I have a date!

Yessiree, October 29th! Aren't Monday's fun?

So thanks to Arlene's persistence yesterday and today, she finally got a hold of Dr T's office to get me a surgery date. I found out around 2:30pm this afternoon. Kelly was the nurse I spoke with and she was very helpful, especially in getting my hospital pre-op date set. So my schedule is now looking something like this:

Oct 4th - 5:20pm, Dr W for final wire change (moved up from the 22nd)

Oct 23rd
- 8am, hospital pre-op
- 12:30pm, Dr T's pre-op (x-rays, models, consult, etc)

Oct 25th - 9:20am, Dr W for surgical hooks

Oct 29th
- 7am check-in at the hospital
- 9am surgery!

Somewhere in there I also have to go to my family doctor to get paperwork sign-off, get a haircut the week before surgery, stock up on groceries, visit the dentist for a regular cleaning, make sure all my projects are handed off at work...yikes! Six weeks is gonna fly by!

I was excited and nervous this afternoon but I'm ok now. I just hope that all the dates stick and that nothing stupid happens to delay anything. I know, I tend to be a little bit pessimistic, but I do it to stop myself from getting my hopes up too high. But I am looking forward to this, finally!

Funny I don't feel like I have many questions to ask other than the obvious ones like asking Dr T exactly what he's going to do. I know upper is for sure. Lower and genio are a maybe. Will he do upper in one piece, two, or three? Will I have a splint? As usual I'll just have to wait until he sees my records.

I'm a little weary of having the final wires on just two weeks from now given that I just got a new one on the bottom yesterday. I'm pretty sore today, but it's Advil to the rescue.

It's just amazing that this time is finally here. I remember when I started thinking about all of this and knowing that two years ago Dr T was booking into 2007. At the time that felt like infinity! But here I am, ready to rock!

Adjustment #10 and flirting with a date!

Today marked adjustment #10. Everything was right on time, even a few minutes early perhaps, woot! It was short and sweet. All he did was put a new and thicker wire on the bottom with some first and second order bends to get my premolars into place. I asked him to pay special attention to my right lower canine which is still quite out of place; that one got a first and second order bend plus a piece of steel ligature wire to keep the arch wire in place.

Oh and speaking of bends I learned that (if I remember correctly) first order is horizontal, second order is vertical, and third order is a twist in the wire.

The class II elsastics have made quite a difference already (see my underbite photo below). Within a matter of hours after having them on at my previous appointment my bite was (finally) no longer end-to-end! Praise jaysus! He decided to have me continue wearing them right up until surgery. I just hope they don't move my lower incisors out too far…though I must say that on the x-ray tracings I saw it seemed they had quite a way to go by the angle he showed me. I wish I could show you. My next appointment is in 5 weeks on October 22nd when he will put new wires on top and bottom, I assume they will be the final wires before surgery. He also mentioned ball-hooks (surgical hooks) to be put on shortly after that.

On my way out Arlene asked if I had received a call from the surgeon yet. Nope. She said they had just started their October list two or three days ago and that she thought I would get a call any day now. Apparently they've had some cancellations and are looking to move some November people into October if possible. She decided to give them a call right then but the scheduling nurses had gone home for the day, so she is going to call again tomorrow and let me know what turns up. Hopefully tomorrow will bear welcome news, and if not then hopefully one day this week!