January has basically flown by.  Feb 4th is my next ortho appointment for a band change on a lower molar, wire change on my bottom teeth, and progress molds to take up to the next appointment with my jaw surgeon.  I think I heard mumblings from the ortho about possibly having the type of trans palatal bar that was across my top somehow be on my bottom teeth if he couldn't get my back molars to tweak in the direction he wanted.  I think I just wanted to pretend like I didn't hear him talk about that to the assistant, so I didn't ask what the logistics are on that.  Let's hope it doesn't happen.  It was awful enough on the top teeth, but I can't even imagine how that would work on the bottom teeth with my tongue all in the way.  Ick.

Surgery date is April 9th.  I bought plane tickets for my mom to come in and help me during recovery through all of April.  Just got an email from my insurance to alert me that my surgery packet was sent out, and my next pre-op appointment is scheduled for March 18th with Dr. Saw-my-face-off lady.  A few days before that appointment I have to go get new xrays and CT scans to bring with me, as well as the new molds from the ortho.  I also got a notification of pre-op blood work appointment and a pre-op surgery class I have to take the last week of March.  That's most of my appointments scheduled now.  I also paid off the rest of the $8200 tab I had with my ortho, so at least that is done now! 

Getting the surgery date made it a little more real, but now having all the other appointments scheduled and my mom's tickets booked to come out makes it really real, I guess.  I also got a chest freezer delivered today so I can start making pureed everything to put in containers and freeze for quick meal options after surgery.  I need to start adding more recipes to the recipe section here

Happy new year!  I've been telling myself that the start of 2014 is kind of when I would start to 'countdown' towards surgery, so here's the first count down post.  Just about 3 months away!  This also starts my food extravaganza.  I want to eat what I want, but stupid me signed up for a weight loss bet this month.  Need to loose 6 lbs by the end of the month.  I'm not starting until Monday since I'm home visiting family in Philly right now, and I am eating all of the cheese steaks and yuengling that I want! ;)

I've already hit a few snags in terms of what I had planned leading up to my surgery date.  I've done a pretty good job of letting my office know about everything that has anything to do with the sick leave and days off I'll need around my surgery.  My office is extremely small, and we're 25% short staffed right now.  When I take my sick leave we'll be down by 50% and it will leave 2 of our forecasters to work 2 shifts daily back to back for the 4-6 weeks I'm out.  I work for a federal agency and our regional office has known about this for some time, and nobody has done anything to help our staffing catastrophe that is going to happen once I'm out for surgery.  I feel bad that the two of our guys left while I'm out will be overworked, but this really is just as much not my fault as it is theirs either.  For February and March leading up to the surgery, I had planned on taking a few 'last hurrah' trips.  I've talked with my co-workers about this (a lot!) as well as had it written on our 2014 leave request schedule.  Nobody had issues with anything.  I bought a $500 ski pass to use a ton in Feb/March, and starting paying down a trip to Utah with some girlfriends at the end of Feb.  All in all I'm about $800 out in things I've paid towards.  Leave I thought I had without any issues.  And earlier this week I found out the leave is essentially denied.  All of it.  The 4 Saturdays I had requested off to snowboard with my husband, and the weekend I had requested off for Utah. 

Nobody wants to work my shifts since they'll be working a bunch of my shifts when I'm out in April.  While I understand, I also feel pretty bummed out; like I'm being punished for having to have my face broken and be put back together.  Like I would actually WANT to be out in April for that-- year right!  Sorry, that is NOT going to be a vacation for me!  Again, I know it's the fault of powers above people in our office, but just like my coworkers are kind of irked at me for them being forced to work a bunch, I'm kind of irked with them for not letting me live life a little bit before I am out of commission for a while.  I don't think I would be as upset if they had said something earlier, especially before I bought expensive tickets and passes and mentally worked myself up to look forward to these last hurrahs! Oh well. I guess it is what it is.  I'd be lying if I said this wasn't going to get to me a little bit, but I'm going to try to do my best to keep my head up and make the most of the few days off I'll get with my husband here and there between now and the beginning of April.

So.... now I'm sitting on a $500 ski pass that is hardly going to get used and 45 hours of extra leave I will be left with by the end of next year.  Know the best part?  It's use or loose leave, so hopefully they let me take it at some point!  And if it's after surgery, it will be to just sit home and do nothing since I won't be skydiving, backpacking, scuba diving, etc for a while.  If only I could sit on the corner and shout "ski pass for sale-- get your ski pass right here!"  That thing is 100% non-refundable and non-transferable, unfortunately.  What a waste!