Day 0 - Surgery Day - 6/1/2015

I'm finally feeling up to blogging, so I'll start with surgery day.

I was pretty nervous.  I kept myself so busy with the kids that it didn't sink in until Sunday night.  I was just nervous about the recovery and how shitty I was going to feel when I woke up.

My mom spent the night here to take care of the kids, and Tim took me to the hospital at 6 am.  My surgery time was 8 am, but I had to get all prepped so 6 am was arrival time.  We walked to the surgical suite and checked in.  After about 10 minutes they called me back to prep and holding.  The nurse checked my weight, vital signs, pregnancy test, hemoglobin, etc.  everything checked out.  A friend of mine who is an OR nurse at the hospital came to see me and o told her how nervous I was. She gave me a hug and told me everything would be fine!  It made me feel better that I knew someone who was looking out for me :)

The anesthesiologist came and talked me to and started my IV, then the surgeon and his resident both came and talked to me.  A lot of the same questions over and over. Finally the nurse anesthetist (my BFF) showed up and gave me what she called a "martini" in my IV.  That really took the edge off.  I remember feeling a little tingly and telling the nurses that I felt it working.  They took me to the OR, I saw the lights and all the techs and everything.  They asked me to scoot over from the stretcher to the surgery bed which I was able to do.  Once I had my head positioned they strapped my arms and legs down.  I felt fine and wasn't panicking at all, must have been the martini.

The next thing I knew, I was waking up in the PACU.  I felt my mouth was SO dry.  I said, "mouth is dry."  I asked for a wet sponge or something for my mouth, bs they did give me something.  I was still a little out of it.  After about 10-15 minutes I was feeling awake, so they wheeled me to my room and brought my husband in.

I think he was a little sad when he first saw me because I just looked awful lol.  Dried blood in my nostrils and my mouth.  I felt ok though.  Not a ton of pain because I was numb.

Over the next few hours they gave me tons of IV fluids and tried to get me to drink.  I had some water and ginger ale.  I had so many IV fluids that I had to pee every hour! So I had plenty of practice   out of bed.

I did have three episodes of nausea bs vomiting.  The second was the worst.  I vomited blood from my stomach and then my nose started bleeding.  The nurse called the doctor, then 5 oral surgery residents showed up.  I had gauze taped to my face to catch the blood and just looked like shit overall.

They offered me Zofran IV, so I took it, but it didn't help.  At that point I still hasn't had any pain meds.  They were offering me Dilaudid, which I did not want.  The doc told me he would write in for vicodin and I could just crush it and drink it through the syringe.

I ended up taking the vicodin and like 10 pm, but has to pee every hour from the IV fluids so I couldn't sleep anyways lol.  

Here's a few pics from day 0:

Bite Before:

Bite After:

I'll save the rest for day 1 post op 

Tomorrow is surgery day

well... Long story short.... I did not get my jaw surgery in November.  I am having my surgery tomorrow, June 1, 2015.  I will update later about what has happened between November and now.  Just wanted to start blogging about my recovery that starts tomorrow, I guess.

I'm a tad nervous.  It didn't really hit me until tonight when my bag was packed and the kids were in bed and my mom was here to take care of them (while hubby takes care of me).  I am definitely ready to get this over with, so that has helped me keep the nerves at bay for the most part.


I ate pizza and ice cream tonight.  Last night my husband took me out for drinks and I had a giant platter of nachos.  I seriously love nachos and will miss them dearly as I can't have crunchy foods for several months. :(  I honestly didn't binge as much as I had planned to because I was just not really in the mood for anything. Go figure. My husband said I'm going to be in the mood for a lot of things over the next 6 weeks, lol.

Anywho, I'm off to bed to try to sleep one last night before I sleep horribly in the weeks to come.  I have to arrive at the hospital at 6 am tomorrow.  Wish me luck.

I have a surgery date!!!!

Well, I have a surgery date.  I'm not thrilled that the date is FIVE MONTHS after the date I got cleared for surgery, but at least I have a date.  This is how it all went down....

