Damn these orthodontists! Just when you think you've got everything nicely planned out they go and chuck a huge spanner in the works!
I positively skipped along to my adjustment last month eager for Dr H's decision on the big day - early Feb, I hoped, maybe even late Jan if they get their skates on :) Initial signs looked good with lots of oohing and aahing over my latest set of impressions and statements of "we're really close now!", so when the moment came to ask the BIG question I was positive there would be good news.
It wasn't to be. Dr H had a final fiddle with the moulds and pronounced that I would be ready "in three to four months, probably around easter" EASTER?! WTF? He then proceeded to go over what still needed to be done, but by now I was too numb with shock to register. Three extra months? I'm gutted! I was so ready for the surgery and now this delay is hugely frustrating. It also means that I'll have to do some temping in the meantime rather than sit around twiddling my thumbs and using up my redundancy package, which I need to live off during my surgery convalescence. It would have been such perfect timing in my life to have it now :(
Still, just as I was despairing of ever making any progress, Dr H.s assistant suggested I call up my surgeon's office and give them my timeline, and see when Mr. T would like his his first appointment with me. She didn't have to ask twice! I raced home and got straight on the blower. Mr. T's office suggested that if I wanted the 'pick of the dates' around easter I should come in anytime from 8th feb onwards, so naturally I requested the 8th itself. Hopefully I can impress on Mr.T the urgency of my predicament, so that he could then put the heavies on Dr.H to pronounce me set to go (yes I know surgery really can't be done until the teeth are ready, but perhaps there's some wiggle room in the definition of 'ready'?). Maybe I should take a bribe along - a nice bottle of Port, some chocs, or maybe even a brand new scalpel? :)
Tuesday, 5 January 2010
Thursday, 3 December 2009
“But the tigers come at night…
…with their voices soft as thunder”.
I am starting to experience pre-surgery nerves. During the day I am Miss Positive - totally happy, envisaging a perfect result, a smiling surgeon and a happy ending. Once I lie down to sleep however, my thoughts invariably turn in a darker direction, imagining things going wrong, suffering complications or terrible results, and I can’t seem to stop them.
All the surgery veterans out there would probably say that this is inevitable and not to dwell on the negative, but this new Crohn’s diagnosis has rather knocked my confidence for six. Now i’m having to refocus on my goal and work extra hard to banish those 3am terrors from my mind. It’s probably a good idea to stop reading any negative surgery stories, as they seem to crop up from time to time on archwired.com and terrify the life out of me. Best stick to the blogs of those who have gone before me and have had good results, as nothing is more inspiring that someone at the end of the process saying that all the stress and anguish is worth it. I’ve also started studying meditation techniques which will hopefully help in the build up to the Big Day.
Positive thinking, happy thoughts….
Tuesday, 24 November 2009
A Telling Off!
Uh-oh, i’m in trouble! At my adjustment last week I was told off for having slightly inflamed gums, and a build-up of plaque on some of my teeth. Now between you and me, these endless rounds of brushing, flossing, scraping and everything else are starting to grate a little – who wants to embark on all that work after rolling in from a late night out or a long cinema session? This didn’t stop me from denying all knowledge of any slackness, but the incriminating evidence was presented to me sternly on a hook. Busted! Still, this process will only be harder if my teeth are in poor shape so I suppose a sharp kick up the bum was deserved.
Things got better when Dr H. announced that he would indeed be taking moulds this session. At last! I’ve been promised a surgery date indication at my next adjustment once he’s played around with the teeth, but was a little disheartened to hear him telling his assistant not to worry if the moulds aren’t perfect as ‘they’re not surgical moulds yet’. Bugger! Here was me hoping i’d get the green light next time for surgery, but I guess this confirms that I won’t have to worry about eating my Christmas lunch through a syringe.
In other news, mum has started asking about the surgery date more and more! I think it’s a sign that she’s finally accepted that’s it’s going ahead rather than is happy about it so i'm still going keep quiet around her. I’m pretty sure the end result will speak for itself, and to all the naysayers i'm really looking forward to saying “I told you so!”
Next adjustment and (hopefully) big surgery date decision on Dec 17.
Wednesday, 4 November 2009
A Lady of Leisure
A fantastic development to report - I have left my hated job, and received redundancy payments enough to allow me to take the next 6 months off work! This is great news as I will now be able to take a good long time to recover after surgery :) It's such a relief, i'm convinced that the stress of that hateful role had something to do with my recent ill health, and now i've left it hopefully those problems are all behind me - now I can give my full attention to building up to the Big Day!
