Well, he made it! Today is the big day when he can officially drink blended food. He's already requested pad thai in the blender, so that's what we're going to try. Will it taste good? Who knows!? But he's excited. :)
We had another productive visit at the Dr.'s office today. He got to take his elastics off and practice three exercises. He will be doing these exercises three times a day for 15 minutes each time. He has to practice opening and closing his mouth, moving his jaw side to side (Kim said that this is the last motion to be relearned), and pushing his lower jaw forward. The hope is that each week he will see an increase in motion of 1 to 2 mm, so the progress will be slow. I think the exercises are painful and really hard work, so I'm hoping that this gets easier the more he practices.
He also got to brush his teeth today! He said that this was a bit painful but that ultimately it felt really good when it was all done. I can only imagine after not being able to brush his teeth for 2 weeks what it must have felt like today. He also learned how to take his elastics on and off, which will be necessary for his exercises each day. He's also allowed to talk for communication purposes only; he's still not allowed to carry on a long conversation so they want him to be conservative with his talking.
The good news is that everything looks good with his left joint; it seems to have settled down and in the right place. Dr. G. said it's too early to know for sure how his bite is because he's still too swollen. He will start doing more detailed evaluations in the next week or two. Chris also has a lot of numbness in his mouth so anything that Chris is feeling is likely not representative of reality because of the patchiness of sensations he's feeling.
All in all, a good day!
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