Grateful Series: The BestWorst Two Years
Chapter 2: Resilience
The last two years have been the best worst two years of my life. Every day it felt like I was faced with another challenge I couldn’t handle, yet tomorrow always seemed to just arrive out of nowhere. It wasn’t like I was overcoming the challenges, or that I felt I was learning from them, it was more that the consistency of time didn’t afford me any other option. 2016 was a year of uphill battles. 2017 was mostly a year of loss. But half of 2017 and up to today, I could not be more grateful for it all.
The weeks leading up to the op were filled with a whole lot of “last times for a while” and many sleepless nights. I was really anxious in the back of my mind, not about the procedure itself, but about the whole process of recovery afterwards. So I filled my days with active missions, social engagements and adventures with friends. But still, there was no way to outrun the inevitability of the 5th of September 2016.
The operation took nearly 4 hours and I had a mild panic attack when I woke up in my hospital bed to my mouth wired shut and several shadowy bodies leaning over me. In my drug-induced-state the surgeon gave me a quick rundown. He said that everything had gone well and there were no issues, but that didn't at all ease the panic that had settled in when I realized, after trying to respond to him and failing, that for the next 2 weeks I would be unable to communicate, unable to show emotion, and unable to get any food into my body other than clear, clear liquids.
While I was only supposed to live like this for 2 weeks, the consequences of those two weeks were carried over for the next year and a half.
Initially, there was the physical pain and discomfort. But that's a given when someone purposefully breaks your top and bottom jaws in a couple of places. Then there was the inability to sleep and the swelling of course, which was more of a frustration than anything else. I remember feeling like my skin could not physically stretch over the bulges any further, and then I would wake up in the morning with the side I slept on triple the size of the other...but it offered some welcome comic relief – so that was kind of okay.
What I struggled with the most was the inability to communicate and trying to get food into my body.
Communication. Gosh but we really do take some of the simple things in life for granted. You don’t realize how much of a privilege it is to share the little things that happen in your day with someone, to engage in arbitrary conversation with a stranger or even to ask for something so simple like a cup of tea, until you are physically incapable of doing so. I remember feeling so lonely and isolated. Not even the one person who knew me the best could figure out what I was trying to get across to him unless I scribbled it down on a piece of paper. For some reason that frustrated me the most! And so I faded away both emotionally and physically, into 2 weeks of blank stares and the odd silent gesture.
There were two positive things that came out of this period though:
(1) I was reminded I have some pretty amazing humans in my life. The one day I was so sad and lonely that I organised a Games Night at my place with a few of my friends. I explained over message that I couldn’t talk (I don’t think they believed the extent to which I couldn’t talk) but that I would love to see them. A good handful of gems pulled through and we played pretty much the only game where the rules explicitly say NO TALKING: Pictionary. This also conveniently happens to be my favourite! It is pretty special to discover the people in your life who want to invest in you and who are themselves quality humans worth investing in.
(2) I learned to listen and appreciate silence. This was a really welcome, unexpected pleasure - getting the chance to just listen to organic sounds without any human interference. I would go for walks in nature, away from the cars and the city and the busyness, and just wander and take it all in.
I learned to appreciate the natural music that human beings cannot claim credit for...
But the thing about the lack of communication was that it was very temporary. It was horrible, but it was nothing in comparison to the starvation...those 2 weeks of no food shook my whole world and I still feel the vibrations of it today almost 2 years later.
My mom and I had decided the best way to go about these 2 weeks was to be organised. So we arranged for healthy juices, smoothies and soups to be prepared for me daily by FaithJuice in Noordhoek. Being a health conscious person already, I gave Joy quite a tough time with my "I can't have very sugary fruits" and "I need low-carb veg" demands, but she was so kind and accommodating and I really am so grateful for everything she did. However, as wonderful as her juices and services were, there was really nothing satiating about syringing blended up fruit and veg through gaps in my teeth for 14 days. And, in fact, more often that not, I couldn't even get the juice through my wires and plate due to the sediment.
The only thing that kind of worked was squirting in a couple of millimeters at a time through the syringe...but that didn't stop me from trying to have a glass of red wine. P.S. Those who know me would not be shocked by this at all! #classicjamie
In the beginning I was ready to view the juicing process as a cleansing detox. One where I could drink juices, smoothies and soups and maybe crave chewing on something crunchy, but still feel full at the end of the day. But, unfortunately things didn't turn out like that.
I was one of the few jaw op patients who had a plastic mold fitted between my top and bottom teeth that filled my whole mouth, as well as the wires that clenched my teeth together. This even made getting water through my teeth challenging. For the first 2 days I was determined to drink the juices from the bottles. But I was unsuccessful, which led to another unsuccessful attempt of using a straw. On the third day, out of hunger, fatigue and frustration, I gave up completely and let my stomach rumble on until the sounds didn't mean anything more than mere existence.
I remember my final attempt with the straw so clearly: Failing to get any liquids in once again, I placed the bottle back in the fridge, shuffled to the couch, slumped down and felt one loooooong tear trickle down my HUGE cheek. I felt hopeless.
Now, it's no surprise that I lost a little weight. But to put it into perspective, I started this process with a healthy-ish, perhaps slightly podgy for my size, 55-56kg body, which by the end of those 14 days, had melted into a sickly 42kg scaffolding. Only, I didn't really see that part.
It took a little while for the effects to really show physically, so I didn't register that my body was starving. Eventually my stomach stopped rumbling and instead, I could feel my body turn to other sources for sustenance. Naturally, my muscles began to disappear until my bones were jutting out at all different angles, my hair had started to fall out and for the first time in my life, I experienced what I had always seen on other girls and wanted: The Thigh Gap.
I remember looking in the mirror one morning and seeing that my thighs didn't touch or rub together when I walked...I was so excited, that I didn't notice my protruding ribs or collarbones. Suddenly I wasn't starving...suddenly I was just skinny like all the bodies of the girls in magazines and on TV I used to wish I could have...
No-one can really understand what the effect of the sudden disappearance of who you were physically, does to you psychologically, until they have experienced something similar themselves.
But if I can offer any comparison, it was like there was a war going on between my body and my mind.
...to be continued...
