So long 2015... see you next year!

Since my last post, things have turned around. The swelling in my lip has vanished and I'm pretty much back to normal. I finished my last round of antibiotics on Saturday. I still feel kinda 'blah' which I think accounts to the antibiotics coming out of my system. Since I wasn't feeling my best on my birthday we decided to post-pone part of my birthday celebration until this weekend. I really wanted to go ice skating so we are hopefully going to go sometime this weekend.

This infection, thankfully, didn't set me back at all. I was practically almost finished healing anyway. And since I caught it so quickly, I don't have to delay or reschedule any of my future appointments which is a relief.

I've been wearing the elastics constantly. They are a pain in the butt so I'm ready to stop wearing them. It's such a nuisance since I take them out and put them back in at least 6 times a day. Also, since I've been wearing them in my current configuration, I've felt like my upper jaw has moved very far forward. Almost to the point where I may have a slight overbite. I'm going to mention it to Dr. Klein when I see her in a few weeks but I'm not nervous. I've discovered that sometimes things get worse before they get better.

Other than the infection, things are going well! I finally ate a piece of pizza! And today, I ate my first sandwich. It was a chicken salad sandwich so it was pretty soft but I did have to do a lot of chewing.

Christmas was wonderful. We spent Christmas Eve with Don's family and did our family tradition of going to the movies. We typically always go on Christmas day but Don's parents wanted to go back home to western mass early and we had already promised to spend Christmas morning with my family up on the north shore. I made a great brunch Christmas day. We had a ham, onion, and pepper quiche and a cinnamon bun french toast bake. Everything was to die for. I wish I had made 2 quiches because it went fast!

My next major braces appointment is with Dr. Klein on January 15th so I probably won't post again until after that. See you all in 2016!

Infection pt. 2 and my birthday!

I woke up this morning and my lip was still swollen. Not as bad as Monday afternoon but still sensitive to the touch and a tad uncomfortable. I went and saw Dr, Keith and he confirmed my pcp's diagnosis. I had an infection inside along my upper jaw incision. Fortunately, it was not to bad. He said that the area is slightly open which is allowing everything to drain out. GROSS. That's good because it means that he doesn't have to drain the area manually. I didn't ask what draining it manually would entail, didn't really want to know. He said that I'll have a gross taste in my mouth until everything drains out and begins healing. It'll probably take about 7 days.

He advised me to continue taking the antibiotics until the bottle was completed, use a hot compress on the outside of the infected area, do salt water rinses every 2 hours for the next 48 hours, and use chlorhexidine mouthwash for the next 7 days. He said that I was lucky I caught it so quickly because it could have been worse. Worse meaning that the area around the implants would become infected. That's super bad so I'm glad it didn't come to that!

He thinks it might have started due to one of my stitches not falling out. Those little bastards are terrible! I hate hate hate those stupid dissolving stitches. They are the worst! Thankfully, it's only superficial so it should clear up pretty quickly.

Since I started the antibiotics last night, he said I should be good to return to work tomorrow. I really don't want to use up all my earned time so that was a bit of relief. I'm not contagious but he thought it was a good idea to sit back, relax and let the meds do their thing for the rest of today.

I was nervous about what he was going to say so I didn't eat much of anything before my appointment. Just a bottle of chocolate ensure. If I had to have something done in their office, at least I didn't have much in my stomach to cause any delays.

I was told to go home, relax and to enjoy my birthday. Don and I had originally planned to go ice skating and then out to dinner but not sure if that's happening or not. I think I'll take a nap and see how I feel when I wake up. We also have to see what the weather is like since it's been raining on and off all morning. We'll make a decision based on that. 

This post is gross. Don't read if you have a sensitive stomach.

