Final appointment with my surgeon

So like I mentioned in my last post, I saw my surgeon today, and he's completely restored my faith in him, like he always does. I always leave his building feeling confident.

I'll start from the beginning. We got there at 3 (The office staff called again today and said they had to move it to 3) and we waited less than 5 minutes before being called in. This lovely lady walked my mom and I to a room about 2 doors down from my surgeons office. It looked like a dentist room - There were 2 counters, a dentist chair, and an x-ray screen up on the wall. My mom and I had sat down for no longer than 2 minutes when my dad walked in. he sat down and we waited about 5 minutes.

I think I've posted before about how concerned my parents are about my Genioplasty. They both believed it served no purpose but cosmetic, and they were worried about how it was just more surgery, more risk, more recovery, just totally unnecessary. So my surgeon walks in, and while him and his assistant are preparing the molds for my teeth impressions, he talks about the procedure, what he's gonna do, what I should expect out of it. Then my parents start asking questions, like "Is the Genioplasty really worth it?" "What are the benefits to the Genioplasty?" etc etc. Turns out that there are more benefits than I realized to every different surgery he will be doing.

While moving my upper jaw a couple millimeters up, he's also moving it out, and somehow repositioning it, which will open up my airways, give me less of a gummy smile, and make things more proportionate. My lower jaw is being brought out and rotated up to fix all my bite issues. And my Genioplasty will give me a lot of benefits: It will support my lower lip, help close my lips together, and also help position my lower jaw and mouth in such a way that it will open up my airways even more, causing my snoring to almost completely cease and there being less of a chance for me delveloping sleep apnea in the future. It will also, of course, make everything more proportionate.

My surgeon mentioned that his biggest worry is over-doing it, meaning that he could move my bones too much and cause me to look much older than I already am. "There are 1000 ways to fix a persons bite," he says. "I could either fix your bite and have you come out of it looking old, disproportionate, and frankly a little ugly, or I can fix your bite and have you look the same, just better." So the good news is, I'm not going to look MUCH different than I already do.

He did the molds for my teeth, which sucked because I was feeling nauseous since i hadn't ate anything all day and there was some kind of peppermint scent/flavour to it. Seriously thought I was gonna puke. But then we got back to talking, and we started with the diet.

For one thing, I will not be eating out of a syringe. I'm a little disappointed, I seriously thought I would be. But my surgeon informed me that I will be eating either out of a cup or out of a spoon. He then said I would be on a liquid diet for 3 weeks. About that time is when I will be de-wired or my elastics will be taken off, whichever he finds more appropriate during surgery. Before that I will be allowed to take my elastics off for about half an hour a couple times a day to fit food in my mouth. Not too many protein shakes, he said. Not until 2 months post-op will I be allowed to chew anything. I'm most likely, almost 100%, going to gain back feeling in my upper jaw. The lower jaw not so much a higher chance, but still a pretty good one.

He then got me to bite unto a warmed up peice of pink wax a couple times. I guess this is to help design my bite plate. Hopefully I'll get to keep the fucking thing as a reminder of my surgery and the recovery.

That was basically my appointment. He gave me a 15mg tablet of Zantac or whatever it's called that I will take with a shotglass of water before coming to the hospital. It will settle the acid in my stomach and therefore keeping the anesthetic from taking such a hard toll on it, making it less likely that I'll be sick when I wake up. Then my parents paid for everything and we left. My parents now have faith that the Genioplasty is a good idea :)

I won't be seeing my surgeon until the day I get my surgery, but thank god he said I can call if I have any more questions. Unfortunately he's on vacation that following week (of course he is. of course) so I'll have to deal with his associate for the follow up 6 days later. I don't mind actually, he has a french accent so that's pretty sexy kinda cool.

Thank god the surgery is after Easter - I can eat all the chocolate I want!!