Meet P.E.A.!

So, not a whole lot to say. Palate Expander still sucks. I hate typing out palate expander every single time I want to talk about it though. So, from now on, I will now refer to it as PEA (palate expander appliance)! Haha, I'm so clever! LOL.
Food is slowly getting easier to navigate. Talking is still hard. It almost sounds as if I'm deaf. It's a very strange experience. I'll have moments of clarity where my voice sounds like it used to. But then, all of a sudden, I have to say a word that I didn't anticipate being a difficult word so I sorta kinda just spit it out. It's almost like I'm tone deaf on certain words. Very odd and weird. I don't know how it sounds to other people, but to me it sounds like I was deaf at some point.
I've also learned to eat with my head tilted slightly back. Not sure how that will work once the surgery happens and I have stitches but I'm sure I'll manage somehow.

Now, I'm sure some of you are curious what PEA looks like. Luckily, I have a hubby who's willing to take some photos for me, even if they are slightly awkward.

Now, PEA is obviously the spider looking metal contraption. It is hooked onto 4 teeth and cemented in with glue (that blue stuff around those teeth is the glue). This picture really shows how much crowding I have. You can see the front 4 teeth are really crowded. Once I have surgery, I will be able to crank PEA and make my jaw wider. In order to make my jaw wider, I will need to crank PEA with a special key. My orthodontist instructed me that I can't loose it because the company only makes one per person. And I must bring it with me to surgery because they will start the cranking process while I'm under the anesthesia. If you look at the photo above, you can see a small slit in the very center. You take the key, insert it into the slit and you can watch it grow wider and wider. After awhile, my teeth will start to spread and I will actually have a space in between my front teeth! It's hard to believe since my teeth have been crowded for so long. 

This "key" is quite an expensive tool. It's 95% made of flimsy plastic with 5% curved metal. It almost looks like someone unbent a paper clip and glued it onto a piece of plastic. HAHA. I've had PEA before so I was not surprised with how flimsy the key looked. But it's a lot stronger than it looks. I guess one of her patients forgot the key at home on surgery day and she had to rush over with someone else's key. How someone in the OR couldn't just fabricate something on the fly blows my mind but whatever. I've been told that it must remain with me surgery day so I'll follow my instructions and bring it on surgery day.

I guess on surgery day, Dr. Keith will take my key and crank PEA at least 4 or 5 times to get my mouth started. Then, once I am in recovery, someone will instruct my hubby on how to crank PEA since I won't be able to. I could when I was a kid but I didn't have stitches or a broken palate haha. 

It's very strange but I just realized today that I don't have any more doctor's appointments or phone appointments. Surgery is my next appointment! O.O!! Holy cow!