Everything was going great. I was healing really well and felt practically normal. I was fine until Saturday. My lip got super swollen and now my  upper lip and nose are very sensitive. Almost painful to the touch. I just thought it was a cold sore since I've gotten them frequently in the past. But cold sores get better after taking medication and mine seemed to get worse. I went to work this morning and my swelling was even worse. After breakfast, I thought that some ice would help with the swelling so I went to the emergency room to grab some and ran into the charge nurse. She saw my lip and asked me what was wrong so I explained everything to her. She told me that from what I was describing, it didn't sound like a simple cold sore. She told me that my lip might be infected. I told her that I had a routine physical later this afternoon and that made her feel better.

After I had the ice on my face for a little while, it got me worried. My face hadn't been swollen like this in awhile and for it to suddenly come back made me a little nervous. I decided to call my surgeon's office to see if they thought it was in my best interests to be seen or not. I called, described my symptoms and the office secretary told me that she needed to page Dr. Keith and find out what he wanted her to do. Paging a surgeon is typically a last resort, especially when he has lots of people working under him. For her to directly page him meant that my symptoms were serious. Within 10 minutes, she had called me back and told me that I needed to be seen tomorrow. I told her that I was going to my pcp this afternoon for a routine checkup and she said to definitely keep my appointment. In the very least, my pcp could prescribe me something to help bring down my swelling to a comfortable level. 

After lunch time, my swelling became even worse. I grabbed some more ice and was sitting with the ice on my face. I soon realized that I needed to go home. I wasn't capable of working if I had ice constantly held to my face. My boss saw me and agreed that I needed to leave. So I went home for a few hours before my doctor's appointment. I went back a few hours later, saw my pcp and described my symptoms to her. After some gentle prodding, she touched the area and quickly told me that it was infected. 

What happened next was the nastiest thing that has happened to me yet. (Hint: Here's where you skip to the last paragraph since it's gross) Even worse, I think, than vomiting with the palate expander in. She touched the area and liquid puss came out. It came out and went right down my throat (since I was lying down so she could see the area better). I almost vomited on her it was that nasty. And it tasted horrible (which I'm sure isn't a surprise). I rinsed out my mouth but the memories are still there. And it's disgusting. She put me on a dose of liquid amoxicillin at least to start me on some kind of antibiotic. She didn't want me to have to wait for my appointment tomorrow. At least I can start some kind of medication to begin the healing process. Then, tomorrow, Dr. Keith can make the decision on how to continue my care. If he feels the need, he can change me to a different medication. 

So, tomorrow is my 29th birthday. And I have a puss infected lip.This ranks up there with getting kidney stones on my birthday 10 years ago. What a great birthday present to me. I'll post again tomorrow with an update after my appointment. 

An update! And some grumbling...

Yesterday was my 7 week check up with Dr. Keith. It doesn't feel like 7 weeks have past by! Everything seemed to just happen with lightning speed. My original back to work date is coming up on Monday which is exciting. I've already been back to work for 3 weeks so it'll be nice to really get back into the groove of things.

As I said, yesterday was the 7 week check up which went very well. Everyone at the office knows who I am so when they see me they always ask me how i'm doing and tell me how great I look. Dr. Keith had a resident with him when he saw me and he was taking notes so I'm assuming he's newly out of school or doing a rotation in maxillofacial surgery. He was very quiet. They asked me to take out my elastics since they wanted to accurately measure my open bite range. Dr. Keith and the resident were very impressed with how fast I took the elastics out! He said that it's amazing how good some people get at it so I must be one of those people.

We chatted for a few minutes, nothing crazy. I wasn't in too much pain, just generally sore. These elastics make me sore more often than not. It's nothing that tylenol or advil won't cure. It usually happens after eating. Dr. Keith recommended heat, he said it would soothe the joint area and help to promote healing. He gave me the go ahead to eat normally again, which means that I can officially come off a soft food diet! Yay! VERY exciting! I'm not sure if my jaw could handle really hard food just yet but he said the more I use it, the easier it'll become. Since I'll be eating harder foods, I'm going to start using the heat after meals. He didn't want to recommend heat until now because my swelling is finally starting to settle down. I can also use a straw again full time and was completely taken off of nasal precautions. WAHOO.

