I handle dental work pretty well. My appt. to get my wisdom teeth pulled was at 8am. I was at work by 10. Gum surgery is just a bit different. It has certainly hit me harder, literally. It looks like I was in a bar fight, just no black eyes. The swelling is pretty bad for me. I generally don’t swell. The main effect of the swelling is that I can’t smile. The left side of my mouth goes up normally, the right side does not. In fact, it is forced down due to the swelling. It certainly is an odd, crooked smile, and it hurts a little too. So, I try not to smile or laugh much. I am healing well, I think. My cheek has a dull pain. It is the roof of my mouth that annoys me the most. It still feels like a pizza burn, and hurts the most. I will be glad when it heals up.
Maintaining the diet is difficult too. I need to eat soft foods and foods that do not have small pieces that can get caught in my gums. Broccoli, one of the staples of phase one, is one of the foods I can no longer eat. The tops have the small buds, and the trunks are too hard. We have been waiting for Monday since we can finally have strawberries! Not me, the seeds are too small. So my phase 1 diet has been modified to what I can eat. Last night I had some soup, with noodles! Yeah noodles! Today I had vegatable soup with carrots, corn, potatoes, and beans! All of that is verboten in phase 1. I have added some Atkins shakes into the mix as well. The mocha latte shake tastes like a liquid Carnation Breakfast Bar. It is kind of odd. I also add some normal phase 1 foods, cottage cheese, other forms of cheese, etc. I cannot have nuts, which is a great phase 1 snack. I can have steak and chicken provided they are in small pieces to begin with. Bacon is too hard, and could have a small piece get lodged in my gum. It will be a very odd diet the next 10 days or so. I hope I don’t gain any weight since I am now eating extra carbs. We’ll see.
