Thank you folks so much for taking the time to write. It really helps to calm me down a bit just knowing that it really DOES get better, and the docs are NOT part of an underworld scheme to grotesquely disfigure America. ;-) I have left a call to have him call me ASAP Mon am, and I really hope and pray that Helen is right, and that my mouth will be able to open a bit more.

Carol, I don't feel like you were making light of the situation.....actually that's what I SHOULD be doing- finding the humor and forgetting the horror.

I'm still concerned that that side of my mouth seems to be so far above the other side-it seems like more than just swelling could account for. Is this common? Will I forever have a postoperative "leer".....?

Also I seem to have hair on part of what I had assumed was lip. Good Lord- it's really a mess- I can't really tell for sure what's supposed to go where!!!!