Speaking of the big day, I have my next adjustment on 12th November and i'm hoping for some further indication of a surgery month. Given I havn't yet had my moulds taken or elastics fitted I think I can safely assume December is out, so i'm going to keep my fingers crossed for early Jan.
Also hoping I can meet with Mr T. again soon, it's been over a year since i've seen him so it would be good to go over the plans again.
Teeth-wise all is pretty boring, the second molars are now tilting upright but everything else is the same. I can't see what else there is to do in there, but hey what would I know about the dark arts of orthodontistry?!
PS - Attention All the Better to Bite you with Kate! Hope you're out there and doing well, really miss reading your blog!
Speaking of the big day, I have my next adjustment on 12th November and i'm hoping for some further indication of a surgery month. Given I havn't yet had my moulds taken or elastics fitted I think I can safely assume December is out, so i'm going to keep my fingers crossed for early Jan.
Also hoping I can meet with Mr T. again soon, it's been over a year since i've seen him so it would be good to go over the plans again.
Teeth-wise all is pretty boring, the second molars are now tilting upright but everything else is the same. I can't see what else there is to do in there, but hey what would I know about the dark arts of orthodontistry?!
PS - Attention All the Better to Bite you with Kate! Hope you're out there and doing well, really miss reading your blog!
Monday, 21 September 2009
Well THAT was unexpected!
I’m back! It’s been an absolute age since my last update, but I can assure you that the delay was for very good reasons…
As you may recall from my previous posts, I was going through an incredibly stressful time at work and was struggling to deal with it emotionally. Well, this anxiety had a heavy price to pay as I became very ill and landed myself in hospital. To cut a long story short I ended up spending 10 nights there and came out with a diagnosis of Crohn’s Disease! This was devastating news and has taken me quite some time to come to terms with it, but now I’m on the road to recovery and am once again able to turn my attention back to my favourite subject :)
“So what’s this got to do with your teeth?” I hear you ask. Well, for a start I found out that Crohn’s causes mouth ulcers, which explains why i've been suffering from the pesky devils these past few years and why all my previous dentists' attempts at cures have failed (SLS free toothpaste, special mouthwashes, dietary changes, you name it I tried it), so anyone else out there who is suffering inexplicable canker sores may want to get themselves checked out. Also, my first concerns on hearing the diagnosis were the implications for my jaw surgery; what if Mr T. won’t operate because of it?! Surely I won’t have to give up after coming all this way?! With these alarming thoughts in mind I rushed along on Monday to my appointment with Dr H. and hesitantly broke the news. Luckily it’s nothing to worry about, Dr H assured me he’s had several patients with Crohn’s who have gone through with surgery and all have been ok. PHEW!!!
As for my progress update here’s the latest: Dr H extended my lower archwire so it now connects up to the 2nd molars on each side which are still tilted slightly downwards. My rotated lateral incisor has rotated back in to place nicely in the last 2 months and now only slightly overlaps the teeth on either side – this was the tooth that Dr H was planning to shave down, but the overlap is so small I’m not sure he’ll even bother. No sign of the dreaded elastics yet but with my teeth being more or less in place I’m sure they’re not far away.
I also asked about our original timeline for a December ‘ready’ date and he announced that he’d take moulds at our next appt in 6 weeks and would give me an answer once he’d looked at them. I’ve still got my fingers crossed for a Dec/Jan surgery date so will be keeping up the pressure to finish me off quickly. The thought of finally getting my teeth fixed was something that kept me going through the dark times in hospital, so it can’t come soon enough!
As you may recall from my previous posts, I was going through an incredibly stressful time at work and was struggling to deal with it emotionally. Well, this anxiety had a heavy price to pay as I became very ill and landed myself in hospital. To cut a long story short I ended up spending 10 nights there and came out with a diagnosis of Crohn’s Disease! This was devastating news and has taken me quite some time to come to terms with it, but now I’m on the road to recovery and am once again able to turn my attention back to my favourite subject :)
“So what’s this got to do with your teeth?” I hear you ask. Well, for a start I found out that Crohn’s causes mouth ulcers, which explains why i've been suffering from the pesky devils these past few years and why all my previous dentists' attempts at cures have failed (SLS free toothpaste, special mouthwashes, dietary changes, you name it I tried it), so anyone else out there who is suffering inexplicable canker sores may want to get themselves checked out. Also, my first concerns on hearing the diagnosis were the implications for my jaw surgery; what if Mr T. won’t operate because of it?! Surely I won’t have to give up after coming all this way?! With these alarming thoughts in mind I rushed along on Monday to my appointment with Dr H. and hesitantly broke the news. Luckily it’s nothing to worry about, Dr H assured me he’s had several patients with Crohn’s who have gone through with surgery and all have been ok. PHEW!!!