June 23- Ortho cleared me for surgery.  I made an appointment for 8 weeks out, and the ortho told me that I would probably be calling back to cancel that appointment because I would probably have surgery before that.  I immediately called my surgeon to schedule an appointment for him to clear me.  First available appointment (I told them first available, any date any time I would make it work) was July 17.

July 17- Oral Surgeon clears me for surgery.  He tells me to go to the front desk and get my surgery date.  The ladies at the desk tell me that they have to call my insurance to get the surgery pre-certified or authorized or whatever.  I know this whole process because I'm a nurse, and I used to work in a doctor's office.  They say they will call me.

July 21-September 19- I call the surgeon's office every few days to bug them and ask them when my date is.  They refuse to give me a date and tell me to stop calling pretty much.

Sept 22 9:30 am- I go back to my orthodontist.  I actually cancelled my 8 week appt and rescheduled it for 12 weeks out.  So at this point it's been 12 weeks since he has seen me.  He thought I would have had my surgery about 4-6 weeks after the last time he saw me.  He asks me what the heck is going on and why I don't have a date.  I tell him all about the surgeon's office, and he is pretty annoyed.  He takes their phone number down and tells me he will call the surgeon himself.  I made an appointment for 6 weeks out, but he told me that I would probably have to cancel because my surgery would probably be in 2-4 weeks.  Sweet!

Sept 22 11:00 am- I get a call from my ortho telling me that he spoke to the surgeon.  He says the surgeon had no idea this was going on, and he was upset about how his staff was handling the situation.  He tells me to expect a call from them with a surgery date within a day or two.

Sept 22 11:15am- Surgeon's office calls and magically has a date for me!  The b*tch lady I always spoke to tells me that she has my date!  She acts like it's just a coincidence that she has a date the same day that I know my orthodontist called her boss.  Funny how that works out.  Anyways, she tells me my surgery date is Monday, Nov. 10th.

So, SEVEN weeks away!  Not 2.  Not 4.  SEVEN.  Still, I was happy to at least have a date. I made my appt. for my physical with my primary care doc, my appt. with the surgeon for my pre-op visit, and my appt. with my ortho to get my surgical hooks put on.  My mom requests 3 days off work to watch my kids so my husband can take care of me.

Oct 3- My surgeon's office calls again.  It's b*tch lady.  She tells me there was a "scheduling conflict" and they had to move my surgery date.  Yup.  As if this couldn't get any more annoying.  My new date is Nov. 17th.  I reschedule the rest of my doctor and ortho appointments to coordinate with my new surgery date.  My mom cancels her request off from work and changes it to the new dates.

So,  the good news is I have a date.  Hopefully it won't change again.  The bad news is, the absolute earliest that I will be able to eat solid food is December 29th.  So Thanksgiving and Christmas are really going to suck this year.  Another silver lining?  Wine is not solid food.

The Waiting Game.......

I haven't posted in a while because I have been pretty annoyed about this whole process.....

In March, I developed a gap between my lower front two teeth as a result of them widening my arch.  The main reason I needed the braces before the surgery was to widen my arch so that my bottom teeth and top teeth will fit together once my jaw is cut and pinned into place.

The ortho said that he would like to just remove my arch wire on the bottom to close the gap quickly because I was on track and progressing rather quickly. He made a comment about us just moving this along as quickly as possible.  He removed the wire, and I went back a week later with my gap closed.

At that appointment he told me that he thought I would be ready by summer for surgery.  He made a few adjustments to my wires and told me to come back in 6 weeks.

My appointment 6 weeks later was at the end of April.  At that appointment, my ortho told me that I was almost ready, and that he thought I would be cleared for surgery in June or July.  I was excited because I really want to get this over with obviously.  I tried not to get my hopes up, but I was sort of hoping for end of June early July to get this done.  He told me to come back for my next adjustment in 8 weeks.

