What's the first thing you do in the morning while brushing your teeth? Right—you're looking in the bathroom mirror while glancing at your tired, overworked face. A normal, unconscious routine that we all follow every day of the week, every week of the month, every month of the year.
My routine was interrupted in August 2012, after undergoing surgery on my upper and lower jaw. Because my jawbones naturally grew too vertically, I had an open bite which results, when left untreated, in a life with tinnitus and serious stomach issues due to the incapability of biting correctly. My doctor told me: "We need to make cuts in your jawbones and readjust their positions. It's going to take approximately five hours. Afterward, you won't be able to eat real food for six weeks, and your face is going to look different—but better!"
I didn't know which of his statements sounded scarier. I hate surgeries, but who doesn't? All I knew was that the involuntary liquid diet was the least I had to worry about. What am I going to look like? Is it going to hurt? Is it dangerous? My brain was going into overdrive.
After the surgery, I woke up still drowsy from anesthesia while my face was covered with cooling pads to prevent the swelling. What seemed like a routine operation at first turned into a serious emergency.
My face grew bigger and bigger every minute. Like a giant balloon—so swollen that only the tips of my eyelashes were visible. My brown eyes disappeared. No cooling pad was strong enough to fight it. When the doctor entered my room, accompanied by 12 medical students, I heard him saying: "In my 30 years at this hospital, I've never seen anything like that!"
That's a sentence you definitely don't want to hear while lying in a hospital bed—powerless and blind. The rest of his dark, raspy voice was just a blur. I only remember him mumbling: "We need to stop the swelling before it affects her breathing. I suspect it's an allergic reaction to something."
They brought me to an x-Ray room in a wheelchair and took pictures of my face. Am I now part of a medicine book, or a study on "surgery fails"? I don't know, and I never want to find out. In the intensive care unit, they monitored my every move like I was a lab rat. The constant beeping of the machinery attached to my body drove me insane. By that time, my mind was sharp again—but my face still wasn't.
I didn't know what was happening. Will I die? Will I ever see again? When you're tied to the bed, your strain of thought doesn't make sense anymore.
I was a prisoner at the hospital for two whole weeks, instead of the scheduled five days. Thanks to multiple infusions, my swelling got better and I was able to see again. I noticed my worried mother guarding my bed every day and every night. I caught a glimpse of the nurses handing me water in a sippy cup. But what I didn't dare to look at was my reflection in the mirror.
I just couldn't. The bare thought of it made me cry hysterically. I felt betrayed by the doctors who told me it was going to be okay. I saw how visitors at the hospital looked at me, with their thoughts written all over their faces: "My god. What happened to that poor girl?!"
I didn't want to see my deformed visage. Every walk to the bathroom was a struggle in which I buried my face in my nightgown. The mirror was my worst enemy.
While my school friends enjoyed their vacations in what turned out to be the hottest summer of the century, I was trying to find my new identity with cooling pads as my new best friends.
On my last day at the hospital, my mother gave me a handheld mirror. She gently said with pitying eyes: "It's not that bad. I'm right here with you. Sooner or later, you have to look at yourself." Even though I knew she was right, it felt like a mammoth project—something I was not ready for. But in the end, it's like ripping off a bandaid. There's just no way around it. So I took the leap, I jumped off the scary cliff and looked at myself.
What did I see? Enormous, swollen cheeks, lips and a chin in all colors: Green, yellow, purple, black. My left eye was red because of a vein burst. But I still saw myself underneath the horrific look of a "17-year-old girl who got into a serious bar fight." I cried, not because I was shocked by my reflection, but because I knew that I built it up in my mind. Instead of focusing on my healing process, I put myself down. I learned that in order to overcome your biggest fears, you have to face them.
Years later, I can look back and smile. But most importantly: I can smile every morning while brushing my teeth because I know how lucky I am to be able to see myself.