Day 330: No More Surgeries!

Part I: Dr. Voorhees
I visited with the good doctor on July 9 and was most relieved to hear that he's not recommending surgery at this point, which is good since it was probably not a good option financially or emotionally. He did sign my physical therapy referral to see Jeff at North Star Manual Therapy and I'll go see Dr. Voorhees again in a month just to say "What's Up?!"

Part II: Dr. Ramsay
I saw Dr. Ramsay this morning (7/19), and I think he was a little off-put by how well the physical therapy seems to be going (he had declined to sign my referral form, resulting in the postponement of my initial appointment). But, he feels confident that the orthodontia should be able to close the right front quadrant. He set me up with a new rubber band formation, put a kink in my lower wire, and sent me on my way.

Sidebar: Excerpt from my phone conversation with Jared today:
Me: I'm giving him three more months - he's got until October and then I'm just going to have him take them off. I am SO SICK of being in braces (for those of you keeping track, I've had braces for a little over 8 years total, or 1/3 of my entire life). 
Jared: Well... (obviously deliberating so he can choose his words wisely) let's just... cross that bridge when we get there...
Apparently, being in a relationship with me is somewhat akin to learning how to be a hostage negotiator. 

Part III: Jeff, the physical therapist
Jeff is my ultrafabulous physical therapist. He's working to get my muscles to stop being little punks and just do what they should. Oh, and I have all these different exercises I'm supposed to do, too. It's never fun, and sometimes painful, but I think it's helping. Here are a few highlights:

1. My cervical spine is a little tilted, so he's fixing that himself through manual therapy
2. I tip my head back when I open my mouth, so I get to do embarrassing double-chin inducing exercises to work on that.
3. My lateral pterygoid is all sorts of angry and bitter. Jeff "massages" them on each side during my visits - he has to go in through my mouth! It's the most painful thing ever. And each week, as he's able to get further up into it, it gets more and more painful!

Lateral pterygoid massage

My favorite lesson in all this is as follows: being invested in my own health care. I've got a guy looking at the bones, a guy looking at the teeth, and a guy looking at the muscles. But who has to go home and live with the consequences of everything those guys do? Me! So I'm learning it's OK to speak up and question or challenge their methods or ideas as long as I do it respectfully. Contrary to my culturally implanted instinct, doctors do not know everything.

They do know some stuff though, so I guess I'll let them stick around.