My appointment 8 weeks later was on June 23, 2014. On that date, my orthodontist cleared me for surgery.  I was so excited to hear that I was ready.  He said the next step was to call the surgeon and schedule an appointment for the surgeon to clear me.  I called the surgeon as soon as I got to my car and took the first available appointment they had, which wasn't until July 17th.  My hopes of a late June early July surgery were gone........

At the July 17th appointment, my surgeon checked everything and agreed that I was indeed ready for surgery.  He cleared me for surgery and then took me up to the front desk.  The girls there said that they couldn't schedule anything until they had the surgery pre-certified by my insurance company.  I'm a nurse and I used to work for a doctor's office, so I'm pretty familiar with the pre-cert process.  I was thinking within a few weeks I would have an answer........

BUT as of today, I still have nothing.  In late July I got a letter from my insurance company that the surgery was denied because they needed a lot more information, like photos, X-rays, molds of my teeth, etc.  The surgeon's office told me that was normal and that insurance always denies the first time.  What annoyed me was that 2 weeks later when I called to check on things, they still had not gathered all of the information needed to submit to the insurance.  Today when I spoke to them the told me they had submitted everything, but are still waiting for a response.

It's so frustrating to me that I have been cleared for surgery for over 2 months now and still don't have a date.  I have a husband, kids, a small business to run, and it's really difficult to plan the next few months of my life without having an idea of when I will be in surgery, recovery, etc.  

I feel better now that I've bitched about this all.  I'll keep you posted when I get my date.  I'm hoping for the first week of October since I'm a bridesmaid in a wedding on Sept. 26th.

Wisdom Teeth are OUT!

Yesterday morning I had my two wisdom teeth removed.  The oral surgeon told me in November 2013 that he would need to remove the teeth because he wouldn't be able to operate on my jaw if they were in place.  I had one impacted on my lower left side and one that grew in on my upper right side.  I was so nervous about having the sedation, that was biggest fear.  And it was nothing to even worry about!

When I first arrived I had some new x-rays and impressions taken.  They wanted to be able to compare the x-rays and impressions from yesterday to the ones from a few months ago to see how I'm progressing.  That took about a half hour or so, then the surgeon came in to start my IV.  I told him I was nervous about being sedated because I don't like that loopy, out-of-control feeling.  He said I'd get better sedation from drinking a bottle of wine.  I asked if I could just do that instead.  He was very nice about it all, put the IV in, and then I saw the nurse hand him a syringe.  He said, "This will take about 30 seconds to kick in."  I felt my feet start to tingle a little and then I was out.  I could hear them talking and hear noises, but I can't remember anything specific that was said or done.  I also could see colors, kind of like when your eyes are closed but you can tell when the lights are on or off.  Sometimes I would see dark, sometimes yellow, sometimes red.  Maybe it was depending on the surgeon moving the big overhead light?  Anyways, I felt like I was sort of fine the whole time hearing and seeing colors.  Then they woke me up and said, "You're done!"  It felt like it was only 5 minutes, but I think it was about 15 minutes or so.

As soon as they woke me up, someone was removing my IV from my arm and then someone else was telling me I could walk to my recovery room.  From the moment I woke up, I remember everything and didn't feel loopy at all.  I felt kind of groggy, but not drugged up or anything.  My husband came into the recovery room a minute after I got there and I told him everything that happened.  I had a bunch of gauze in my mouth so it was hard to talk.  The biggest annoyance for me was that my tongue, cheek, and chin were all numb and my mouth felt so dry.  I asked the nurse if I got a Novocain injection or something and she said yes.  Then I told her my mouth was really dry and asked for some water.  She took the gauze out, said I had already clotted, and gave me some water to drink.  The surgeon came in and told me that everything went well, and I told him I was stupid for being worried about the sedation because it was nothing!

After he came in, the nurse came back and gave me my scripts.  I had one for Vicodin, one for ibuprofen, one for penicillin, and one for a mouthwash.  I told her I didn't want to take the Vicodin since I'm breastfeeding, but they gave it to me anyway just in case.  Then she told me I could leave!  I think I was only in recovery for 15 minutes tops.  The procedure probably started around 9:30, and we were home by 11 am. 

