Week 4 of Recovery

Hey all! I decided to stop doing daily update posts from the Week 3 mark as it was all just getting a bit repetitive - woke up, ate soup, felt annoyed, went to bed - you get the picture. From now on I'm going to limit my recovery posts to weekly updates and maybe post on certain landmark days, such as getting my braces removed etc.

What this does mean however is that this 4 week update is an absolute mammoth of a post. It's seriously photo heavy so prepare yourself for a lengthy read!

In honour of passing the halfway mark of my liquid diet I wrote up a list of foods I'd been craving and couldn't wait to eat once the wires came off. Reading this is seriously making my mouth water!

I cheered myself up with a manicure because, let's face it, the little things really do cheer you up when you're facing something huge like recovery from jaw surgery. The polish I used was a bright pillarbox red colour from Miss Sporty and I have to say I'm really impressed! The colour was opaque with just two coats and although it chipped after a few days most polishes do on my nails anyway so why spend more than necessary? The background to this NOTD photo is courtesy of my adorable fox pyjamas from Primark.

We decided to spend a couple of days down at our beach-side chalet in Somerset so we packed up the car and headed off early one morning. It's always a squash to get a giant border collie and a mad springer spaniel into the car but once we hit the motorway they stop jostling each other and settle down for the long haul.

When we arrived in Somerset we made a pitstop at Morrison's to pick up our groceries and I had an emotional moment in the crisps aisle. They really are the food that I'm missing most right now and I can't wait to be able to eat them again. There's just no liquid alternative to crisps so if you're a culinary scientist (if that's a thing) then get on it!

I've included another NOTD photo just because Shep got really offended that I wasn't taking his photo so just gatecrashed the picture anyway.

Not to sound like Regina George ("These sweatpants are all that fit me right now") but I've been wearing my Topshop jeans non-stop just because all my other skinny jeans have reached comical levels of bagginess around my knobbly, liquid-diet knees.

I'm slowly regaining more and more movement in my facial muscles but my smile is still (slightly scarily) one-sided. The feeling is also slowing coming back to my chin a little more each day but the pins and needles it gives me is just horrendous.

We took the dogs down on to the beach to have a run and, after being cooped up in the car for a few hours, they were really ready to let off some steam!

Another face photo for you all to enjoy...

Charlie couldn't decide whether he was going to be a soppy puppy and cuddle up in bed or behave like a real dog and sleep on the floor so he just ended up doing both for a while. (He eventually decided he wasn't ready to be grown-up and spent the night kicking me out of bed).

Me and Mom took a night-time drive in the hope that we might see some stags on the moors but the closest we got was a pair of stags a couple of hundred metres off the road, which is what the eerie photo of two sets of eyes is all about.

The next day was another bright, sunny one so we took the dogs down on to the beach again to have their usual run around before we set off on the long journey home.

Rich sent me a photo from his American travels and instantly made me seethe with jealousy - I can't wait to go travelling again!

Shep was thoroughly spoiled when we got home as he got to finish off the melted remains of a tub of Ben & Jerry's Baked Alaska ice cream.

One of my current obsessions is Morrison's own brand Lemon Mousses. I can just about manage them with a small spoon and they're so refreshingly different from can after can of soup! If you're recovering from jaw surgery (or are on a liquid diet for any other reason) in the UK then I would really recommend trying these out at less than £1 for a pack of six!

Some instagram collages of my face for you to enjoy...

So that's week 4 of my recovery in pictures! Hopefully this format is a little easier to read than the daily streams of conciousness and I'll see you in a week with my next update!