Thought I would put up a pic of my gap at its largest. That is just freakin scary. I cannot stress enough how self concious I am of this. I feel the need to make sure that everyone knows that..No I did not lose my front tooth, REALLY! and it will close up eventually, and Yes I did do this on purpose and will be happy I did eventually!!!! did I say how self concious I am right now. and I HATE talking on the phone... I sound like I am lacking in the intelligence department... UGH!!! I hate this!

What is bugging me today...

It is Wednesday night at 7pm and I have been up for 60 straight hours now, except for a 3 hour nap from 3am Tuesday morning till 7am tuesday morning. AND... I started back to work this morning I had a two hour job and it took me three hours to do it.... I am not sure what exactly my problem is... I think some of it is the fact that I hav been weaning off using the pain killers at the same time I have restarted my ADHD med (Adderal) after a 5 day vacation off of it.
I was suppose to work tonite from 3pm till 8pm but decided that was not such a good idea. After watching my cousins twins for a couple hours this afternoon I layed down at 3:30pm and was going to take a nap to make me feel better and get me thru till bedtime. I layed there from 3:30 till 5:30pm yet not one second of sleep. Last night I had gone to bed at 10pm.. I layed there untill my alarm got me up for work at 5am. What the Hell is wrong with me?????
I need to sleep. And it is not just sleep. I was doing great with eating from Sat thru Monday I ate (or drank) often got rest and took care of my self. Tuesday started off okay, not enough sleep but okay and it all went to hell from there. I am barely eating, can't sleep. and I can't say I am in constant "pain", but the freakin pressure on my face and teeth is unreal.
I am asking those of you who have been through this SARPE surgery and expansion process to let me know that the presure I am feeling is normal. During surgery my OS cranked it a few times and got a little gap started and that has been it. It has been a week and it has not been turned since and will not be turned untill Sunday, BUT, the pressure on my teeth and face is freakin unreal and does not let up for even a second. It feels like my teeth are literally gonna pop right out of my head, and all the front top teeth are loose and wiggle. AND what is even weirder is that without cranking the expander even once since my OS did it in surgery I am almost completly positive that my gap has gotten bigger and feels like it is still growing? Is this posssible?
I know I am flipping out here, part of it is lack of sleep and nutrition and part of it is that I have an intense fear that my teeth are going to fall out during my expansion and my OS and my ortho will not say that it is not a possibility, that it is something that CAN actually happen.
PLEASE, sarpe surviviors I need reassuance or a reality check or warning to go bang on my OS's front door and beg him to save my teeth before they fall out. Someone HELP me!

Sunday will began expansion!

Had my post op appt this morning with the oral surgoeon. He said everything looks good and to see my ortho for the key to the expander and have her show me how to turn it. I will start turning sunday(12/21) two full turns a day till Friday (12/26) when I will go back to the ortho and see if I am done turning.
I asked my OS about food and he said I am on soup and smoothies for most of six weeks for stability, for some reason I thought I may be allowed soft foods this week or next at the latest. I had even tries some sprial mac and cheese last night. (oops), well it was tiring and sore after just a tiny bowl so I guess there is a reason for the soup and smoothies. Christmas diner is gonna suck tho....LOL.
I am back to work tommarow so we shall see how that goes, except for the mass tension in my face I am feeling alright so I think It will be ok, we shall see how it feels when I start cranking the expander.
I am so afraid that I am gonna start turning it and my teeth are goiong to fall out. It is bad enough that since my surgery my top fron teeth are all loose, I can only imagine that when you start pulling on them they are gonna want to fall out. I have always been a tooth grinder at night so dreams or should I say nightmares of all my teeth falling out have been commmon, now it feels like I am tempting fate, and my ortho does little to relay my fears only saying that it can happen...NICE! thank you!
I was also suprised at how many freaking stitches I have. I am stitched from back right molar to back left molar under my gums, sompletly across. then a few stitches along the center of the palate, some on my left cheeck, then bruised along the right side of the back of my throat, and I can tell he did something thru my nose also. A lot more cutting then I thought they were gonna do.
Well that is all I have for now!