My husband walked me to the car, and we were going to go straight to the pharmacy.  I get car sick pretty easily though, so I asked if he could just take me home first.  He brought me home where my mom was with the baby, and I laid on the couch while he went and got my scripts filled.  I ate some pudding and took 400 mg of ibuprofen, then the baby wanted to nurse.  I nursed her a little, then my mom was able to rock her to sleep while I took a little nap.  I only napped for about 20-30 minutes, but I felt so much better when I woke up because the numbness had worn off.  By that time my husband was home so he gave me the Penicillin to take, and made me some spaghetti and cut it up like I do for the baby, lol.  I had a few bites, but I felt like I wasn't comfortable eating that yet, so I ate another pudding.  I finally felt confident enough to eat some soup and pasta around 3:00 or so.


The surgeon's office did call to check on me around 2 pm, and the woman on the phone was very nice.  Since then, I've been fine with just the Motrin.  I'm a little swollen on my left side where the impacted tooth was removed, and I feel no pain whatsoever on the other side.  Today is Wednesday, and I'm hoping by Friday I'll feel pretty back to normal and have no swelling.  I guess we will see how that goes.  The worst part is that we have had two 60+ degree days here (yesterday and today), and I've been stuck inside recovering.  I'm dying to take the baby for a walk outside or to the park.

I did get a little feedback about my surgery date.  The nurse said it would have to be at least 6 months from now, because it would take that long for my bone to heal from the wisdom tooth removal.  She said they can't go back in and start cutting my jaw before my bone is totally healed.  6 months from now is September, and I was given Oct. 2014 as my estimate from my ortho.  I guess Oct. 2014 is still a possibility.  I'm not sure what else has to be done from an orthodontic standpoint, but I guess I'll know more about that after next week's appointment.  Also, the oral surgeon mentioned that he probably would only need to operate on my top jaw, and since my only top jaw wisdom tooth was the non-impacted one, I don't know if they would need to still wait 6 months.  I don't know.  This whole process is confusing.

I'll keep you posted next week after my ortho appointment!

3 Months In, Wisdom Tooth Update, & Progress Pics

I have been putting this off because I'm sort of in the slow part of the process.  I had my braces put on 11/25/13, and I had my first follow up appointment in mid January 2013 (almost 2 months ago).  At the progress appointment, I asked for a copy of my original pictures from my consultation, so I could compare my teeth from November to my teeth in January.  Here are my progress pics so far:

My bottom teeth, top is 11/13 and bottom is 1/14.



 

 

I'm really happy with the progress.  My teeth were basically complete straight with 2 months of braces.  Now that it's been almost 4 months, they are completely straight.  My next ortho appointment is next week, so I'll update with new progress pics after that.  My bite has changed significantly.  I used to have more of an opening on my right side, then it kind of switched to my left side, and now I have a crack that's straight across.  I'll show bite pictures in my post after my next ortho appointment.

 

In January, the ortho decided I should start wearing rubber bands.  At first he was going to wait until my March appt., then he changed his mind and said I should start wearing them in January.  I wear them 12 hours per day, so I pretty much just put them in after dinner and wear them while I'm sleeping at night.  The rubber bands have changed my bite (I think).  For the first 6 weeks or so of me wearing them, they felt fine.  BUT this past week I have been having horrible TMJ pain.  Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night in pain and take the rubber bands out.  I'm not sure if it's related to the rubber bands, but they certainly aren't helping the pain either.  I'm hoping to get an answer about this soon.  It's been hurting me almost daily at some point in the day or at night.  I've been taking Advil several times a week, and I'm not the type that likes to take meds.  I'm just not sure if the pain is being caused by the rubber bands or by my teeth moving or by what.

