Tuesday 9 February 2010

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...

1 comment:

Graham said...

Yikes, both jaws?! Have fun with that.

Get ready to lose a substantial amount of weight, my friend.