Two days pre surgey

Hi everyone:)

I'm two days presurgery, have pretty much everything I need and am ready. Of course, whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. I woke up this morning with a sinus infection:( I've been to the clinic and got a z-pack antitobitoic, a five day treatment, but I'll only have two days in before the surgery. I've talked to the on call doctor from the emergency line at my oral surgeons office and he's said it's good I'm on the antitobitoic, but we won't know until Monday morning if it'll affect the surgery and if well have to reschedule. Did I mention the surgery is at 8am Monday morning? Ugh. Just my luck that I would get sick the weekend before the surgery. I really hope that either the sinus infection will be gone by then, or it won't be bad enough to have to reschedule. But now it's a waiting game until Monday morning. I'm not sure what this will mean for work, I've got six week scheduled off adm everything is planned for me being off during that time, but if it's gets reschduled, that throws everything off. I'm trying to remain positive and am planning surgery still for Monday, as is my mom, but this sinus infection could not have come at a worse time. I'll keep you all updated, but hopefully you won't be hearing from me again until Tuesday or so!

One Month Before Surgery

I am officially one month from surgery!  That's a scary thought, haha. The last few months have flown by and I've noticed some big changes in my bite, my smile and my profile. I am really looking forward to seeing the changes after the surgery.

I visited my orthodontist yesterday, which will be the last time I see him until after the surgery. I was a little surprised by this, since everyone always says you go to your orthodontist to have the surgical hooks put on. But when I asked about this he said the oral surgeon would take care of it. Max, is that what happened to you? It just seems so weird, like he's just so laid back about the whole thing. My pre-surgery appointment with my oral surgeon is on sept 4, and I'm hoping my X-rays I took yesterday actually make it there, since up til now my oral surgeon has yet to see an actual X-ray of my face. That's weird, right? The lady at the orthodontist office said it would be there for my next appointment, but I think I'm going to call a few days ahead of time just to double check. 

We took my pre-surgery photos yesterday, after taking the mold of my teeth, lol. But, I was able to finally get a copy of it along with my pre-braces photos.

So the pre-surgery photos aren't the greatest, one looks like an awful drivers license or passport photo and in the other I look drunk, haha. But there's been some big changes over the last year! 

Now comes the time to stop preparing for the surgery, which I'm not at all prepared for yet. I mean mentally I think I'm ok, I know everything's going to be fine and all the pain will be worth it in the end. But I'm very unprepared in the way of supplies and what I'm going to need to get me through the tough times. For those that have gone through the surgery, what did you find the most useful?? As of right now I have nothing. I know about the syringes, and I believe  having that extra tubing on the end helps, right? But where do you get supplies like that? And what supplies are worth the money?? I'm going to need help with stuff, please!!

It's Official!

My surgery date has been set! I've known about it since the beginning of May after visiting with the oral surgeon. It was a pretty straight forward appointment and he said everything looked great so we were able to book the next available surgery date which was.... September 24th! Two months earlier then we had originally projected:) I had to wait until yesterday to confirm with Dr. V though before it was official. The last time I saw Dr. V he made a comment that we still had a lot of work to do, but when I told him of the date we booked he said it was fine and that I would be ready to go by then! So now comes the prep, since it's less then 4 months away!!

Two and a Half Months Later

It's been 2.5 months since the braces went on.  There's been a fair amount of movement in my top teeth which I'm very happy about, but, obviously, there's still more to go.  My first check up with my OD was Dec 20 and it was pretty uneventful.  They changed the wires and sent me on my way.  Luckily, there was very little pain after that appointment :)  They said that by the time I came back for my next checkup my bottom teeth would have moved enough that there would be space to apply the last bracket to my bottom tooth.  That checkup was scheduled for Jan 24.  I always update my calendar in my phone of the date and time of my next appointment because I have a horrible memory and will never remember things on my own.  I did just that for this next appointment, but for some reason I put the time as 4 pm.  Well, I showed up at 4pm on Jan 24 to my ODs office and wouldn't you know, I had the wrong time!  I was supposed to have been there at 10:30 that morning instead.  Because they are applying the last bracket this particular appointment is about 40 minutes long, so now I have to wait until Mar 1 before I can go back :(  They have me on a waiting list in case there are any cancelations and I can get in sooner, but I'm not holding my breath for that.  See if I ever make that mistake again!  From now on their appointment slips are also going on my fridge, so at least I'll have a visual reminder of the exact date and times of appointments! 

