Sunday, July 29, 2012

Check out this girls channel

Hey everyone. I wanted to share this video I came across on youtube. This girl is having surgery on Friday and I wanted to share so that those of you waiting for surgery or having or have had surgery can follow her and wish her well.
I'm very excited to see her results.




Friday, July 27, 2012

And here is the lineup... drum roll please

Well I just got off the phone with my surgeons office and I think I have things sorted out:


  • Sept 10: physical and blood work with my family doctor 
  • Sept ?: Dentist Appointment for cleaning
  • Sept ?: Surgical hooks from my orthodontist
  • Sept 24: Pre surgical appointment with my surgeon
  • October 5: Surgery Day
  • Oct 9: My birthday 
  • Oct 11: Post surgery appointment with surgeon
I'll call my dentist and sort things out with the ortho next time I go in. 

So I've also decided on what to do this coming year. 
I will be spending December in Australia. I got the okay for vacation from my surgeons office. 
Dani I will let you know if I'm flying through LA once I get my ticket booked. 

I won't be going on exchange since it will eat up two of my terms and I'm also losing a term for surgery. I won't be able to take any of my accounting courses overseas and will be held back a year. I might do an internship in Australia after graduating. 

I'll be busy at my uni regardless when I get back. Taking a full course load of advance courses and I will be tutoring astronomy once again this year for the natural science department. I will also be a peer advisor for my affiliated college which should be fun. I'm trying to get as much volunteer experience as I can to help assist me in finding a job once I graduate. 

I'll  post some pics so you guys can see the state of my face lol.

Horrible picture but you can see the bit of vertical overgrowth in the upper jaw. It's not very much as my bone is shorter in this region than a lot of people with similar jaw issues, but my surgeon is going to try to maintain most of this bone to keep my face length from being too short. 


My vertically growing lower jaw. I think this side is larger than the other side. You can also see the slight concave under my nose. 

But I still manage to hide my jaw issues in most pictures lol

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Bite is opening :D

Good news finally.
My bite is opening!!!
I have a noticeable open bite :D

I go back to the ortho in about 4 weeks and I am so excited.
Surgery is around 2 months away which seems unreal.
I haven't made a video to show my bite yet but I'm just so happy it's moving.

There is always a catch though. I found that as my bite closed my pain was also a lot more bearable than what I had remembered when my bite was open. Well that pain is back and it is awful.
I spend 6 out of 7 days of the week with severe jaw pain. It gets to the point where I seriously want to go to the ER and have them give me a shot of something because it hurts so much. Yesterday and the day before were both really bad jaw days. Actually Monday was just horrible. Eating hurts a lot even though its been weeks since my adjustment. I feel so much pain throughout my head, neck, and tmj.

Well it's all worth it for the progress.

I've been continuing to de-clutter. I've also been working on my 5 year plan since I finally have time for that. I am very excited for the future. I have two years left at uni and then I can look for a training position to get my CA.

I'll try to make a video soon.
In case you haven't seen my youtube, my user name is visualvision, or  you coulld just click on the link at the side that says YOUTUBE  >>>>


Thursday, July 19, 2012

Clearing my mind

I posted not very long ago but I just wanted to post again because I feel like this blog is my outlet.
I thought that cutting down my schedule would make me feel better and less stressed but I was so wrong. I still have this feeling of a weight on my shoulders and I realize that I am holding a lot of stress inside.

I still have all those negative emotions that weigh me down. I've gotten into the habit of disappearing lately. I haven't seen my friends and a huge part of it is because they can't understand where I am in my life right now and the person I've become. I feel that I have grown a lot over the past two years and I have come to the realization that a lot of my previous personality was more of a way to fit into my life than a representation of who I really am. I feel that I really had no idea who I was and because of that I spent a lot of time trying to figure it out when all I had to do was just be what felt right to me.

A lot of the people in my life are very critical of everything I do and everything I live out. They don't understand why I make the decisions I've made (like jaw surgery) and I can't expect them to understand, they are still the same people that fit with the old me. I've grown a connection to nature and I spend a lot of my time outside gardening now. It's like therapy to me. I have this need sometimes to just be outside, I just love to go running and feel surrounded by the trees. I feel that I've let go of a lot of the superficial aspects of my life. I don't care for things like I use to, or appearance like I used to. I sort of just feel at peace with simplicity. I was going through my closet because I felt this weight, like I had too much stuff. I got rid of 8 bags of clothes and thats just from my closet with one pole and two sliding doors. It wasn't even messy. I just feel so much better with less. I feel myself doing that with everything in my life, I've been going through all my stuff and getting rid of a lot of it. Letting go of the past and living simple. I've also stopped carrying large purses, which I never thought I could do. I just realize that anywhere I go I don't need a ton of stuff with me, I don't need all my makeup and my camera and my phone and my one million random purse objects. I just need to be in the moment. Wow, where was this thought years ago? I started juicing my breakfast. I feel this desire to eat clean and just listen to my body. I feel like I'm finally figuring it out, and the best part is I feel happy with myself!

