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.

It has begun.. The spacers are in...

The periodontist appointment went well on Oct. 14th, so my spacers went in on the 15th. OUCH! thought I was all fine till I went to bite into a sandwich, wow! was not expecting that. Good thing is I had 3 days to try out my liquid diet for surgery in December. I am now a pro at smoothies. have come to the conclusion that my nutrition supplement of choice will be carnation instant breakfast and I have a lot of soup to make and freeze.

I had my fitting for my RPE last friday and it will go in on November 14th a full month before my surgery. That should be fun, a whole month to have a huge piece of metal in my mouth doing absolutly nothing but getting in my way. But on the brighter side.. I am at least getting somewhere now. and every step I take is one step closer to finishing this process!

I had no idea..

So I got my surgery packet yesterday in the mail from my OS. In it it talks about how I will be on a no chew diet for 6 weeks and banded shut for that time also. This surgery is the SARPE and I had been under the impression that this surgery had an easier recovery then my second surgery (upper,Lower).
So I called my OS's office to ask them about this.. figuring that the surgery packet was geared more for upper, lower, ect.. surgery.... Seems I was wrong. I was informed that I would be on a no chew diet for the entire 6 weeks and banded shut for much of that time. FUN!

So I am suppse to be trying out liquid meal supplements to find some that I like now... Any suggestions on what ones taste best? Which ones to avoid, and what if any are more affordable?
TIA!

December 10th!

So it seems we have a tentitive Surgery date for December 10th.. providing everything goes well at the periodontist. Please pray that everything goes well at the periodontist I cannot afford any treatment and would hate if thing got put on hold for lack of money now. SO if everything goes smoothly I will be having my RPE installed on november 14th and surgery on December 10th with the possibility of the braces being put on right before surgery but the ortho wasn't sure if she was going to do the braces before or after surgery.
So my question is... why do I need to have the RPE installed one month before surgery? It is just going to be sitting there doing nothing but getting in my way and making me talk funny?

We have a plan.. I think?

So I saw my ortho today.. FINALLY! it seems she is going to wait to put on the braces till after my expansion surgery. The last hurdle I have to jump before the expansion is they now want me to see a periodontist to make sure I have adequate bone around my teeth. Due to the bad bite I have clentched and ground me teeth till most of the molars were broken so they want to make sure there was no further damage before they install the RPE for the expansion.
The only problem with seeing a periodontist is figuring out how I am going to pay for him. The costs just keep adding up and I am not seeing how I can cover this. I figured out how to pay for the braces... cool! Got a line of credit to pay for the dental work.. paying that off monthly, now they want mne to see a periodontist.. I am out of ideas on that one and the appt is for Oct. 14th. With any luck it with just be an evaluation and no work will be needed.
Soooo.. providing everything goes well at the periodontist on the 14th I will get my spacers placed on the 15th and fitted for the RPE on the 24th. November 14th the RPE will be installed and I should get clarification on tuesday from Dr. Mauros office but my Surgery sholuld be on December 10th, one day before my micro and algebra finals. Hoping I can take both of my finals on December 9th..LOL
So that is where i stand right now...... now back to waiting and praying....