However, I did get a small amount of bad news. I complained to Dr. Keith about my right nostril. It's difficult to blow my nose on that side and I still have a hard time breathing fully through that side. It's also sensitive enough that it's started to bother me a bit. I showed Dr. Keith and he said that the right nostril opening is smaller than the left side. He said that it looks like the cartilage must have slipped either during surgery or sometime after. Either way, he said that it would need to be addressed. There is a chance that I may need to have another surgery in order to fix this issue. (-_-) To be honest, it made me extremely depressed. Here I am thinking that I'm completely finished with this whole surgery business and then he tells me that I'm maybe/probably going to need another one to fix this new issue. Luckily, since it happened because of the last surgery, it would be covered as a continuation of care. And the recovery time this time around is a lot shorter, around 1 week. And it would be a quick day surgery procedure. I still have a small amount of swelling on my right side so he wants to wait until that goes away before he makes any recommendations. I just hope I don't get sick or anything cause that would make this whole nose breathing thing even worse, hahaha.

Since I'm finished with the oral portion of my surgery, I've updated the tabs at the top to include before and after photos. I received my before photos from Dr. Keith yesterday and was able to easily upload them here for people to view. I haven't taken any professional after photos yet because Dr. Klein is waiting to take those for when I am closer to finishing. I will post them as soon as I receive them. Feel free to check out the before and after tab above. There are x-ray images up there so please check them out if you are interested.

Is this week over yet?

Happy Monday! And by happy, I mean "happy that this day is over." Today wasn't bad just another tiring day. I added the 2nd elastic to my already elastic-tastic face. This 2nd elastic is a different size than my other ones. They are a bit smaller which makes it that much harder to take on and off. These elastics are such a pain because I feel like I constantly have my fingers in my mouth. I'm still supposed to do jaw exercises and have not been doing them as much as I probably should. I've only gotten around to doing the exercises 2-3 times a day instead of the 4-5 times that Dr. Keith told me to. It's just such a pain because I have to take the elastics out in order to do the PT. Ugh. I'll just have to be better about doing them after I eat and before going to bed.

Teeth are still sore but I'm chalking that up to the elastics doing their thing.  My nose has been extremely dry and wet at the same time. I can feel that it's dry (sorta) but then I notice that it's dripping, It's almost as if I have a perpetual head cold... My lips have gotten more chapped too but I think all this is due to the semi-weird weather we have going on here. 50s and 60s in Boston during December is kinda unheard of... And I work in a hospital so who knows, I could be coming down with a small head cold.

We put together our tree over the weekend. I love the holidays. I really wish I could go all out a little bit more but we definitely don't have the space for it at our current house. The tree came out pretty good though.

As promised, I finally got around to scanning my x-rays! They are pretty cool looking. I hope to ask Dr. Keith or Dr. Klein if I can have a copy of my original x-rays so that I can compare once I'm completely done.

You can see the pins on the lower jaws and the plate in the upper center

Frontal View - The pins in the bottom look like nails! Kinda funny!

Side Profile - Plate on top, pins in the bottom

Our Xmas Tree - My smile just keeps getting better! 

I forgot what pain felt like...

Holy shit. I knew that getting the wires replaced would make me a little sore but I had no idea that it would be like this! I'm definitely in quite a bit of pain. I went out for a girl's evening with my sister and niece and by the time I got home, my mouth was just SO sore. I ended up going to bed as soon as I got home. Don was good enough to give me some ibuprofen and tuck me into bed.

My right side seems to be affected a little bit more and that is the side that has been slower in healing. Sometimes, it feels like I have a wad of gauze in my cheek.

Even though I'm sore now, I'm really glad I pushed my appointment up. My family and I are going to a cousin's wedding next Saturday and I can't imagine that I'd be up to dancing, eating and chatting with friends and other family. So, I'm glad I got it over with so that I can get accustomed to these elastics.

Advice: Take ibuprofen/tylenol before 1st orthodontist appointment after surgery. Take it throughout the day so that it's fully in your system before your appointment. I just took some right before my appointment and it really didn't cut it for me.

