Day 15: Art & Things Are Looking Up!

Another good day!  Two in a row?  Ridiculous! Another friend from school came to visit today, making this weekend the most heavily populated one for me since surgery.  As I discussed in another post, I feel like isolating oneself is the quickest road to depression!  It's so important to see friends, even though I feel dumb that I'm unable to talk, eat, or smile with them.  The muscles in my face that I am able to use are still sparse, so I have formed a compensatory funny-looking closed mouth smile.

Not liking my weird closed-mouth smile, hoping things improve soon!

I also did some drawing today, such a great stress reliever!  I've always been drawn to drawing profiles (pun?), something which stems from my insecurity about my own.  I'm sure fellow jaw surgery patients can relate: once you are aware of the abnormality in your bite, you become so hyper-aware of profiles!  Where someone else would say, "Wow what a pretty girl!" I am thinking,  "Damn that's a nice profile."

Nowhere close to finished yet!

I am a little worried that a lot of my facial muscles are still numb or painful to use. When I try and animate, it feels lopsided. I sincerely hope this returns to normal- what use is a normal bite if my face is all messed up? I'm not sure if I should be doing any type of muscle rehabilitation given that my surgeon said nothing on the subject.
Here are my progress pics, which I will probably be posting less of because my swelling has more or less stabilized: