Traumatic... Dramatic... Michelle.

As if I wasn't already having a stressful day I arrived at my appointment 10 minutes late but was luckily taken right back! Some ghetto-ish, definitely careless assistant started leaning my chair back & told me to open my mouth. I felt so lost and confused because I had absolutely no clue what in the world she was doing! I mean I assumed that she was going to remove my spacers. When I felt a weird snap I confirmed my guess. She took all 4 off of the right side then started putting something that hurt in my mouth...
uhm
A- What is that?
B- Please stop!
C- Do you have any sort of communication skills?

Luckily my mouth is a special case ("of close contacts"-teeth are close)and the actual orthodontist always has to step in... which let's face it I'd rather him do the work anyway because I feel much more comfortable & he explains things. I am a "know all the details" kind of girl so these people better remember that for next time. As he started saying "because you have close contacts this will be a little painful" and he must have spotted the confusion in my eyes because then he paused and looked at me so I said what are you doing? and then he looked at the assistant and said in a stern tone towards her "I thought she had explained to you already" & I proceeded to say "she didn't tell me anything at all" HAH! put her in her place!
He then explained that today they were removing my spacers, fitting these metal bands around my teeth  to see which fits best, and these bands will taken off before I leave & be sent out with a mold of the roof of my mouth and make a personalized expander. Okay, now I can feel comfortable because I mean if I didn't know what was going on then how could I blog about it!?!?!
So then he asked for a 36 and showed me that it was a metal band and how it had to fit around my mouth so I should feel pressure. Dr. Kolodziej is really a great orthodontist, he always makes me feel like I matter & he genuinely cares if something is going to hurt me.
He started to put the band on & it was kind of weird and I felt a pressure & not really painful, but sort of... it's hard to explain. then he would put a plastic tool in my mouth, tell me to close my mouth, then bite. This was the process over & over again on 4 teeth. It would seem as though I was in pain but really the tears running down my face were my emotions that were being released from still being angry at that assistant!
Dr. Kolodziej kept asking me if I was okay & he understands that I am in an extreme amount of pain but admires my pain tolerance. The tears just kept coming though.... he kindly asked me things like are you alright? Do you need a break? Let me know when to continue? Anything you need? He was being really accommodating. That assistant however was just still frustrating me and the tears kept leaking out of my eyes. She was a little useful & offered me a tissue.  I kept telling them "it doesn't hurt, I'm fine, I don't know why I'm crying" which was mostly true.... only one was actually painful but the rest were just uncomfortable.
When he finished they had to make a mold of my mouth with the bands on & that assistant did it... they let me take a little break from all my trauma & then she put the putty in my mouth & then wouldn't stop talking...
I just wanted her to stop talking but instead she blurted sooooo much that I did not want to hear from her because she lost my respect already. Plus when someone closes their eyes and hardly answers uhmmm don't continue asking me questions that I have to answer!! I was just at a point of LEAVE ME ALONE! Luckily it was over quickly &  Dr. Kolodziej was back to put new spacers in my mouth to stay until I get my expander on! & he said that they would probably even start falling out because my teeth would have enough room :)
I was so upset over a combination of my bad day & ghetto rude assistant(mostly her) that I drove all the way home trying not to cry, sat in my driveway crying for 10 minutes, went inside seeking sympathy but there was only the couch in sight so I laid there & cried for 10 minutes. The only comfort I was finding was from Mad Eye Moody, the cat who thought rubbing his furry fluff in my face would help me feel better... he was at least trying to comfort me. I finally broke down, knocked on my brothers door & said "I'm being stupidly emotional, and I had a really bad day, and I just want a hug" and being a GREAT, WONDERFUL, BEST BROTHER he gave me a sincere hug until I composed myself. What a rough day! But I'm pretty sure it will never be that bad again... but never say never!

Turning down bacon! Who is this person?

Today for the first time in my entire 23 years I said no to seconds of bacon.

How did I resist? .... The pain was worth it, but more pain was pushing it! 

How in the world did I turn down a whole fresh veggie platter & bacon in the same day I just don't know.

With the 2 little slices of bacon that I did manage, I had to bite & chew with my front teeth. When your friends are waiting to play Clue FX you're not allowed to take your time eating so by the time I managed to get to my second piece they were very fed up with my slowness, & my plate was ripped out from under me! (I think they were trying to say get a move on!)

Then of course someone brings out a vegetable tray & I was hit with sadness. How can people tempt me with so many treats in one day? Sure I can eat brownies & ice cream no problem... so you might think "Michelle, why are you complaining" but truthfully my soul is with the vegetables.

