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.

Day 177: Close Enough to 6 Months

6 months ago, Jared & I woke up at 5am, drove to the hospital, and waited patiently until the anesthesiology nurse came in to roll me to the OR. I still remember a few things about that day very vividly, and some only when I think about them really hard. Here's what's up 6 months later, which is generally considered the "it" point for this surgery. I'll start with the cons so I can end on a positive note.

Cons:

Open bite on the right side

• The lower left part of my chin/lip area is still dead. I say dead and not numb, because I get tingly when I poke at it, but it's not an altogether pleasant sensation, so I try not to. This is probably permanent, but it's not as bothersome as it might seem, probably mostly because for a good 2 months after the surgery I was completely numb in a larger region around the same area. The plate removal (see October 21) alleviated a lot of that, so I feel much more comfortable with this amount of nerve damage.
• My upper gums are still numb. This is really only weird when I floss, and sometimes when I eat something like chips and they get caught in my braces and poke up there. (Don't tell my orthodontist I eat chips, though.)
• I'm still wearing the braces and Dr. Ramsay still doesn't know when he'll be able to take them off. I still have an open bite on the right side of my mouth, which we're currently pulling together with elastics. Except this week. I noticed that the top tooth #6 (see that handy chart over there) was really loose from the elastics, so we're cooling it to let it settle in a little. If you haven't been able to tell from this post, or my last several, I am beginning to loathe my braces. They were fun or whatever for awhile, but it's been almost 2 years, and I'm about ready to have my teeth back.
• We're still making a large amount of medical payments every month (read: 50% of my monthly salary) and will owe about a third of my yearly salary in February of 2013 for the last payment.

Now for the pros
*caveat: more of the pros will probably be obvious once I get my braces off and everything has settled down with that

• I can breathe so much better than before. I think I've said it before, but I can't actually tell at this point, I just remember the feeling from the hospital room right after I had woken up. It's not just my airway in my throat that's opened up, my nasal area is much roomier, now too, so that's nice.
• I have full jaw opening capacities. One of the weirdest parts about surgery like this is how much you don't notice when it's happening. Like, after the surgery, I was wearing that huge splint and I was rubber banded all the time and I didn't even realize, I couldn't open my jaw even a finger's width. (FYI, the normal/good range is three fingers, stacked on top of one another - I can do about three and a half now). It took a long time to get that mobility back, but it's not something that feels strange or limiting at the time, except with yawning. I remember yawning being really uncomfortable... now I can express my boredom with ease, so that's good.
•  The results of the surgery from an oral surgery point of view were about as positive as they could have been. My teeth are the most occluded they've ever been, and it doesn't even feel weird anymore that my lower front teeth touch my upper ones when I shut my mouth. That took a long time to get used to.
• I've only had 1 or 2 headaches since the surgery, and like Jared always reminds me "even normal people get headaches". The biggest test for this will be after I get my braces off though, and life returns to normal, really.
• The surgery is over. This sounds like a weird and obvious statement, but I think I just fully realized it the other day. Something like this is so massive and just takes over your life, and it's such a relief so have it be behind me. And it's a little bit more behind me every day, which is just awesome. 
• Aside from the braces and my current haircut - both of which I never expected the surgery to fix, I'm not as self-conscious about photos anymore. My chin and jaw look like a normal person's.

So, that's what's up 6 months after the surgery. I probably won't update again until I get the braces off or until something major happens, or if I just get bored one night... thanks for reading :D

Day 134: Palate Retainer Blues

Happy New Year!

I have a baby cold right now, and it's the first time I've been sick since I stopped teaching in December of 2010, and boy, does it suck to be sick when you have a retainer in. At first, the retainer didn't bother me at all. Actually, at first, I was in love with the retainer because it saved me from the splint. Now, I've come to see its dark side... haha just kidding, but really, it's getting annoying. It's just becoming so much more comfortable when the retainer is out (for when I eat, etc.) But, I don't want to mess anything up just because I didn't want to wear a stupid retainer for a few more months, you know? The worst part about that is that even though I see the light at the end of the braces tunnel, what do you have to wear when you get your braces off? A retainer! So I'll be right back in the same boat, just able to take better pictures, which is the positive thought I've been keeping in my brain lately.

