6 weeks later

The wires are finally off :D it hurt a little bit when he was cutting them because they kept getting caught on my gums, but it was definitely worth the pain. And then things got even better because he never put elastic bands on, after telling me 2 weeks ago that I'd need to have them on straight away! I can't open my mouth very far but I've already managed to eat loads (loads of soft things anyway). I'm quite happy to live off mashed potato and chocolate buttons until I'm supposed to start chewing things. It feels so so weird to be able to open my mouth now! I keep biting my tongue as well haha. But my teeth close together at the front for the first time :D I wasn't sure if it would all be worth it, but I'm starting to think it was now

Day 7!

I can't believe that this time last week I was lying in a hospital bed with loads of tubes coming out of me and blood constantly dripping from my nose. The past few days I haven't felt well at all, but today I feel much better. It's probably just more swelling, but since Tuesday i've felt a lump in my throat that's making it even harder than it was before to swallow. So i'm hoping that it will go away some time soon. I think my swelling is definitely starting to go down now, and even the yellow bruising seems to be getting paler. One thing that's staying put though is the dribbling. It's only been a week, and already the constant dribbling is driving me crazy! But fingers crossed that the swelling continues to go down in the next week so that I can go and collect my GCSE results from school next Thursday!

Day 3 since surgery: home at last

I've never felt as ill as I have these past few days in my whole life. I don't really remember much that happened on the day of surgery. I can remember being taken back to the ward but then I drifted in and out of sleep for the rest of the day. I had constant nosebleeds on this day, I didn't really realise what was happening though. I just heard nurses saying that they needed to take off my oxygen mask and clean it because it had filled with blood again. Even though I had blood pouring down my face, I didn't feel it. I didn't sleep at all that night :( I don't remember much of day 1 since surgery either. I don't think I felt much better at all on this day. And going to the toilet took so long because every time I wanted to go, a nurse had to come and take my drains off bed and help me carry them to the toilet. But luckily I had my own room so I didn't have to walk very far. On day 2 since surgery I felt so so ill. I managed to start drinking water through a syringe though but then one of the nurses started making me take dissolvable paracetamol which tasted absolutely disgusting. Then later on that day she said I had to take dissolvable cocodamol which made me sick :( and even though it made me sick every time she gave it to me she still made me have it. Luckily the next day after I had a new nurse and I could go home yay :D but before I could go home she had to do things like pulling the drains out of my neck, which was so horrible! And even though when she pulled them out, there shouldn't have been much bleeding, there was. So I had to put pressure on my neck for ages to try and stop it from bleeding. Then a few hours later I was allowed to go home :D but even though I was really glad to be home, I still couldn't sleep :( I'm finding it really hard to breathe with my jaws wired so I'm hoping it will get easier soon!

Surgery tomorrow!

Just one more night until surgery now! I'm not too scared at the moment because I kind of know what to expect after last week. I'm just hoping that this week i'll get further than the doors of the operating room. Fingers crossed anyway. I'm really dreading the recovery room though, so hopefully i'll just sleep through it and not remember anything. When I walked past last week, all of the people in there looked like they were dying. It seems so weird to think that this time tomorrow i'll have teeth that come together at the front and a bottom jaw that isn't way too far to the left! Here are some before photos:

My open/under bite

Profile view

Front view

Good news

Using my new moulds, the new wafers had to be made and they were completed today. The surgeon went to check them this morning and was now happy with everything. I then went along this afternoon to make sure that they fit properly and they did, yay. So hopefully it will be 2nd time lucky on Thursday and the surgery will be able to take place!

Disappointed

I arrived at the hospital at 7am on the 2nd August, ready for a bimaxillary osteotomy to correct my open bite. I had my blood pressure taken, signed all of the consent forms and sat in the waiting area until a bed became available. A couple of hours later I was taken to my bed and had to get changed into one of the attractive gowns and white stockings. All that was left to do now was to wait to be collected and taken down to theatre. At 10:15 they were ready for me and I made my way down to theatre. I was then taken into a room to meet the anaesthetist. I was now ready to be anaesthetised and just had to wait for the surgeon to arrive to do a final check before going ahead. A few minutes later, he arrived and looked at my bite. He then said that he wasn't sure whether or not to go ahead, so went out of the room to look at wafers etc. and make a decision. When he came back he said he was going to postpone the surgery until next Thursday as the wafers weren't correct. Resulting in my midline being way off if he decided to go through with the op last Thursday. So after I was about 5 minutes away from having my surgery I was told I would have to wait, which was really disappointing as I was actually quite calm about the whole thing. But at least I know that the surgery will be done properly. Whereas of I had gone ahead on Thursday, it was likely to go very wrong. And I've had a bit of a practice now so hopefully the wait won't be so scary next week :-)