Blended McDonald's Cheeseburger and a New Face

At the age of 22, I started wearing braces. After spending hours in consultation with my uncle and a dental surgeon, determining what my face would look like, it was time. I had seen my new face represented digitally, and I was excited about what I was going to look like when it was all over. The idea of surgery was scary, but I was so devastated by how I looked that I knew it was the right choice for me. Something inside of me burned to be set free. I knew this new look would give me the confidence I needed to be successful in life. 

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It was decided that I would wear braces for about a year and a half prior to surgery, to get my teeth aligned in the right place beforehand. Anyone who has worn braces knows the torture they are. The pain was excruciating, and there were constantly holes in my lips and cheeks from the wires poking into me. But I didn’t care.

It was all going to be worth it.

Then the day finally came for surgery. A few weeks prior, my surgeon started recommending to me that I fatten up, and he ordered me to eat fattier foods, and a lot of carbs, because I was going to lose a lot of weight after the surgery, and I had no weight to spare.

The day came, and I went under. Waking up after surgery, I was in agony, but I immediately wanted to see what I looked like. I was so focused on my appearance. They wouldn’t let me look in a mirror for three days, however, because my head was the size of a basketball from all the swelling. They cut out an inch and a half of bone from both sides of my lower jaw, and they split my top jaw in half and moved it forward and down. I was then wired shut completely and couldn’t move my jaw for 5 weeks. 

I was in the hospital for about three days, with a morphine drip in one hand, and a Demerol drip in the other. The pain was enormous, but the drugs kept me entertained. There wasn’t much I could do beyond lay there and feel the drugs coursing through my veins. TV didn’t make sense, and I couldn’t talk.

I was given paper and a pen to communicate my needs. 

Coming home from the hospital, I had quite the journey of recovery ahead of me. Eating became a whole new adventure. We were given a veterinary syringe, a Slurpee straw, and some instructions. We had to shove the Slurpee straw into the back of my mouth around the side of my teeth, attach the syringe with blended food, and shove the food into the back of my throat. For the most part, protein shakes, and blended soups were what my diet consisted of. 

One day, my brother was visiting, and I was having a particularly rough day. I was starving. There are only so many protein shakes a girl can have before she starts craving a cheeseburger. My brother convinced me that if we blended a McDonald’s cheeseburger, I’d get satisfaction. We decided that as you chew food, it all blends together anyway, so this should be no different. 

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We drove to town and got the cheeseburger, came home and stuck it in the blender.

Into the syringe, it went. Imagine what happens when your teeth are wired together, you can’t open your mouth, and you have to throw up. Blended McDonald’s cheeseburger came out of my nose and filled my mouth. The texture and the smell were more than I could handle. Tears poured down my face as I tried to navigate being sick with a wired shut mouth. To this day, I cannot drive past a McDonald’s without feeling nauseous as the smell is more than I can take. I thank my brother for curing me of any future fast-food cravings that day. 

When the swelling finally began to recede, I started glancing in the mirror at myself.

I had looked a certain way for 23 years of my life, and now I looked completely different. Before the surgery, I had so many people giving me advice that I wasn’t to allow my new looks to go to my head, but every time I looked in the mirror, I was stunned. I looked incredible! I was so excited by my new face, but it was as if someone I didn’t know was looking back at me. 

I had spent 23 years getting to know myself as best I could through those early years, and now, I was a different person, or so I thought. It was traumatic.

Despite my excitement for my new face, there was a deep emotional wound buried in my soul. This wound would rear its ugly head over the next few years as my poor decisions went rampant.

I now believed I was beautiful, and I could conquer the world, and the party was about to get started.

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