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Patience

Hi friends,

I realized I haven't updated in a bit and I've been falling off the map.
Life has this way of always keeping you on your toes.
It's been a stressful little while. My cat got sick about a week or two ago, she lost her meow and she had a really bad eye infection. As she is a senior and I've had her since childhood I was worried for her.  Good thing is she is doing much better now, and meowing like a champ. She was also found today hiding out in my newly planted flower bed trying to blend in with the flowers while watching the birds.
Princess Patty is back to her sneaky cat ways.
On the weekend we were in the garden and there was a bird just sitting on the ground and when we went up to it it didn't move. It was alive but just sitting there. We put an old sheet in a box and put it in there so the cat or some other animal wouldn't go eat it. It passed away later that night. We think it was an older bird as it was pretty large for its breed and it was very dull in colour. Poor baby.

You would think that was enough but now my fish is sick.
She's had stomach issues since I got her. I even went out and got her a large tank with a filter after the first couple weeks. The fish itself is very tiny, a female betta. She's usually very active but she started to hide on monday and her stomach is very swollen, her fins are also sticking up which is referred to as dropsy and is usually related to fatal fish diseases.
I really hope the little girl gets better. I did a 100% water change on her tank but ended up putting some of her old water back in. I cleaned out her gravel and I got her a better water conditioner, also get her better food. The people at the fish store keep advising me to do different things but online it says having clean water is important. Her water is never dirty and I only feed her once a day so I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I feel awful about her. There is fish medication but I was advised to wait. If it looks any worse by tomorrow or friday I'll start her on medication. Yes you're probably thinking all this for one little fish? But she's a lovely little fish.
Wish her luck.

Other than that I have had some movement, my open bite is back but only about 2mm which is still 2mm short of surgery. sometimes I feel excited but more of the time I just don't care anymore. I had that excited feeling the first year in braces and then I just felt sort of sad that everything is so uncertain.
My orthodontist suggested a speech pathologist but I can't get through to her. My surgeons office was suppose to arrange my surgery stuff but never called me back. The motivation isn't there anymore.

I'll try to take pictures soon to update.


Monday, July 9, 2012

UPDATE

Okay I recorded a video but because they take forever to upload I'll do it tomorrow.
I went back to the ortho today and here is what's going on.

I had the bottom brackets changed. They are now at the top edge of my teeth. Literally right at the end. I have no idea how my bite is going to close with surgery with these huge brackets this far up but my ortho says it will get my bite open. I feel a lot of pressure which is really good.

Unfortunately I'm back in elastics, ughhh I hate these things.

My ortho answered a lot of questions today and explain my jaws, and what we want with surgery.

Sorry I'm half asleep right now. Spent way too much time on wow which probably explains why I didn't upload the video. Anyway then my cat got sick. She lost her meow so I had to get her to the vet.
My ortho says this should get my bite to 4mm open. apparently i'm one of those 1/100 cases (last I heard I was 1/10) where I'm very persistent with the surgery, but it's complicated as hell to figure out my bite. Most people would just surrender, but I didn't get this far to spend my life with stupid jaws that don't fit and a lot of pain.

My ortho strongly believes we will still be ready for october, so looks like I'll be having an extended summer.

I'd love to know, those of you who are in uni or college, what was it like going back to school after surgery? I probably wouldn't take the time off, but being in a business program, specializing in accounting and having all advance courses left I figure its better to take the time off. I'm working towards my CA so I want my grades to be competitive. I think I might try to volunteer though doing peer advising and tutoring for the science department again. I can never get too far away from school.

Oh and I left the ortho realizing I have clear elastics on top and silver on the bottom. I pray that these elastics don't discolour and leave me looking gross for the summer.

Thursday, July 5, 2012

More setbacks. Will this surgery even happen?

News:

Went to the ortho today. Second time going in for this adjustment. Turns out they need to remove all my bottom brackets and move them. They didn't have time today so I'm going in on monday. Right now I have clear elastics and I'll let you guys know how they discolour.

Starting to really think this surgery isn't going to happen in the fall. My bite closed more. It's at 1mm right now for some reason. My surgeon needs 4 mm and it's continued to close even with all the changes my ortho is making. I don't know why this is happening but I'm not going to make any big plans for this fall since my surgery may very well not happen. I really want to go to australia this year either way so I'm hoping I get an answer soon so I can book my flight.

Thanks everyone for being so supportive. I originally wanted to write a very upset and angry post but decided not to because it's not going to change anything.

My ortho also tried to talk me out of surgery after all this. He said that it would be easy to get the bite a bit better with just braces. It's like he forgot that i'm not having this surgery to look good. I want to not grind, and not have tmj pain, and have room for my tongue, and be able to breathe through my nose.
Okay I'm starting to get upset again. I'll try to post a video soon.