Meeting no.1 with surgeon

Yesterday was a BIG day - I had an appointment with Mr T. for the first time in almost 2 years, though walking through his consulting rooms again it felt like we'd only just met last week. Where does the time go?

After getting control of my nerves and jelly legs we got down to business, and he started off with bad news - because of my new teeth position he thought it would be best to move the lower jaw as well as the upper, as too much advancement of the upper jaw would throw out my face alignment. Felt a shiver down my spine as soon as he said this - i'd been hoping I could get away with just an upper and genio, but it seems the only option is the full works. He also told me he was worried that tongue thrust could possibly cause a relapse post-op, and so would make allowances for it during surgery by leaving a posterior open bite (which will compensate for any relapse with some sort of see-saw effect, or could later be closed using braces).

He wasn't pleased to hear about my Crohn's diagnosis 6 months ago and grimaced when I showed him the pills that I have to take every day, he now plans to speak with my specialist asap in order to discuss medications and will let me know the outcome at our next appointment in 3 weeks. All that was left to do afterwards was have a 3D photograph taken, which he will work on and show me next time, and get a few Xrays taken.

All in all a pretty sobering appointment which left me feeling quite down for the rest of the day, but this morning i've perked up. These next few weeks are bound to be a bit of an emotional roller-coaster as the inevitable "what-am-I-doing?" thoughts crop up, but my motivations are still as strong as ever and cancel out the doubts pretty quickly. Hope I can maintain a cool head for as long as possible...

On Her Majesty's service

Things are finally hotting up around here!I had an adjustment yesterday in advance of the first pre-op meeting with my surgeon (taking place in 3 days time), Dr. H announced that he'd be taking x-rays and final records at our next session in 6 weeks, and would be writing to Mr. T in order to make plans for the surgery itself. Yippee! I'm so pleased that we're finally getting down to business! I also had hooky steel wires inserted on each side top and bottom, to which they attached another lighter wire, which seems to be doing the job I was expecting from elastics (I'll post a pic asap so this makes sense). It's proving tricky to get the floss under both sets of wires so my evening bathroom routine is now clocking in at over 20 minutes!

Whilst Dr. H's assistant was at work on my wires we were chatting (as much as you can when your mouth is full of someone else's fingers) about celebs who'd worn braces, and she mentioned that they sometimes had famous faces come through the door. I asked her to give me some names and she told me they'd done the braces for two of the royal family! My first thought on hearing this was 'no wonder you're so friggin' expensive', but I was still impressed. She also mentioned a rather dishy hollywood actor who brings his kids there - I'd better start hanging around the waiting room a bit more often!