friends online and at home. I couldn’t feel more supported going into this, and I am so grateful for this.

I had a strange moment walking around Walmart tonight… I have had chronic pain for years, all of my 20s really with it just worsening, and tonight I had pain of course/ or maybe almost a feeling too. It is hard to explain, but it was almost the feeling of my body being ready and willing to be relieved of my condyles. They felt tired and weary tonight, like they have also tried for so long to support my mandible and function and now they are about to be more or less “relieved” of the hostile environment that my body has idiopathically put them in. In that moment and now they honestly don’t feel like my own body anymore, it feels like something foreign is in there now. I kind of just said quietly in my heart, “thank you for trying so hard and lasting me as long as you did into my life. I am grateful”.

I have struggled with a lot of anger over the years for the chronic pain that I felt other’s couldn’t understand (not unusual feelings of people with “invisible illnesses”, esp if they are deemed dental related too), felt like I was being dramatic with my pain/breathing/chewing issues and being dismissed by so many doctors will always have a lasting effect on me. Friends around me are having families and growing in their careers at faster paces and I just can’t help but wonder “Why me?”. I have never really struggled with anger before, and have tried to forgive and let be. I fear that my pain has no purpose sometimes, and want to give into the fear that life is random. This is just how I see things – I know each person’s experiences in life and lenses that we peer through effect what we believe. This is just how I feel.

Right now I feel sense of peace, and am ready for this surgery. It has been a long time coming, and thank you to fam and friend’s empathy even when the problems I am experiencing because of two little bones (that cause a freaking HOST of other issues) are hard to understand. Thank you to friends who have sat in the park with me as I cried over feeling like my life was only on a clear trajectory to get worse, thanks to those who check in and send good vibes/prayers / virtual hugs and speak healing words on the phone to me, and thank you to those who once helped me graduate grad school as I was healing from my first jaw surgery in 2017 as you were one of the first support systems I felt like I had for my jaw as you all saw my recovery and pain first hand.

If you know me you know I need control and most of my medical journey has produced this “grasping” for as much control and information as I can possibly have, but often times I feel like I am just grasping at straws. Especially when it it over the least understood joint in the body.

(Don’t feel the need to read this next part if spirituality is triggering for you or not something you want to read, I understand ❤️) I’ve often felt forgotten by God in this. Some conversations with friends, acquaintances and family recently have reminded me that Jesus suffered and asked his Father to take his burden from him, so I know that Jesus knew so much suffering. I know I am not alone and that he sees me, even when I don’t like how my life is panning out. I want to share a poem that has kind of become my mantra and I believe to be true.

I need to try and sleep now, have to be at the hospital at 6:00am! I shall see you all on the other side of this with my new Neanderthal face!!!(Grace, that was so funny 😂 )