Recovery Day 39

Well, today was a big day for me! After talking to Dr. Klein on Wednesday, she said that it didn't matter if I waited or pushed my appointment up a week. She said it was totally up to me and how I felt. Since I've been feeling OK, I decided to just get it over with.

Dr. Klein was super excited to see my progress. We chatted and had a nice long conversation about my recovery. She told me that I looked great which was nice to hear. I still don't feel 100% but it's still nice nonetheless.

Happily, after taking a peak, Dr. Klein said that I was good to get the surgical wire and hooks removed today!! Very exciting! After they were removed, it was discovered that I had 2 broken brackets. Apparently, it's very common for 1-2 brackets to come off during the surgery which is what Dr. Klein thinks happened.

I was fitted with a regular wire again and standard o-rings which felt nice. The hooks had started to bother me so I'm glad that they were removed.

My surgical wires with attached hooks

I've been wearing elastics very religiously since my surgery and today I got a new configuration of elastics. I was wearing them diagonally upper front to lower back. Now, Dr, Klein wants me to wear them in a triangle pattern upper incisor to lower incisor to lower back molar. I can already feel it and I have a feeling I'm going to be sore tomorrow. After I get used to the elastics, I'm to add a 2nd elastic from my upper back molar to my lower back molar. This is to ensure that my bite is completely level. Dr. Klein explained that]when people with open bites get them fixed, sometimes they can develop an open bite but in the back. Wearing the 2nd elastic will keep my bite touching from front to back. 

As I was leaving, I finally remembered to ask about my x-rays. Dr. Klein did have access to them and even printed them out for me. I have copies of them but I just have to edit them since they have some personal information on them. When I get them copied onto my computer, I will definitely post them here. 

My next appointment is in about 6 or 7 weeks, so after the holidays. Dr. Klein mentioned that if I am good about wearing my elastics, I may be looking at getting my braces off in time for the spring! Wow, I can't wait! This has been such a crazy journey that it feels like I'll be wearing these things forever. It's awesome to know that the end is in sight and is almost here. 

Recovery Day 36

This past week has been a bit of a blur for me. The holidays were good! Since I was told to take it easy and focus on recovery, Don took a few days off work and we were able to spend the whole week of Thanksgiving with his family out in the Berkshires. It was very nice and relaxing. On Thanksgiving, I was able to eat the whole Thanksgiving meal! It was wonderful not having to "fend for myself" or make something that I actually could eat. I was very thankful for that and for not having to cook much on Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving for us is pretty traditional/tame. We had turkey, gravy, cranberry sauce (had to do the can since I couldn't chew the real stuff), squash, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing and dinner rolls. We came home Friday evening since we didn't want to have to deal with any traffic and I think we timed it perfectly. We didn't go out for any black Friday shopping, we were lucky enough to find plenty of good deals online. 

Today marks 5 weeks since surgery which is crazy! I returned to work today which is also crazy. I didn't work a full day due to an issue with my return to work letter. They called me after it was clarified and I went in right after that. I only worked about 6 hours but it felt good. I'm very tired mostly from talking to everyone. Everyone at work was super sweet because they all wanted to check in on me which was nice. I'll be working full time but I'll be on light duty for awhile. I'm not scheduled to work in the OR until January so I've got a month to really transition back to my schedule again.

Nothing much has happened with the braces except... I'm pretty sure that I broke one of my brackets. Not sure when it happened but I noticed it tonight when I was brushing my teeth. I'm going to shoot Dr Klein an email tomorrow and find out if I need to get it looked at before my appointment next week. Don't want to ruin my progress so hopefully I'll find out tomorrow if it needs to be fixed immediately.

Week 5 Progress Photo

Week 5 Progress Photo

I took these photos last night since I'm pretty tired today. I can now smile without it looking super fake or looking super painful (smiling hasn't really hurt so much since I couldn't feel my face much but the stretching felt VERY weird). I still have stitches inside my gums which is a pain. But it looks like I only have about 3 left which is pretty awesome.

I've been kinda lame with not posting as often and I think I'll blame the holidays. Hopefully should get a little better from now on.