Jaw Reconstruction Story

January, 2022. I walk optimistically into the surgeon’s office, holding on to my hope that the opinions before have all been wrong. I won’t need that operation. Yet, the voice inside my head says otherwise. Although I try to quiet it, it propels me to just double check. I booked this appointment to ask for one more opinion. 

It was right. The operation is no longer something belonging to “one day,” but is here and now. Tears stream down my frightened face. What does all this mean? Breaking my jaw? Reconstructing my face? Surely this cannot be happening. 

I wipe away the tears and shove the foreboding feeling down. If not now, when? With my next year planned out in my head, now is a better time than ever. I make the calls. I book the appointments. Let the journey begin. 

That was nearly two years ago. Today, I’m nearing the end of that journey. Though there is still more healing to take place, tomorrow (11 Sep 2023) is the final step. My braces are coming off, and the changes left are mine to keep. 

Is this a journey I would like to relive? Probably not. But it’s one worth telling. And I hope that in my story, somehow, you see the gratitude in my heart shining through.

February 9, 2023.  The day has come. I’ve spent the last week preparing for this moment. Well, technically the last year. Braces, appointments, x-rays, consults have all been leading me to this moment. And that’s not all that’s changed. My address, my relationships, my future plan have all independently decided to take a turn and change what I thought my life would look like right now. But this day was not one I tried to imagine often. This past week my heart has been beating a little faster. I’ve strived to stay busy to distract my wandering mind. Part of me wants to thank everyone for all the preparation leading me here, and then flee far away. I made it this far though. Kirsten, take the last step. 

It takes four hours for the surgeon to do his job. He breaks my jaw in four places and puts enough screws in my face to set off a metal detector. My gums and nerves are cut, and I have lost so much blood. They wake me up enough to realize I’d rather be sleeping than feel this pain. No one warned me that a pain this severe existed.

February 11, 2023. I’m released and make the drive home in the pouring rain. Everything in me wants to cry as hard as the rainfall surrounding me, but with no nerve control and the excruciating pain I’m in, I hold the tears back. It’s over, it’s done. I did it. And yet, I can’t see the light. The recovery had only just started. 

Over the next few weeks, I do anything I can to numb the pain. I eat and drink through a syringe. Naturally, I lose so much weight that the stairs to my bed are enough to leave me breathless. And though the pain medication works at times, and sleep helps me escape from this painful reality, there is an ache inside that cannot be numbed. 

I look in the mirror and don’t recognize myself. Who am I? So many things I used to hold so close are gone. Those things, so preciously intertwined with my identity, are no longer there, leaving me scavenging for what remains. I no longer live in the place I called home for so long. I can’t teach or train. I can’t even walk downstairs without feeling faint. And worst of all, I don’t even know who I’m staring at in this stupid reflective glass. Who am I? 

This was rock bottom for me. And it is here that I learned who I was. I hadn’t lost the answer to that question, but rather realized I had never known it. Rock bottom was a step closer to finding it. 

The next few weeks, the agony continued. Some days were better, but many of them were not. The healing progress was slow, and though there were some little wins, I continued too long to recognize the face staring back at me in the mirror. I isolated myself, and avoided anyone I knew. My loved ones knew not to goad me into a photo, or else. I was already a pro at smiling without showing teeth, as I had hated my braces making their way into photos for the past year. But this was different. I couldn’t hide this change that had taken place. The moment I would take a brave step outside, a painful reminder would veer its ugly head with a friendly face not waving back, or a family member’s gasp at the girl they once knew. Kirsten, keep moving forward. One step at a time. 

Although it is hard to pinpoint the moment, somewhere in the months that followed, I noticed healing taking place. I had regained strength, my swelling was decreasing, liquids had turned into mash, which turned back into food, thank goodness. I could walk my routes again, and slowly began building my stamina up to resume teaching. The numb patches on my face and in my mouth were slowly regaining feeling, and best of all, I was off the pain medication. And yet, none of this is the healing I am talking about. 

Alongside the surgery that took place on February 9^th, was another one. A deeper one done on my heart. I had felt the incisions, I had felt the pain, but did not realize the changes that had been made. The surgeon wasn’t holding a scalpel, and I didn’t have to sign any waivers before. I did not even know that the surgery had taken place until I felt those deep wounds healing and transforming my very heartbeat. 

God did surgery on my heart. 

It took rock bottom to realize the surgery I really needed had nothing to do with the way my teeth bit down or my shifting cheek bones. It took rock bottom to realize my identity had nothing to do with the current circumstances of my life. It took rock bottom to realize that joy was not something I was finally going to feel when all of this was over, but was available to me throughout the whole journey.

Somewhere, in the midst of my pain, my confusion, my frustration, and loneliness, I finally realized who I was. It took my entire face changing, well, my whole life changing for that matter, to realize that my identity had never changed. And it never will. I am a beloved child of God. And nothing – no relationship, no job, no address, no operation can change that.

Today, September 10, 2023. I do look different. My face has changed. And while I hope to never go through that drastic of a change again, I know this isn’t the last time my body will look different. If I am blessed enough, one day my eyes will wrinkle when they smile, my hair will be thinner and whiter, and my skin will have stretched from caring life. Hopefully, my muscles will be worn out from all the places I’ve journeyed to, the hands I’ve held, and the children I’ve carried around. 

But I hope, when that day comes, that physical change isn’t the only change you see. Kirsten of January, 2022 wouldn’t recognize who I am today. And similarly, I hope who I am today won’t recognize who I am in ten years’ time. I hope tomorrow (11 Sep 2023) when I smile for the first time, braces-free in over a year, that you don’t only notice my new jawline and perfect smile. I hope you notice my joy – my deep-seated, unshakeable joy. Not because my jaw-reconstruction journey is over, but because my spiritual journey has just begun. I found the answer to that question the girl in the mirror kept asking me. I will rejoice tomorrow and every day after that because I, Kirsten Johnson, know who I am. I am a beloved child of God.