Surgery

Well Wedneday morning at 8:45am I checked into Ingham regional for my SARPE surgery and removal of bottom Right wisdom tooth. I get changed and my IV put in and the nurse brings mu consents to sign for surgery. Specifically Leforte 1, Sagital split, and Geino. Ummm? NO! First off I am not getting geino done at all not now not 2 years from now, secondly I have not even had braces yet. That surgery is for the most part coming up in a year or two. needless to say I am 2nd guessing my surgery. Eventually Dr. Mauro comes into see me and says I am just having the expasnsion (LeForte 1). Ok you know what you are doing then lets do this.
So I wake up from surgery around 2pm and notice a short time later that he never removed my wisdom tooth, Nice!

Well They tell me that since they could not find a bed for my in the hospital that Dr. Mauro said I could go home. Umm no I think I will stay. I felt like hell and knew that I could not take care of myself. I basically slept from the time they put me out before surgery untill they released me at noon the next day with brief intermintent periods of wakefulness to ask for drugs, suction out the blood from my mouth and go to the bathroom.
I have actually been suprised how much pain I have been in I am on day 4 and I am still drained and my teeth feel like they are in a vice and going to pop out of my head, and I haven't even started expanding yet. (except what the dr did in surgery). Somebody please tell me that my teeth will not pop out of my head and that this is normal.
I tried to post on Archwired with some of my questions but it will not let me register so that is a no go, and I have tried to ask questions a couple times on the orthgnathic yahoo groups but never get answers to SARPE questions on there so I am not sure what is normal pain wise after SARPE, and when I should expect to feel a little better.
So to sum it up, I feel like crap, not sure how long i should expect to feel like crap, oh and my ortho for got to give me the key so I can turn the expander when the time comes, and of coourse they arenot open till tuesday.
Someone remind me why I did this to myself!

4 Days till my SARPE

Thursday night I got my RPE put in and it sucks just as badley as I imagined it would. I am a little over 48 hours with it in and it has only got slightly better. I have gotten a little bit better at swallowing, but other than that not much improvement. I detest speaking because I hate how I sound. Eating is not even worth the effort. I had to reheat a bowl of soup five times before I was finished with it last night. And the lovely sounds I make, the slurping and clicking ( I really hope that goes away). I guess I am done venting now...
I do have to admit that I am looking foreward to surgery on Wednesday for two reasons.
1. The sooner I start, the sooner I finish
2. I really need a break, an excuse to lay down and just relax, if only for a week.
These last few weeks have been the hardest of my life, and except for still grieving the loss of a family member and friend, everything else goes on hold for a week after my surgery. No school, finals will be over, no work, no dr appt, or ortho appts,time with my daughter, an excuse not to be doing 1001 things and not feel guilty about it.
So wednesday morning I check into the hospital at 8:45 and my surgery is at 10:45. I have no idea if I will be out of the hospital the same day or the next. Hopefully the surgery will go smoothly and my time with the expander will be short, altho I doubt it. My OS says he plans on me expanding about a 1/2 inch (12 to 13 mm) That is a freaking huge gap! It would be really nice if I could lock myself in my house till spring when I have passed the expansion part of this orthognathic journey I am on. I just try to keep reminding my self that this will all be worth it in the end!

Almost got my RPE in....

I went in on the 14th to get my RPE installed, I had one tooth that had been really sensitive the last two days and when the assstant tried to fit the rpe bands around my teeth I thought I would hit the ceiling. I was sure the tooth was being ripped out it hurt so bad. The assistant gave it a couple tries but decided to wait for Dr. Novak to give it a try.
Dr. Novak came in and gave it a go but could not get it on either. She decided to put spacers back on my teeth and wait a week or so to see if the tooth that was bothering me would stop hurting, she also added to more bands for good measure for extra space. Not sure how that will help with getting my tooth to stop hurting. I tried to get her to let me take the RPE home and put it in myself. It is easier to deal with pain when you are inflicting it upon yourself, but she said no she has a feeling that the RPE does not fit quite right, but she can not tell for sure untill my tooth stops bothering me so much. So I have a week and a half to call them back and tell them that my teeth do not hurt and we can try agian.
Well on the bright side that is at least a week or so that I do not have to wear the RPE before surgery.