#personal-development #personal-health god I feel like half of what I talked about this year to people was the fact that I got two cosmetic surgeries done. SORRY I just like talking about one of the biggest changes in my entire life lol. The biggest one though was definitely my jaw surgery. Ever since I was a kid, I've been terribly insecure about it. I've always thought my face looked weird and that my chin looked way more prominent than most girls -- the beauty standard is dainty cute V-shaped chins, after all. I know beauty standards are cultural bullshit, but this was something that genuinely bothered me for years. The thought was always in the back of my head, but I never really went through with it because it all seemed too incredibly scary. Literally the doctors just break your face open and then stitch it back up. That's fucking wild. But then I met like 5 people around the same time that _all_ got the surgery, and then I was like fuck it bay life let's roll. Sometimes you just need that push from seeing other people make it through. The biggest thing I kinda learned from this is that yeah sure you can just be body-pos and think everyone is beautiful in their own way. Sure you can be dissatisfied with your body while you think this. However if you have the means and you really wanna do it then just fucking do it. Who cares if people think your body isn't *natural* after? Do this for your self and if it makes you happy then it's already enough of an enhancement to your quality of life and you shouldn't strive for less for yourself. Anyway this is gonna be more like a lazy recount of my jaw surgery process in case someone finds it useful. **In no way is this going to be purposely well-written prose**, and maybe I'll go back and edit this sometime so it's less lazy. It will mostly just be a series of unstructured thoughts and notes about the process for me. --- In the beginning of 2023, I made an appointment with an orthodontist and decided to start the process to get jaw surgery. To be upfront, the surgery was ~$110,000 in total, but Kaiser Permanente covered most of the costs for me, and by most I mean I only paid like $180 for the entire operation and hospital stays. Not everyone will get covered but I'm certainly thankful that I was. I got double jaw surgery with [Dr. Peter Bui](https://mydoctor.kaiserpermanente.org/ncal/providers/peterbui) at Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara. If anyone from the internet is here searching for accounts from him, HIII I'M HERE! :) HE WAS GREAT FANTASTIC AND CARED SO MUCH!! ## Before ![[Pasted image 20241210205634.png|200]]![[Pasted image 20241210205754.png|200]]![[Pasted image 20241210205824.png|200]] I wasn't particularly unattractive by any means. I was still pretty much going on dates, so I at least knew I was attractive. But I knew that my upper jaw was recessed and my lower jaw was overgrown, so it was so easy to focus on. I actually had camouflage orthodontics done to me as a child from ages 9 to 13. So by the time I was in high school, it wasn't particularly evident that I had an underbite. However, the jaw obviously still develops into adulthood, so once I was an adult, the underbite was obvious once again. I actually did a series of Invisalign before I went onto braces again because I straight up hated the idea so much lol. On the bright side, since my teeth were generally still straight (wear your retainers, y'all), my orthodontics didn't take as long as the average person. While my personal reasons for doing the operation were obviously cosmetic, my "excuse" was that technically, this was also a functional surgery. I couldn't properly bite into an apple for example. On braces, you actually get worse before you get better. In getting your teeth into alignment for the final bite, it accentuates the imperfections, so I feel like my midface looks a little worse here than it did in the first photo. ![[Screenshot 2024-12-10 at 9.04.01 PM.png|200]] ## The surgery After 1.5 years on orthodontics, on February 2nd, 2024, I had my jaw surgery. ![[Pasted image 20241210210910.png]] This is literally everyone's face getting out of the operation room lol. Here are the statistics and movements: * DJS and a 3 piece lefort 1 * 5 mm upper and lower jaw movements for 10 mm total and a final 1.5 mm overjet + 3 mm overbite (within the normal ranges). * Includes an alar cinch so my nose wouldn’t widen. Some unexpected stuff that happened: * I had an oral communication (a hole in the roof of my mouth that connected my nose and my mouth). This ended up closing within 2 weeks but it was so awkward using mouthwash since it would come out of my nose. I don’t think this symptom is