Really, I shouldn't complain though, I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to get my face broken :D

I promised awhile back that I'd post an outline of the costs, and after spending 30 minutes just now typing it all out, and getting the perfect balance of facts and witty remarks, I have decided to take back that offer. If you're curious about the costs because you're having the surgery yourself, or because you're just nosy (hey, don't worry about it, I'm nosy, too) I'd be happy to talk with you about it (as well as my fun fun adventures with the insurance company) one-on-one, but I'm thinking now that some of the financial stuff should just be kept off the internets at large. Feel free to email me at BethLauren22[at]gmail[dot]com and we can chat about it.

107 Days Since the Surgery...

Today was the 107th day since my surgery. Things have been relatively uneventful lately with my surgery stuff, I haven't had too many appointments with Dr. Voorhees or Dr. Ramsay. Dr. Voorhees's exact quote today was "If it looked any better, I'd scream."

My right cheek (maxilla) still feels a little weird. The best adjective I could ever come up with was "loose" but today Dr. Voorhees mentioned the word "spongy", which I agree with. Every time I mention it, though, he doesn't seem that concerned, which means one of two things: 1) it's actually not a big deal and I'm just being "Beth" about it or 2) it's something that he would worry about if there was anything to be done about it, but since there's nothing really to do... eh.

I also got all of my X-Rays today from post-surgery, because tomorrow I go to the *dun dun dun* dentist. For the first time in a long time... I know, I know, it's bad to not go every six months, but I've had so may other mouth appointments in the past year and a half, I just couldn't bring myself to inflict more pain than was strictly necessary. But now it's gotten to the point where my teeth are gonna be really gross when I get my braces off if I don't start shaping up (they might already be, but I guess I should try to not make it any worse).

Before and after x-rays (for your enjoyment). The biggest difference I see is the airway - it's so much bigger after the surgery
So, after my dentist appointment tomorrow, I'll see Dr. Ramsay the first week in January, but then I don't see Dr. Voorhees until next June. I didn't even schedule an appointment because it's so far out, their calendars don't go that far. I just made a note in my planner to call in June.

It's a weird realization that things are actually starting to wind down with all this craziness. I guess when I'm in the throes of something, it must be some kind of defense mechanism to get it into my head that it will never ever ever end. Because then you're not always the kid in the back seat whining "Are we there yet?" It's like, intellectually I like to know the limits, the times and approximate dates and durations, but emotionally, I just hunker down like it's going to be that way for the rest of my life. But now it's becoming very clear that this will not be for the rest of my life. In fact, I have a feeling that I'll be able to get the braces off sometime next summer. Then, this whole thing will just be a distant memory... I wish I could go back in time and give 3-days-out Beth a hug and tell her that everything turns out OK. That, and to pay attention to the right maxilla...

86 Days: Back to Bands, Ortho Takes the Lead

Day 86 after the surgery... it feels like it's been a whole year.

The weirdest thing about November? I'll only have one appointment with Dr. Voorhees the whole month. Granted, I saw him on October 31, and will see him December 7, but still... it's weird, right?

My mouth & retainer

I had an orthodontist appointment with Dr. Ramsay (my orthodontist) this morning. He added a power chain on the bottom to close some gaps, and a little kink in the upper wire to move this one tooth that's always been a problem. Other than that, he's taking it very slowly. He says that in cases of segmentation (they segmented my upper jaw), if he moves too fast, it could cause the bones to "warp" and they'd have to go back in and fix them surgically. That's also why I'm leaving in the palate retainer in, it will help to stabilize the whole situation up there. I told Dr. Ramsay it doesn't really bother me because my mouth was so small before and it's so much bigger now, that having the palate retainer in there is kind of just like having my old mouth back. So, it doesn't really bother me, although, it would be nice to be able to enjoy the fruits of my "labor" - or my endurance, anyway.  I asked Dr. Ramsay if he could just finish things up with a retainer, since there's not too much left to do, but he said he really needs the wires - oh, well - it was worth a shot!