Aside from the braces I've made some other changes in my life recently that I thought I'd share.  The first is my hair colour.  I've been a blonde all my life (aside from going brown once when I was 17, it was with a box at home and looked horrible!  It lasted about 2 months), and decided that it was time for a change and have gone brown.  Well, more of a dark carmel brown.  I've gotten really great compliments from just about everyone who knows me, I'm told I've got more colour in my face with the brown (compared to the blonde which apparently washed me out, thanks for telling me that before!) so I'm planning on keeping it like this for a while.  I really like the change :)
The second is I've started taking yoga classes as well, I'm also working with a friend to complete the 6 weeks to: 100 push ups, 200 sit ups and 200 squats challenges.  This is the most exercise I think I've ever done in my entire life and so far I'm really liking it!  I started yoga with my mom and for the first month a half I've been going to the gentle yoga classes with her twice a week.  They're not too strenuous but you get a really good stretch out of it.  I've just recently (in the last week) decided that I'm going to the more intense classes because I know I can push myself harder.  I've been to one of these classes so far and I finally worked up a sweat! 
The challenges I'm doing are something a friend from work and I decided to start.  You do it three times a week based on your initial test of how many of each exercise you can do.  I started pretty much at the lowest level for each exercise (again, no physical activity before this, so my body's in pretty bad shape!) but apparently in 6 weeks time I'll be able to do 100, 200 and 200 of each!  I'm at week 2, I should be at week 3 but I'm redoing week 2.  Last week didn't go so well (I wasn't feeling well for the 2nd day workout and then the 3rd day workout didn't happen either), but I have been able to keep up with amounts they say I should be doing.  The push ups are by far the hardest of everything I'm doing right now.  I've never been able to even do a push up, and truth be told I'm doing the easier girl version, but I've definitely seen an improvement in my form and how many I can complete compared to when I first started!  Any improvement is good improvement for me :)  I'm really enjoying the increase in physical activity in myself, I feel better overall and I hope that by the time surgery comes around the positive changes that I've made to my health will help make recovery better. 

That's all for now, and hopefully I'll be in soon to see my OD again!

Pictures

So here it is, pictures of the teeth right now.  I had taken some before pictures without the braces, but I guess those didn't turn out so well (pretty blurry), I'm hoping I can get a copy of the pictures taken in my ODs office before the braces went on.  I know they have them somewhere! 

Oh, and we had to remove the bracket on the bottom a day after I got the braces put on (the crooked tooth) because there is no room for that tooth to go and the bracket wouldn't stay on!  For now it's left out of the braces movement :(  I'm sure that will be a fun progression of trying to make room in my extremely tiny and already crowded mouth, haha.  Otherwise all's well so far :)

A week into it....

The first week of this journey is behind me and all in all it went pretty well.  The pain of the braces got better after about the sixth day, and now I hardly even notice them :)  So much to the point that I want to get back to the OD and get them tightened!  Because if they stopped hurting that means the teeth stopped moving, right?  Hahaha, I know that's not quite how it works, but I can be impatient sometimes!

Going into work (and back into the general public, for that matter) wasn't that bad.  I've been told they look cute on me, but I know I look about 16 now (but only because people know I can drive!  Because I really look about 12).  I'm a little surprised I haven't gotten ID'd more. I went out the last two weekends and only got ID'd once!  Maybe it's not as bad as I think?  Luckily it's becoming more common for adults to have braces, so it's not so bad going out (not that I go out alot, because usually I don't).  I found out last night that a friend is getting braces on in April for the purpose of jaw surgery in October, which is (hopefully!) about the same time I'll be having my surgery.  It's crazy to me how common this jaw surgery is!

That's about it for now, time to enjoy a little dessert:)

Braces are on

The braces went on on Thursday, and it was not at all what I was expecting.  My mouth is very, very tiny, so small that the smallest mouth opener barely fit!  It was pretty uncomfortable the whole time.  And the look of it after was surprising too, I look about the age of a 16 year old!  The whole thing went pretty smoothly though and only took about 45 minutes.  Either way I'm stuck with them now for approximately 2 years..... Oh boy, hahaha.

The first 4 days have been a little bit harder then I was expecting too, it's hurt more then I thought it would. I haven't been able to eat much, only food that I can cut down into small pieces and swallow without chewing, I've had pasta, 2 subs and tonight tried some pizza.  It hasn't been too hard eating that stuff, except for the no chewing, but I think (I hope!) it's getting better.  They say it hurts for about the first week and then gets better, so I'm over half way there to being able to eat properly again.  But this is only the lead up to the bigger thing anyway, this is the easy part!

I don't go back to Dr.V's office for another 6 weeks, can't wait, hahaha.