00:00No one really liked me in high school or middle school because I looked like this.
00:04I honestly didn't know there was anything wrong with my face until I hit middle school
00:08and I was literally bullied out of both of them.
00:11And then I realized there was something wrong with my face, obviously.
00:13Like, I didn't look like everybody else.
00:15I wasn't, didn't have a jawline.
00:16I'm so excited, but I'm freaking terrified.
00:19When I wake up tomorrow to my surgery, I will not look like this.
00:23And I will never look like this ever again in my life.
00:25After years of hardship, it's finally surgery day.
00:28I'm still so swollen.
00:30My skin is still numb.
00:31I can barely talk.
00:33The surgery went well.
00:34It was 11 hours long.
00:36There was only one complication.
00:38When they went in, they noticed that my bone was actually soft.
00:43They had to break my upper jaw in four different places.
00:46They had to tuck my upper lip in.
00:49So now it looks like I have no upper lip.
00:53Well, what caused all these issues with her jaw in the first place?
00:55I was diagnosed with idiopathic condylar resorption about a year ago, which actually means my body melted away my bones
01:04and ate them.
01:05I wasn't born with this disorder.
01:07It actually happened over time.
01:08As you get older, it kind of, like, progresses more violently.
01:12And you start to notice a really drastic change.
01:14Like, my teeth don't touch.
01:15I can't chew correctly.
01:17There's been a lot of hardship with this disease that I didn't even know I had until this amazing surgeon
01:22ended up diagnosing me.
01:23As part of the surgery, they installed two bionic metal joints on either side of her jaw.
01:29It takes a full year to be completely healed.
01:32So I'm posting monthly updates.
01:33And we're finally at six months.
01:35It feels like a huge milestone.
01:36So the top picture is my before.
01:38And that was, like, how collapsed my airway was.
01:41And I wasn't getting any air.
01:42Like, I could barely breathe.
01:43And then the second picture where the green is is how straight my airway is now and how I can
01:48breathe.
01:48So these are some of my scars.
01:50I have a scar here, as you can see in that picture, here.
01:53And then on my ears, they went in both on my neck and my ears.
01:57So this is my two-month post-op picture.
01:59And this is my four-month.
02:00You can see how much of a difference that that really made from, like, all the swelling that I had.
02:05For instance, this was me when I was younger.
02:07A lot of people have been asking to see pictures.
02:08I had a jawline when I was younger.
02:11So as I got older, it really worsened.
02:13This is me three-month post-op.
02:15This is me four-month post-op.
02:16You can still see a lot of the swelling.
02:18This is now.
02:20So six months post-op.
02:21People were desperate to know how much this all cost.
02:24Whipped my calculator out for this one to get an exact price.
02:26So basically, it was $145,900 that we paid out-of-pocket, not including extra days in the hospital that
02:36I had to stay because I found out I was allergic to a lot of the medicine.
02:38We probably spent close to $200-and-something thousand dollars.
02:43So insurance did help a really great portion because we didn't have to pay $1.5 million plus, like, $69
02:50,000 times two plus, like, 10 other charges.
02:55Great healthcare system we have here.
02:58If you're going to get the surgery, please have good insurance.
03:01Thank you, friends.
03:01Thank you, friends.
03:01Thank you, friends.
03:01Thank you, friends.
03:01Thank you, friends.
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