As for my progress update here’s the latest: Dr H extended my lower archwire so it now connects up to the 2nd molars on each side which are still tilted slightly downwards. My rotated lateral incisor has rotated back in to place nicely in the last 2 months and now only slightly overlaps the teeth on either side – this was the tooth that Dr H was planning to shave down, but the overlap is so small I’m not sure he’ll even bother. No sign of the dreaded elastics yet but with my teeth being more or less in place I’m sure they’re not far away.
I also asked about our original timeline for a December ‘ready’ date and he announced that he’d take moulds at our next appt in 6 weeks and would give me an answer once he’d looked at them. I’ve still got my fingers crossed for a Dec/Jan surgery date so will be keeping up the pressure to finish me off quickly. The thought of finally getting my teeth fixed was something that kept me going through the dark times in hospital, so it can’t come soon enough!
Wednesday, 8 July 2009
Discantus Redux!
I almost named this post ‘suck it up’, as after a reasonable amount of time moping, i’ve decided to give myself a good kick up the ar*e and get over it - there are so many people in a worse position than myself that I really shouldn’t be bleating on about how bad things are. It’ll only be a matter of months until my operation, after which I’ll be free to fix my work situation with a fabulous new smile to boot. Life is really too short to be miserable, so i’m back in the saddle and focusing on 6 more months of orthodontic fun and surgery anticipation to document in my trusty blog. My next appointment is in two weeks, when I suspect the dreaded elastics will be attached, bring it on!
Now that I’m way past the 6 month mark I’m tentatively starting to feel like a brace ‘veteran’! Newbie posts on Archwired.com make me come over all sentimental about my initial days in braces, and I’ve got the fine art of under-archwire floss threading down to a tee. So in the spirit of my newly developed wisdom I’ve decided to revisit my old assumptions about how life in braces would be, for the benefit of any of those reading this who are about to set off on their own journey. Here are the top 4 assumptions I made just before I was fitted up:
That I would always HATE my brace. – FALSE
OK, so it’s hardly my most flattering feature, but my feelings of loathing towards it dissipated surprisingly quickly once I was fitted up, and it wasn’t long before the hardware was blending into my features so seamlessly that I felt I’d had it on for years. I still sigh in disappointment over my increasing underbite and will bite through wood to get away from a camera pointed in my direction, but when I look in the mirror I no longer see myself plus hideously disfiguring metalware, I just see me.
That living with a brace would be a big deal – FALSE
Anticipation turned out to be far worse than reality. After so long fretting over other people’s stares, gossip, reactions etc it came as quite a surprise that most people really didn’t give a monkeys. I guess this proves that it’s easy to get emotionally tied up in what seems like such a huge change to us, but in reality other people are too concerned with their own day to day lives to care about our life-dramas. Had I known this before I wouldn’t have spent 6 months hesitating before taking the plunge…
The pain would be terrible – TRUE and FALSE
An inevitable part of the process really. Everyone has their own pain threshold and there have been a few low points along the way. But on balance I don’t think the painful periods I’ve gone through outweigh the achievement of getting halfway toward surgery. Would I be happy going through the same thing for another 6 months? Definitely - no pain no gain as they say!
That i’d get bored talking/reading about teeth and orthognathic surgery – definitely FALSE
Surely, I thought, after a couple of months I’d become bored of the entire subject – BUT NO! Even after all this time i’m endlessly fascinated by it, and like nothing more than to talk and read about peoples experiences who are going through the same thing. Can’t seem to remember what I did with all that time before my brace came along, hope I don’t miss it too much when it’s gone :)
Now that I’m way past the 6 month mark I’m tentatively starting to feel like a brace ‘veteran’! Newbie posts on Archwired.com make me come over all sentimental about my initial days in braces, and I’ve got the fine art of under-archwire floss threading down to a tee. So in the spirit of my newly developed wisdom I’ve decided to revisit my old assumptions about how life in braces would be, for the benefit of any of those reading this who are about to set off on their own journey. Here are the top 4 assumptions I made just before I was fitted up:
That I would always HATE my brace. – FALSE
OK, so it’s hardly my most flattering feature, but my feelings of loathing towards it dissipated surprisingly quickly once I was fitted up, and it wasn’t long before the hardware was blending into my features so seamlessly that I felt I’d had it on for years. I still sigh in disappointment over my increasing underbite and will bite through wood to get away from a camera pointed in my direction, but when I look in the mirror I no longer see myself plus hideously disfiguring metalware, I just see me.
