Healing

It's been 5 days since surgery and I feel great!! The incision site is tender and it hurts if I touch the skin over the implant, but there is no pain in my ear or neck or jaw now.  I can feel the fluid moving in the middle ear and there's a sense of occlusion (like something is in the ear canal), but there's no pain.  My outer ear is still numb and may stay that way for months.  As you can see, my neck is turning into a nice big bruise!  It's weird, though.  I kept telling my mom it felt like my neck and jaw were bruised but we couldn't see a bruise.  Then last night, I realized my neck felt better then saw the color. :)  Maybe the muscle was bruised?  I don't know.  I'm really shocked at how quickly I'm healing!  A man on the Esteem Facebook group posted pictures of his actual procedure (ick!) and I feel tough for going through that ha!  Let me know if you want to see pictures.  I'll find some.  :)  As soon as I saw how much of the skull was exposed, I realized exactly why my muscles were so sore!

This is basically another photo dump page for anyone who is considering getting an Esteem.  The surgery is pretty invasive, but the recovery has not been bad!  Knowing what to expect helped me tremendously before my surgery and I hope my experience can help someone else!

Sunday night, 3 days after surgery

Monday - 4 days after surgery
The yellow is a bruise.  My fingers are outlining the actual implant, which I can feel anytime I touch my head!

These are from Easter Sunday.  Note a few things: The swelling isn't totally obvious, but I couldn't smile normally. :)  And look at my shoes: Clearly, I was doing well to walk in those. :)

I washed my hair tonight (YAY!!!) and this pic is just to show that you cannot see the outline of the implant when my hair is covering it.  My hand is outlining it again.