Blood Tests and Brutal Truths

As I have previously mentioned, today (May 16th) was my pre-op assessment. I met with both my surgeon and a general nurse, and it's fair to say the appointments had some ups and downs.

I entered the Oral Surgery department with the same crippling nerves and anticipation that I usually have and was called in to see my surgeon almost immediately. He proceeded to show me two models of my jaws. One in their current position and one in the position they will be in after the surgery - which was so weird! Even though I could tell they were my teeth, I don't think I actually realised how different they are going to look afterwards.

Apparently he wants to place them in a slight overbite, so when my muscles and jaws settle in to their new positions, they have a bit of wiggle room if they start to move back to their original position. Also, this allows my orthodontist to carry on with my brace work and really perfect my bite and teeth.

He fit two plastic things in my mouth and made sure they fit my teeth - for a reason I don't quite know of. I believe it was a hard version of the warm wax that you bite on when they take impressions of your teeth.

After more measuring and tilting my head in all directions, I signed my consent form and he went on to tell me something I knew was coming, but really didn't want to hear. My surgery may be cancelled as late as the hour before it is scheduled if there are no beds in the ward or should an emergency case need a jaw surgery.

Obviously, this is understandable and expected, but the bluntness of the situation and the fact that it can be so close yet cancelled so quickly has stuck with my all day!

After this I was rushed off to see the nurse to have the dreaded blood tests. Now, if there's one thing that should be known about me and doctors, it is that I don't do well with needles. Having never had a blood test before, I really didn't know what to expect. Although the needle itself wasn't half as bad as anticipated, the nurse decided to take 10ml of my blood BEFORE taking my blood pressure. So as soon as the pressure cuff tightened around my arm, I felt really woozy and my ears started to muffle. Then, I practically passed out in the chair. I tell you... I've never sweat so much in my life. I didn't know so much water was capable of escaping from my body at once...

About a minute later, I was informed by quite a flustered nurse that I had low blood pressure and this was followed by five minutes of her trying to get it back up to a normal figure. Eventually, I stopped sweating and regained some sort of consciousness and was swept out as quickly as I was rushed in.

So, all in all, it wasn't totally unpleasant visit. I got a first glance of my potential new bite and am officially consented! However, the constant worry of it being cancelled at last minute won't leave me until I'm in that theatre!

My next appointment is with the orthodontist at the end of the month, where I will be getting surgical hooks attached to my braces and last minute prep for my op!

Before Photos and Recovery Worries

It's now less than 3 weeks till my surgery and the closer it gets, the more antsy I'm becoming. I find myself at silly hours in the morning, searching for jaw surgery blogs and YouTube channels to make sure I'm super-duper prepared for what's waiting for me.

As this past month since getting my date has gone so fast, I don't really know how to grasp the fact that in 19 days, I will have a different face. Even just typing it now and telling my friends about it in person, the meaning of those words really haven't sunk in.

Obviously I'm absolutely bricking it, although it's not the surgery itself that scares me. After having two operations previous to this one, I like to think of myself as quite the surgery connoisseur by now... I've heard a lot of horror stories about the first four days after the surgery. The not eating, not sleeping and not talking is only a handful of the things that worry me about the recovery process.

I guess my worries are quite trivial. For example, I find myself wondering how I'll be able to sneeze, cough and yawn... The pain of swallowing and breathing also plays on my mind a lot. Although the bruising and swelling is different for everyone, I worry that I will still look battered and bruised for my University Graduation in July...

Nevertheless, after seeing everyone's results, I really believe that it'll do for me what it seems to have done for other people.

All this being said, I realise that I am yet to share any photos of my bite as it stands before the surgery. It was quite challenging finding photos where my underbite is visible as after so long, I've managed to find various angles where I can disguise or hide it.

So here is a selection of random photos and specific bite photos to give you more of an idea of what I'm aiming to get rid of. In nearly all of these, you can see how my underbite not only impacts my smile, but my side profile, cheek bones, lips and nose...

**Please excuse the state of my skin here. I'm having a very bad face day...**

And here's some random ones where I haven't really tried to hide it...

Although there's an attempt to minimise my jaw in this photo, it's still really visible and you can see how I can't seem to smile without it showing.

This is the only photo of me I've ever found with a side profile. I was clearly caught off guard...

This isn't so much about my underbite, but more my cross-bite. Although it's a pretty minimal problem in my bite, it hugely alters the way my chin and lips look most of the time.

Oddly, clicking Publish on this is a lot harder than I anticipated. It's different to posting photos to Facebook or Snapchat. Here I'm drawing attention to the thing that I try at most times to disguise or hide completely. I suppose it's just further proof that my surgery is really what I need to do to regain a degree of self-confidence...