10 Months Post-Op: You've Got to Be Kidding Me

I went in for my 6-month check up about 2 weeks ago, expecting Dr. Voorhees to make a joke about the fact that I was still in braces, tell me everything looked fine, and that he'd see me in a year.

That is not what happened. Here's what did:

Dr. Voorhees spent a solid 3-5 minutes having me bite down, relax, bite down, open, bite down (and so on), and then him sitting back in his chair with a guarded yet grim face. Things are not going as well as he'd hoped. Despite wearing my palate retainer this whole time, the bones on the right side (that pesky right side that's never quite felt right) seem to have shifted. He's not sure exactly what has happened, and won't have a clear picture until he does a work-up. He'll - or more realistically, one of the surgery techs will - take x-rays and molds. For those of you paying attention, this is essentially starting over at the beginning, with a consultation, even though it's post-op. So I go see him/aforementioned surgery techs on July 5 to do all that. Oh, boy

10 Months Post-Op Photo

He'll then perform a model surgery (surgery on the models he'll make from taking my molds) and see what's to be done. At this preliminary stage, before he has completely ALL the facts, here are some of the options:

1. He re-surgeries the maxilla on the horizontal plane, which is essentially a third of the original surgery.
2. He and Dr. Ramsay work together with some sort of splint situation to see if they can pull the bones back into place without surgery.
3. I say "No way, Jose," Dr. Ramsay does the best he can with braces and we all keep our fingers crossed that the headaches don't come back and the whole thing doesn't just slide back to where it was in an avalanche of frustration and muscles who have nothing better to do than make my life miserable. Muscles are jerks and I hate them.

You can see I'm handling this with a high level of maturity for which the situation obviously calls.

Anyway, now I'm playing the waiting game until mid-July, when everyone will have a better idea of what's going on. I'm going to see a physical therapist to see about the muscle surrounding the situation and if some tightness (or a lot of tightness) may be pulling the bones back.

At this point, the whole situation feels a little like a really uninteresting sitcom. I'll keep you guys posted after I hear back in July.