talked about that much but it’s normal! - Since my braces wires were cut after the surgery they poked really bad on the inside of my mouth and smiling would literally cut me up. I got Orthodots to resolve this and I find that it’s a lot better and lasts longer than regular braces wax. - Everyone basically has this phase but sneezing was the scariest thing in my entire life while my mouth was wired shut. - I lost feeling in my chin for a while after the surgery as they cut a nerve that runs along your jaw. I eventually regain probably close to 95% of feeling here though and I don't have any dead spots on my face. I wrote a series of notes on the timeline of the surgery and the recovery period and copying them here because I'm too lazy to write anything new: * I stayed 2 nights in the hospital. They wanted to discharge me after the first night but I refused and went home the day after. The hospital kept giving me food that I couldn’t syringe into my mouth and I couldn’t fit a spoon because my mouth was banded shut lol. Also the nurses banned me from using the bathroom during the very first night because I almost passed out so then I was forced to use a commode the entire time 😭 * The typical exhaustion and lots of sleep the first week. I didn’t wash my hair until about 4 days post op and that ended up being a bad idea because I ended up having some sort of sore on my scalp and now 8 weeks later I have a tiny bald spot in my hair 🙃 * At 1 week my rubber bands were cut and I was able to eat no-chew. I started walking around a lot more after this point but a lot of the more laborious chores my mom thankfully handled. * At 6 weeks I am now on a soft-food diet (nothing as hard or chewy as carrots or steak) after getting my splint removed :) That thing actually smelled like biohazardous cow ass and being able to brush my teeth in the surgeon’s office was literally a godsend ### shit that I ate From my old notes on the matter: *I cheated a lot on this… because pizza is technically no chew if you cut it small enough 🤨I don’t recommend this though I almost choked on a pizza haha. But this phase really makes you creative if you have a need for a variety of food, like me :’)* *I generally don’t see enough non-American food. Some things that I had during my no-chew diet if you’re tired of the basic mashed potatoes and mac and cheese:* * Uni and/or ikura with rice * Steamed fish, Korean steamed egg * Paneer tikka masala or spinach paneer * I lived off of pho/bun bo hue broth for like 2 weeks!! If you or your chef are good at stew meats then some meats are also tender and swallowable enough as well for this phase. A lot of Vietnamese steamed plates are easily swallowable: banh nam, banh beo, etc. I would also have plain banh mi but only the inner fluffy part (and not the crust) with butter and liver pate. * Pav bhaji * Soondubu (but try not to have it too spicy if your stitches are still healing because this hurts a lot otherwise), soft tofu with a ginger soy sauce, miso soup with tofu * Dumplings or egg rolls, cut up (and in the case of egg rolls, taking off the shell) * I made Hong Kong french toast a few times for myself as well as different types of panna cotta for dessert (matcha, strawberry, blueberry… dessert is kind of easy to be creative with though) * thank god milk tea is syringe-able Thanks past bels, for your expertise. I'm really kind of a spoiled bitch because I didn't wanna eat mashed potatoes and opted for ***uni and ikura*** c'mon bella like forreal ## Post-op ![[Pasted image 20241210211420.png|200]]![[Pasted image 20241210211428.png|200]] These pictures were taken 6 weeks post op. I like the result a lot! I immediately felt pretty confident, but as you can tell the swelling is still there. hiii auditions for Eleanor Chipmunk please 🥰 But I legitimately thought that the process was all over by this point and that I wouldn't see any other phases and I was already pretty satisfied. I lost 15 lbs during the liquid diet phase, but gained it all back as soon as I could eat lol so I wish I managed my intake better there. I was far too excited. "omg wagyu i havent had it since before the operation" CMON MAN LIKE BE FORREAL. ## Today 10 months after the surgery, you can pretty much tell my recovery has been great. The swelling already basically looks gone now and I've gotten comments from other people who have done the surgery that I've recovered from my chipmunk phase faster than most people have. The result was completely worth the operation and liquid diet for 6 weeks (and my additional 6 weeks of being like completely antisocial, lol), and I'm way more confident in myself than I was before. ![[Pasted image 20241210211609.png]]