 

 

 

Tomorrow I'm going to see the oral surgeon again.  He's going to take a look at my teeth and my bite and see how I'm progressing.  I'll probably have a better idea of when surgery will be after this appointment.  My teeth look straight to me, so I'm not sure how much longer I'll have to wait.  I don't know exactly what the orthodontist needs to achieve before I'll be ready for surgery.  I know a lot of other people who have gone through this feel that they are going to be ready for surgery much sooner than they actually are, so I'm not planning on receiving news that my surgery should be sooner than the original estimate of Oct. 2014.  I kind of have a lot going on between now and then between my kids and the 2 weddings that I'm in, so I really don't have time to get the surgery until October.

 

I'm still really nervous about the surgery.  I go back and forth on a weekly basis.  One week I feel okay about it.  The next week I tell my husband there's no way I can do it.  I guess only time will tell??

 

Tomorrow I'm also having my wisdom teeth removed.  I'm very nervous about this.  I have one impacted on my lower left side and one that already grew in on my upper right side.  I'm mostly nervous about being sedated.  I've never been sedated, so I'm nervous about feeling loopy.  I don't like feeling out of control in that way, so I'm just not looking forward to it.  I'm hoping it all just goes smoothly and my recovery is not too bad.  I'm planning on only taking ibuprofen for pain since I'm still breastfeeding.  I have some frozen milk in my freezer, but my baby is not a huge fan of bottles.  At least I know I have the milk if I need to feed it to her.  Also, she's 11-months-old, so she is eating food nowadays too.

 

 

My hubby got me some jello, pudding, and frozen yogurt today, and he's taking the day off tomorrow to come with me. My mom is going to babysit while we're gone, then hubby will take care of the baby and my 7-year-old for the rest of the day tomorrow and Wednesday.  Nice little Mommy Vacation I guess.  Ugh.  Wish me luck. At least this is like a little practice run for the jaw surgery.

Two Weeks in Braces

Tomorrow will be two weeks since I got the braces put on.  I will say, days 2 & 3 were pretty rough.  I had to take some Motrin, couldn't eat much without being in pain, etc.  Days 4 & 5 had some improvement.  I was able to eat soft foods without too much trouble, but still had a little pain.  I definitely couldn't bite into anything.  By day 6 & 7, I was about 80% back to normal feeling.  And by day 10 (and since then), I've been at about 95%.  I can bite into things like a piece of toast now.  I really don't think I'll feel 100% normal eating again until I get these things off.

Besides the pain, the other annoying thing is that I'm a full grown adult (supposedly), wife, mother, etc.  I think before this experience, I probably laughed a little inside every time I saw an adult with braces.  I remember when we were planning our wedding, the coordinator at our venue had braces.  She was probably in her 40s.  I remember sort of thinking, "That must suck to have braces at her age." I assume that's what people probably think when they talk to me now.  The good thing is that I don't really have that much face-to-face interaction with new people.  I see my family and friends a lot, but they all know the deal.  When I went back to the gym this week, I sort of felt the need to explain to everyone why I had braces.  I felt better to just kind of get it all out on the table instead of having them wonder what was going on but not feeling comfortable enough to ask me. I think I would be more annoyed if I worked a sales job or some kind of job where I was constantly meeting new people (and having to impress them).

Before I got the braces, I was a little scared that I was going to be sad about it, or cry when I looked in the mirror, or feel self-conscious.  I'm so glad that is not the case.  I look at them in the mirror all the time, and I don't feel upset at all.  I still smile in pictures, I still smile in real life.  I guess I just feel pretty comfortable in my own skin and I don't really care what anyone thinks about me.  I told my husband, if someone legitimately didn't want to be my friend because I had braces, they would be a terrible person and I wouldn't want to be friends with them anyway!  So I'm not missing out on much, the way I see it.  I actually kind of feel excited when I see my braces because I'm glad the ball is rolling and I'm on my way to having a normal jaw.

Also, my husband and I have kissed plenty (since the pain went away) and done plenty of husband and wife things.  I'm happy to report that he says it doesn't feel any different.  It's not like you kiss with your teeth anyway!