Posts

Showing posts with the label Cleft Palate

3 Months done 9 to go....

Image
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 reveal...... or the woman with the indestructible face??

Image
My Nanna and me The Big Day Today is the big reveal and I'm nervous and yet excited too.  Nothing cosmetic here, just a bit of surgery to help me breathe, however with it comes at a price. Without full major surgery on my nose and all the risks that could happen, the price is a probable odd shaped unsymmetrical nose. Well I've had an odd shaped nose all my life and I got quite used to it. It made people remember me easily which could be a good thing. OK it could be a bad thing too but I'm grasping at positives here! My Cleft Palate now fully repaired after a serious infection recently and my breathing now hopefully sorted that should be it for me. One can only hope! I had a little today chuckle as I used to tell a joke about a man with the indestructible face. It was a pretty rubbish drawn out joke with a stupid punch line but it's actually how I feel and every now and again I say the punch line in my head which makes me laugh, which inevitably hurts m...

Now I can see, It wasn't all about me.... Call the Midwife and the Cleft palate

Image
Nanna and Me Now I can really see my birth defect was NOT all about me. I was not the only one suffering! This is the earliest photo of me I can find. It is of me and my Nanna who, I was told, had a special spot in her heart for me, as I was 'special'. This photo must have been taken just a few months after my skin graft when my lip was stitched up. (The bone would be grafted to close the hole in the roof of my mouth when I was older) I was a baby born in the 1960's with a Cleft Palate and recently watched 'Call the Midwife.' (https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0c1x6qn/call-the-midwife-series-8-episode-3) The program had a huge effect on me from start to finish. The sense of admiration and sadness for my parents, especially my Mother flowed over me like a Tsunami. I have only really considered how I coped and was affected by my cleft. I was always appreciative to my parents for their love and support with all my issues eating, the operations, dent...

Terry Pratchett, Paul Kidby and Death

Image
Hubby is taking some well earned holiday at the moment so we drove up to Salisbury to see The Terry Pratchett exhibition. I must say it was wonderful although I did feel quite sad Sir Terry is no longer  walking this Earth amongst us but, like the painting, is playing chess with DEATH and possibly winning? If you haven't visited the exhibition yet, do go if you can. Not only is it quite interesting on his life and work, its great art that is so detailed you can walk back past them more than once as I did and still see things you had missed. Oh to be as talented at Paul....one can only dream! The journey to Salisbury was, as always, bitter sweet. It brings back memories both happy and unpleasant. I spent some time in Odstock Hospital just outside Salisbury to rectify my cleft palate. Skin and bone grafts eventually gave me a face with a smile and a mouth able to take a new prototype brace. Thanks to my Dad I was lucky enough to have one of only 5 prototype braces in the U...