Hook, Line, and Sinker

   Only 8 days remain until mission double jaw surgery takes place and today's pre-surgical agenda included surgical hooks. What exactly are surgical hooks you might ask? They are small little antennae-like nubbins that are placed on the wire of my braces. The purpose of these otherworldly metal bits is to add places for the mouth binding rubber bands (or wire) to latch on to after surgery so that my jaws stay nice and closed. Surprisingly enough, the hooks aren't even that annoying, and I'm sure I'll be used to them within a few days.

   Now that you all can see my bite up close, I figure that it's time to explain just what is going on. No I'm not laughing, the picture above shows my mouth completely closed, and the reason for my teeth not touching in the front is my anterior open bite. My bite is caused by a congenital deformity of, well, basically my entire face, and the deformity results in the lovely 5mm gap we see above. The goal of surgery is to close my teeth, reduce the gumminess of my smile, and fix the cant of my jaw. And the goal of that goal is to make it easier for me to eat, talk, breath, etc. I don't know about you guys, but in my opinion those are some pretty important functions.


   Aside from all of the technical talk, I can't relay just how many times I've heard "are you excited?" this week and each time I have had the pleasure of replying "that's not exactly the right word." There is not a snowball's chance in hell that I am excited to partake in a 6 hour surgery, yet at the same time I'm not nervous either. It might just be that D-day is too far in the future for me to spend much time worrying; only time will tell. So the word I'll choose to describe how I'm feeling at the moment will be short and sweet: ready.

"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.

Peer pressure did me in...

It has taken a while, but I've finally caved to the peer pressure of creating a blog to document my jaw surgery journey. You could say that I'm a little late on the game when it comes to writing down the details of my orthodontia, however, I started off with ortho when I was 7, and I don't think anyone would be able to follow the mindless ramblings of a second grade me.

Formal introduction time! My name is Sara, I'm currently 17, and I'm t-minus two weeks and a day from jaw surgery to correct my open bite. People always seem to wonder just why I'm sacrificing the summer before my senior year to have my face professionally broken, and the answer is simple really. My open bite will supposedly get worse as I age and further impede upon my ability to eat. I like eating. I like eating a lot. There are other reasons of course,  but the gist of the situation is that it will have to be done sometime, and I'd much rather have it out of the way before college.

On this lovely face-smashing adventure I will be updating this blog periodically with all of the fun stuff that happens pre-op, and then daily post-op with, most likely embarrassing, photos of my puffy face. I've come across very few blogs for those of us with open bites, and I think it's time for a comprehensive one. So, here it goes! Welcome to the wondrous world that is Jaw Surgery Blog: Open Bite Edition.