Well, that’s it. Done and dusted assuming nothing crops up in the next chunk-o-healing. After last night’s debacle with not sleeping I could not have been more grateful that Kathryn so kindly took today off to go up with me. Traffic was pretty chill, which so far has been the case, and we got up there about 45 minutes early.
The main event was the removal of the staples (sides of my head, within my hairline) and the removal of sutures (on my forehead at the hairline) – which was all done by the nurse before being seen by Dr Liu. All that healing seems to be going fine – I just have to keep putting the antibiotic ointment on for 2 more days and then I’ll be switching to a silicone scar reduction gel. Dr Liu whipped off the dressing on my throat, so today’s the first time I’ve seen that without an Eve’s apple for – well – probably nearly 30 years. That I put scar reduction gel on today.
All in all there wasn’t a lot to it. He checked motor function (I can move my eyebrows, smile, etc all just fine). Told me I don’t have to sleep as sat up as I have been (thank fuck, because I can’t sleep – I did get some kudos for having put up with the lack of sleep to stick to the instructions), sadly he’d like me to continue to wear the jaw strap for at least another week to help keep control of the swelling (boo), but at least I can tolerate it now it’s not a fight between my glasses, the staples and the jaw strap.
I need to go back in about a year for a follow up appointment, but otherwise that’s it.
Unsurprisingly I’m now completely f’kin knackered; I apparently slept a little in the car (I definitely dozed and probably did actually fall asleep for a bit). We grabbed some not-very-good smoothies and snacks for the trip back (seriously, quite disappointing), and we snuggled on the sofa for a bit to watch Ghosts (startling me by causing me to cry at the 2019 Xmas special when Pat watches some family videos – it’s always interesting when you find these unprotected and bare bits of pain from trauma). And then I spent a long time listening to Halcyon and on and on, Miami Nice, Kruppa, Sunsick Day and some other track that I intended to save into a loopable chill playlist but failed to do so.
