Day -1: The Last Supper

Well, it's finally (almost) here. Tomorrow is my surgery date and I get to wake up bright and early to go get my jaw cracked, 5:30 to be exact. I won't go into the operating room until approximately 7:30, and the early arrival is to leave plenty of time to get the anesthesia and other prep work done. Luckily we are within walking distance of the hospital and I'll get a chance to move around a bit before lying down for what will seem like forever.

My surgeon was happy to report that my model surgery, which is done with the molds made from the impressions mentioned in "As long as I don't come out looking like Penelope..."  , went very well. He also realized through the model that double jaw surgery really is the only way to go for me to come out with the best results. Surgery is set to take about four hours and end around 12 o'clock, however, it could realistically take six hours. After that I will be in the hospital overnight, and possibly for a second day, depending on how well the operation goes. I realize that in earlier posts I said I would post daily after surgery, but I have no idea how I will feel tomorrow or the day after, so don't go crazy and get all up in my grill or assume that I died if I don't start blogging as soon as I'm out of the O.R. I promise I will catch all of you up once I am fit to type.

Aside from all of the official business of tomorrow morning, I'm set to go! Even though surgery is looming, I still don't feel all that worried and the biggest qualm I have at the moment is that I might wake up starving. I can't eat or drink anything after midnight, so I've been feasting for the past few days; I'm pretty sure I ate close to a whole cake over the weekend. Don't judge. As for my "last supper", I was in bacon cheeseburger heaven.

"As long as I don't come out looking like Penelope..."

Surgery is two weeks away, and today was my official pre-op appointment with the surgeon. The objective of  the day was pretty straight forward, take impressions, assessments, and measurements of my mouth and face so that I don't come out of the operating room looking like Frankenstein. It was pretty much an hour of standard things that have already happened during the good ol' orthodontic years. However, one thing was a little more pressing.

I was presented with the decision to choose (more like consent to) having double jaw surgery rather than having a procedure on only my lower jaw. For me, it wasn't a difficult choice. My surgeon made it perfectly clear that with double jaw surgery there is a longer healing time, a few more hours under the knife, and a higher risk. However, with DJS there is a greater chance that my bite will truly come to full closure, as well as a lower chance of the open bite recurring after the operation. Considering that the whole point of the surgery is to close my bite, I was fully prepared to roll with the punches, but my doctor had one reservation. By breaking my upper jaw, my nose may become slightly more upturned. What was my reply? "As long as I don't come out looking like Penelope, I really don't care."

Penelope, as played by Christina Ricci in the movie Penelope.