Then, this afternoon I had my appointment with Dr. Voorhees (my oral surgeon). He doesn't seem worried about the weird feeling in my right maxilla, and wants me to resume wearing bands to pull up some teeth on my right mandible and also to shift the bite back a little.

Me & Jared 11/12/11

Everyone in both offices talked kind of a lot about how good everything looks, which is really comforting and feels good too. It's good for my self esteem. :)

72 Days: Will It Ever End?

Monday I had a follow-up from my plate removal with Dr. Voorhees - he said everything looks fine, he asked me if I felt lopsided, with 1 plate less. I asked him about what's going on with my right maxilla (what you and I would call my upper jaw, but what really feels like my cheek). He said it could be a number of things, but we have to wait and see, because it still could be part of the healing process. I asked him if he ever has to take out the upper plates, and he said sometimes. btw, I looked up stats on having to have plates removed, and it's only 12% of plates, and most of them are over 30, and it's mostly due to infection. But, now I don't see Dr. Voorhees for two weeks.

When something like this happens, my mentality falls into the same thing: this is going to last forever. This will never end.  I will always have uncomfortable metal pokie things in my mouth, and I'll never be able to eat normally again. EEEEVVVVEEEEERRRRR.

So, this morning I asked Dr. Ramsay when he thought I'd be able to get the braces off, and he said no more than a year. :/ But then he explained that when you segment the maxilla (upper jaw), you don't want to move things to quickly because it might be the bones moving, and not the teeth themselves. And then he wants to just let it set a little bit so that it gets all firmed up. And he wants to leave in my palate retainer to make sure that it's not moving around too much. I like my orthodontist cause he's pretty conservative about stuff, but I also really hate wearing braces. But then he said "But you'll get them off well within that year" - well within! So, probably not by my 25th birthday like I was hoping, but maybe not too long after that...

And, I asked Dr. Voorhees if I could eat whatever I wanted now, and he said yes, just as long as it doesn't hurt.

AND, my next appointments with Drs. Voorhees and Ramsay aren't until November 17th, which means next week will be the first week in about 11 weeks that I haven't been to see a dental health professional. A full week without somebody poking around in my mouth! I'm regaining my autonomy, slowly but surely. :D

66 Days Out (or 5,702,400 seconds)

Hello blogosphere!

Today is the 6th day after the plate removal and the 66th day after the surgery. I hope nothing bad happens, what with all those 6s...

Anyway, I went to the orthodontist yesterday, and he put a wire in my upper teeth for the first time in 67 days. Dr. Voorhees segmented my upper jaw, so the middle four teeth were kind of moved up and around and stuff... it's hard to describe. But, it's now Dr. Ramsay's job to pull them down in line with the rest of my mouth. He's doing it super carefully, though, I have to go and see him in a week and keep my retainer in all the time. Don't want my face collapsing in on itself! Haha, jay-kay, ell-oh-ell.

Back into Dr. Voorhees on Monday, more updates then! Until then, here's a bite close-up. I don't have any food in my teeth, those are just gaps for Dr. Ramsay to fill. It's weird to have gaps, I've had like, 6 teeth pulled because my mouth was too crowded, now it's super roomy. Neat!

I was going to post a 'before' picture, but then I found some pictures I took of my smile/teeth before I had braces on, and then I made myself depressed, so I'm not going to perpetuate that.

Have I mentioned that I can't wait to get my braces off?

Me as Thing 2 for Halloween at work