3 Months done 9 to go....

Thought a picture of Scarlet Johanson's nose job would be nicer than me

Face Ache! Well that's a name I was used to being called when I was younger, (one of many,) now I actually am a face ache. It's been 3 months since my surgery.  Surgeons call it Rhinoplasty and Septoplasty, but my Husband calls it body juggling, where they moved more bits of my body to sort out my face. So to date I have had, rib bone, pelvis bone, ear skin and cartilage and skin from a place i'd rather not mention, all put into my face to sort out the cleft palate. I have also had a prototype brace which 40 years ago was just fuse wire and clips which impaled itself on the inside of my mouth for over 2 years and cracked my back teeth, had a tooth removed in order to have a bone graft and ended up luckily with a bridge rather than dentures.  And to be honest I have no idea if Scarlet has had a nose job, the picture is meant to show celebrity before and after from a website POP Hitz.

Now the big question.... was it all worth it?
Well luckily mine (...touch wood) has gone well, unlike some I found on this webpage from The Sun. I was lucky enough to have Professor Piet Haers as a surgeon. PHEW!!

Of course it was, as a baby I couldn't eat properly, as a child the deformity would have been crushing. Then later in life I was so ill for 4 years with no energy as I had an infection in my face. The infection took out the previous bone grafts which made the skin all over my body hurt, (a form of blood poisoning / septicaemia I was later told.) That was cleared and my face rebuilt with bone, and my nose rebuilt with skin and cartilage from my ear to help me breath. I no longer abruptly awake in the night thinking I'm suffocating and I again have some energy and feel almost normal again.. 

I was informed it will take a year to fully heal which I did not believe until today. The feeling is coming back to my nose where the graft is and it's so tender. Just a slight touch is quite painful. Blowing my nose is still not an option and although the stitches are not stabbing the inside of my nose I can now feel the grafts where the numbness is going. My bridge also hurts now and then with a painful shooting pain where my tooth was..... or perhaps its another tooth near by, its so difficult to tell as the whole of my face just seems to have been in pain for so long. 

Anyone going through this sort of operation I feel for you, but hang in there. Talk to others who have had it done, blog or just tell your pet, but don't what ever you do tell people when they ask what you have had done. Most are just being polite and do not really want to know, some are squeamish and others just plain bored or don't really care. You can tell by their eyes who is who. I'm fascinated by what they can do in the medical profession so I stupidly assume others are too.. How wrong was I.

So now I just tell everyone I'm fine. Compared to the illness I guess I am, but the pain is tiring, draining and sometimes embarrassing when I try to speak and my mouth won't form a word or I eat badly because I cant bite, or I have to keep dabbing my runny nose because I can't blow it. Luckily I don't go out to work much so I can hide away when I feel low and paint, bake or do some gardening. 

Now I had better pick myself up and stop feeling blue. Think I will do some baking, you can't beat a good fruit pie to cheer oneself up. I have a great apple pie recipe from a fantastic hotel pastry chef with a couple of helpful tips.

APPLE PIE

The Best Apple Pie and Sweet Pastry Ever!!!

Apple filling

10g butter, melt in pan, add 225g apples cored and peeled, add 50g raisins and 40g sugar and cook until tender.  In a separate cup mix 1 tsp lemon juice, 2 tsp corn starch, 10 g water and add it to the apples, add 1tsp cinnamon and pinch nutmeg. Allow to cool.

Sugar dough

190g butter and 125g Icing sugar cream well add 2 eggs and mix well, lastly add 375 plain flour and a pinch of salt. Put in fridge to rest.

Roll out just over 1/2 of the dough and place in pie tin,  put a thin slice of bread or madeira cake on the base, add the apple filling, another slice of bread or cake, roll out the last of the dough and put it on the top. Seal the edge and make a couple holes to let the steam out.

Bake 170 degrees for 20 mins.

Now doesn't that sound yummy!! Cheered me up just thinking about it. The bread is a great tip to stop the pie having a soggy bottom, and no one wants a soggy bottom do they, however if you eat too much pie you might get one. ha ha

So if I have a year of pain, I only have 9 months to go.... now thats a lot of pie baking eh??

What's your favourite pie??

Until next time,
 X Love and Light Peeps X
  dbee