That living with a brace would be a big deal – FALSE
Anticipation turned out to be far worse than reality. After so long fretting over other people’s stares, gossip, reactions etc it came as quite a surprise that most people really didn’t give a monkeys. I guess this proves that it’s easy to get emotionally tied up in what seems like such a huge change to us, but in reality other people are too concerned with their own day to day lives to care about our life-dramas. Had I known this before I wouldn’t have spent 6 months hesitating before taking the plunge…
The pain would be terrible – TRUE and FALSE
An inevitable part of the process really. Everyone has their own pain threshold and there have been a few low points along the way. But on balance I don’t think the painful periods I’ve gone through outweigh the achievement of getting halfway toward surgery. Would I be happy going through the same thing for another 6 months? Definitely - no pain no gain as they say!
That i’d get bored talking/reading about teeth and orthognathic surgery – definitely FALSE
Surely, I thought, after a couple of months I’d become bored of the entire subject – BUT NO! Even after all this time i’m endlessly fascinated by it, and like nothing more than to talk and read about peoples experiences who are going through the same thing. Can’t seem to remember what I did with all that time before my brace came along, hope I don’t miss it too much when it’s gone :)
Wednesday, 10 June 2009
Paying the price
6 months in, and had my 4th adjustment on Monday. It was a pretty good session, Dr H fitted a steel wire with 2 hooks resting by my canines, and announced I was well on track to be surgery ready by December – Yipeee! The hooks, unexpectedly, are not proving to be the demonic torture devices I was anticipating, though having flicked through the archives of archwired.com I expect it’ll be a different story once the elastics are attached. Dr H also announced he will ‘start work’ on the rotated tooth at the bottom next time. This could mean either slenderizing or removal, but I expect that it’s the former - surely he wouldn’t have spent all these months rotating it this way and that only to end up pulling it out!
So I should be out celebrating all the good things going on right now, but committing myself to this process is now having serious consequences on my life. The company I work for has been heavily hit by redundancies recently, and now I’ve had to choose between taking severance or accepting a demotion in order to carry on here. If things were otherwise I would probably accept the payout, but I really can’t afford my orthodontics and surgery without a regular paycheck coming in. Jobs are thin on the ground right now, and even if I do eventually come across a good one my surgery could possibly be a matter of weeks away by then. Can’t see how any firm would be willing to take on an employee who’s looking for a month’s paid sick leave so soon when there are dozens of candidates for the job, so I’ve reluctantly taken the decision to accept the demotion. I can’t begin to express what a blow this is. Plan to get out of this situation quick sharp once I’m through surgery, but the thought of those months stretching out ahead of me between now and then is really hard to bear. Still, I said at the start I’d do whatever it takes to get this done, and it seems fate plans to test my resolve to the limit. Rest assured though, the moment I come round from the anaesthetic I’ll be reaching for my CV and pen…
So I should be out celebrating all the good things going on right now, but committing myself to this process is now having serious consequences on my life. The company I work for has been heavily hit by redundancies recently, and now I’ve had to choose between taking severance or accepting a demotion in order to carry on here. If things were otherwise I would probably accept the payout, but I really can’t afford my orthodontics and surgery without a regular paycheck coming in. Jobs are thin on the ground right now, and even if I do eventually come across a good one my surgery could possibly be a matter of weeks away by then. Can’t see how any firm would be willing to take on an employee who’s looking for a month’s paid sick leave so soon when there are dozens of candidates for the job, so I’ve reluctantly taken the decision to accept the demotion. I can’t begin to express what a blow this is. Plan to get out of this situation quick sharp once I’m through surgery, but the thought of those months stretching out ahead of me between now and then is really hard to bear. Still, I said at the start I’d do whatever it takes to get this done, and it seems fate plans to test my resolve to the limit. Rest assured though, the moment I come round from the anaesthetic I’ll be reaching for my CV and pen…
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