Today was the big day!!! I got my wires cut!!! I went in to the surgeon's this morning and he snipped off my wires and pulled them right out. It was kind of scary having freedom to move. I got to open my jaw up nice and wide, despite the fact it probably took me about 30 seconds to get there. Just picture it all happening in slow-mo with the Chariots of Fire theme song playing. Looking back on it, that's how I'm going to remember it happening. I could feel how tight my jaws were from being set in that position for 4 weeks. The doctor summed it up pretty well by saying it was like you are working out a muscle cramp. It was definitely an awesome feeling to be able to stick my tongue out and say a few actual words, although I think I'm going to have to go to speech therapy to remember how to talk correctly. Part of me wanted to continue talking like a ventriloquist and the other part of me had no control of where my tongue went, leaving me with an awkward semi-lisp.
So after a few minutes of freedom and the doctor checking me out (everything looked great, he said) it was time to be banded. Basically, I have 3 really strong rubber bands holding my jaws together. It's actually tighter right now than it was when I was wired shut. But I just feel more comfortable with the bands being on that I'm not going to break them. Big time relief, despite not having quite as much freedom as I was expecting/wishing for. It's still gonna be a liquid diet for another couple of weeks. I have an appointment in two more weeks to get 4 of the 6 rubber bands taken off, then another week after that he said he will hopefully take all the bands off/replace them with some that would allow me with much more freedom. So about 4 more weeks in total of being banded/restricted mobility. I can do that.
After that appointment, I headed over to my regular orthodontist to see if he could fix some of the leftover appliances in my mouth that had been killing me. Another thing about the whole being wired shut - I swear they just threw into my mouth any extra wires that they had hanging around the hospital because I could just feel really sharp bits of metal sticking out from random placed in the middle of my mouth stabbing at my cheeks. I think there was an old wire hanger in there for awhile too....
But I digress.
The people in the ortho office all gave me a very nice reaction when they first saw me saying they can't believe the difference and how nice I look. I think one way to tell you are a bit overweight is when people ask you how much weight you've lost since the surgery, you tell them 20 pounds in 4 weeks, and they say "wow way to go". I think the normal reaction a person of regular size would get would be "oh jeeze that's a lot of weight very quickly, make sure you keep up your nutrition". But I think I'm getting "Maybe you should cut back on the ensures to one of them a day, you know, to speed up the weight loss process..." (I kid, I kid, all in good fun. I'm not THAT sensitive haha)
So everything is taken care of now for the next couple of weeks. Going to class will be interesting, as is seeing people on campus who haven't, for some reason, been keeping up with the blog and following my situation. I'm sure I'll have some good stuff for a blog post or two in the mean time.
Until then, stay classy
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