Something to Blog About...

How about oral surgery and how it has turned my life upside down. You may think I'm being dramatic but I'm not. And just so you know there are no pictures to accompany this blog because I refuse to let anyone photograph me in this state. Here comes the story. Remember a while back when I blogged about getting my wisdom teeth? Well since then I decided to get braces to fix my semi crooked smile. I was naive to think it would be so easy. After a consultation at the ortho's office, I soon found that I had an seriously narrow jaw. I decided to go ahead and get the braces and rapid palate expander. So on a Tuesday I have my braces and RPE put on. I also needed to have my wisdom teeth pulled which I knew. I decided to have this done two days later so I could recover before school started. Well I let my orthodontist in on my little plan and he suggested I have my surgical expansion at the same time so I didn't have to recover twice. OK, I thought. That makes sense right? Well I arrived that Friday to have both surgeries done not really understanding what a surgical expansion was, only that I needed one. The oral surgeon did a wonderful job of explaining it to me. A surgical expansion is (warning graphic material to follow) when they make three cuts in your upper lip and rotate the bones 6-8 times in order to create a gap between your two front teeth. Because the cuts are so close to your sinus cavity, your sinuses fill with blood and it causes major swelling. It is painful and takes 4-6 weeks to recover with a diet of liquids and seriously soft foods. I had two choices, jump out of the chair and run or allow them to start cutting. Well about 10 minutes later I drifted into a slumber and about two hours later I woke up not knowing I had lost any time (anesthesia does that to you) and with a huge gap between my two front teeth. I slept for four days and lived off protein shakes and ice cream. I've lost about 5 pounds in one week but am slowly starting to recover. The swelling in my face has greatly reduced and I'm starting to eat soft foods now. I will never take food for granted again. I realized just how much I love to eat and be able to actually bite into my foods. I'm no longer on pain killers because I decided I could not function normally on them. I just keep telling myself it will all be worth it in the long run. And just so you don't think I'm extremely vain and did all of this in the name of beauty it was also medically important. The surgical expansion will help with widening my jaw and giving my teeth room to breath because seriously I can't fit dental floss between my teeth because they are so tight and it did a wonderful job of clearing out my sinuses. School starts in a another week and I'm considering introducing myself as Mrs. Hillbilly who can't quite correctly pronounce numerous sound of the alphabet right now.
P.S. Here's a little plug for my oral surgeon Dr. Dobson in Provo. He really was wonderful and did a great job of making me feel comfortable and explaining the procedures to me.