I couldn't resist the veggie tray for long so I attempted broccoli and only ate the top part... with my front teeth, again. I'm starting to feel like a rabbit just nibbling away on things. Life is so rough, it took me 15 minutes to my one piece of broccoli. 

BUT it wasn't that painful so I guess that's good news for my future meals :) 

Can the weeks move by any slower?

running, not my brightest idea!

I really really didn't expect this to make my life so difficult... for goodness sakes it's just rubber bands shifting my teeth that have been there for more than half of my life... that shouldn't be painful at all, right?
False false false
Ouch!
I decided that I was focused too much on my mouth pain so to distract me from the pain I figured running would be the perfect activity. So there I am running, panting from not running mostly all summer, and about half way through my run I felt a hollowness in my stomach. Whoops forgot that I haven't been eating a whole lot due to the pain of these contraptions, so probably running with only a cup of applesauce in my system wasn't the best idea. Secondly, a little further on in my run I had the most painful feeling in my mouth. I guess a run won't take my mind off my spacers but make the pain so much more real. After running with my hands held to my jaw for several minutes I gave up and my run became a walk in the park. I really thought that running was a great idea but I was wrong.
Lesson learned: don't go running when you have mouth pain.

Also Let me just mention how long it takes me to eat!
I am a slow eater, everyone that I eat with knows this fact about me. Now that I have mouth torture devices in, my eating habits are on super slow motion speed.
All that I've eaten in 3 days is ... (& in very little portions)
-soggy cereal
-vegetable beef soup (which stained my white spacers)
-Ice cream & Hot Chocolate (gloriously no pain)
-a hostess cupcake (never again)
-a small McD's fry (took me 20 minutes)
-potato soup (this was a pretty successful meal) & grilled cheese pita (NEVER AGAIN)
-Hot chocolate (really soothes my mouth)
-a cup of applesauce
-Princess Spaghetti o's (so easy to eat, probably my 1st food option from now on)
-Ice cream
-Mozzarella sticks, Salad, bread sticks, rigatoni, fries. (all of that had to be cut into 2cm size pieces and then chewed with my front teeth- it took me so long to eat just half of everything probably like 2 hours)
-& More ice cream

I recommend spaghetti o's & soft squishy french fries.... anything else will hurt & it won't be fun no matter how much you think it will be okay.... it won't.

This better get better
p.s. I'm almost sure that I have to keep these spacers in until I get my expander on in September! Life without a satisfying meal is miserable!

Can I just add

I hadn't yet been brave enough to eat with the spacers until just now & let me tell you this is going to be a rough 19 more meals that I have to consume. The rubber bands are below my bite so I feel the rubber bands on my food instead of my teeth first. It is by far the most complicated thing to have to chew but not really feel like you're chewing. Not to mention that I'm a flossing freak & I'm not allowed to floss... I mean I know that obviously nothing can get in those spaces in my teeth but now I just have the urge to floss. I probably have food stuck in my teeth because I'm too afraid that I'll pick out a spacer! Life is so hard!

Spacers... oh the pain!

Today marks the day that my life starts to end.... Okay okay maybe the process of getting braces isn't the end of life but the beginning of a great smile. Yes, I will start to think positively about this because whether I like it or not, today, when I slammed $850 down on the counter after my appointment that was like sealing the deal for real. 
I went in and immediately was called back to the chair of doom. An assistant had little bitty baby rubber bands out on her sterile tray & got started. They just tell you to open up and then they take a metal tool and stretch the rubber band in between your teeth, kind of like flossing but then it stays there. Of course I would have issues. The assistant had to have Dr. Kolodziej come in to get most of the spacers(separators) in because of course my mouth is the worst case scenario of close teeth.
This process was seriously SERIOUSLY the worst pain I've ever had in my mouth. At one point I said "oh my Gosh" (all mumbled of course) because it hurt sooooooo horribly. They had to attach 2 pieces of floss to the bands and then floss them up into my mouth.The one is around a crown on my tooth so it was extremely tight, and  Dr. Kolodziej seemed to seriously hate the fact that he was causing pain but I got through it. He told me that I did pretty well considering it was such a tight squeeze.... I didn't cry so it must not have been that bad, I did dig my nails into my side and cause nail marks there but I was also told that this week will probably be the most discomfort that I will have throughout my whole treatment, which made me really thankful! 3 ibuprofen later and the assistant instructed me to not eat anything sticky.... does that include gummy bears? I definitely have a fresh bag of them just waiting for me to consume! Paid & off I went! Next appointment next Tuesday August 28th at 12:10.
Oh & I'm not supposed to touch the spacers or rub my tongue against them BUT it's soooooooo hard not to! How do they expect you not to play with things that shouldn't be there! I can do it I can do it... nope I can't. Let's just hope that I don't knock one out due to not following the rules.