Unnerving Nerves

Though it’s been over three days since my oral surgery, my chin, lower front teeth, the left side of my lower lip and my left cheek are still partially numb and tingling. If anything, it’s getting worse, not better. I want to feel my face again and I’m scared I won’t be able to.

Yesterday I called the periodontist but she wasn’t in, so I had to wait until late this morning for an appointment. The CT scan showed that one of the implants is very close to a nerve. She considered two options: 

• Remove the implant right away, let it heal for a few months, and then re-drill a new hole in my jaw to hold a shorter implant. Not only would that be supremely awful, but the new hardware might not be strong enough to anchor the bridge that’s supposed to attach there eventually. 
• Prescribe a course of steroids (along with more antibiotics) to see if a reduction in inflammation brings sensation back.

She thought the latter might work, so that’s what we’re doing. I’ll return to her on Wednesday and if things still suck, she’ll do another procedure that day to get rid of the metal.

She doesn’t know for sure whether or not the nerve damage is permanent. She also said that if it does improve, it could take up to a year or possibly even longer to go back to normal.

I am not happy and it’s hard to stop worrying.

When I returned from her office, three huge boxes of bed pieces awaited on my doorstep, two of them incredibly heavy. 

I wrangled them inside and went to work.

The assembly instructions assured me the process would take five minutes, start to finish. Ha ha ha.

But still, it was pretty easy once I got going, and I had it put together in only four times their estimate.

I have nothing else to say for today, except that it’s a really good thing that I’ll be seeing my Chico family again in a few days. Lucky I have that to look forward to.