The big news at yesterdays ortho appt?  Well, not so much.  I got the pano and was expecting an update, and he just swapped my wires out and went on about his business without saying much.  I finally brought up the FAA thing, and he didn't seem too concerned.  Sounds like I have options.  But, I told him I kind of needed a time line from him on where he thinks I'm at and how far off surgery is so I can pass that along to the FAA, and his response was, "Maybe by the holidays... maybe." 

So, that's freaking depressing.  I'll give Kaiser this much-- at least I had a date by now at this point in my treatment.  I am not even asking for a firm date, but yet a healthy estimate, IE: "sometime in December."  So, I am starting to get a little frustrated that I am not even hearing rumblings of an estimate out of my ortho.  Maybe it's because I can't trust a doc now and I have so much skepticism, but it makes me nervous that my surgical time line is not being discussed more.  I don't even know if my surgeon has talked to the ortho or anything in the last 7 months since I've seen him.  This is especially alarming to me and puts me on my toes since my first team never talked.  That was part of the problem and why my planning went ass over head.  I ended up emailing my surgeon yesterday just to touch base with him and ask him a few questions regarding my recovery so I can better plan a possible switch over to ATC.  A few things were surprising in that email response:  1.) My surgeon has not gotten any records or heard anything from my ortho.  So, my suspicion on that was right.  He's going to touch base with my ortho soon.  2.) I am not going to be banded shut for 6 weeks like they initially said.  I don't know what changed and why I won't be, but now they're saying two weeks tightly shut like I was when I was wired shut after my first surgery, and then a few weeks in looser bands, and then a few more weeks just wearing bands at night as the ortho sees fit.  So, that part was actually really great news.  I am pretty relieved over that.  But, the rest of it makes me nervous.  And like I said, maybe I'm  being overly paranoid after what has happened to me the first time, but I am not liking this at all.  I am trying to find a good balance of not being that nosy annoying patient who thinks they know more than the doctors, and I want to trust them, but at the same time I need to be proactive and make sure everything is being done right this time.  I know it's pretty typical for the ortho to do all the leg work and then kick you over to the surgeon when you're ready, but I really thought they at least would have touched base at some point over the last few months when I got new xrays and everything.  That they would be sending records to each other and sparking a conversation if it needs to be had.  So, I want to give my team the benefit of the doubt that they're doing what they're supposed to be doing, but it all really does make me nervous.  I don't want to be screwed again.

Otherwise the house keeping during my appt was new.  I finally got a square steel wire in that allows them to put bends in it and torque teeth.  I remember my first ortho doing this, but I didn't know why.  And now that I think of it after finding out why yesterday, I don't know why he was doing it because the bends are for torquing roots and he had no clue what my roots looked liked since he never took a single xray of me while I was in his care that first year.  The roots on my two front teeth are so divergent.  Everybody always comments on them.  Now my bottom teeth are all wackadoo after having them yanked in for the last 6 months closing the extraction space.  So, hopefully those roots will be straightened out now. All the while I am probably going to lose more root structure in the process, but it has to be done.  I made the  mistake of leaving my glasses on while I was sitting in the chair.  I could read my chart they had pulled up.  I was already feeling really frustrated and bummed at the whole no surgery estimate thing, then I see that I am only on month 7 out of 25 for my treatment length, and then I see notes like, "Upper incisors, shoot roots, prognosis poor. Upper right 2 extremely short root, probable loss after treatment."  I mean, I know these things.  I've been told a few times.  But  just after being so frustrated and depressed all at once yesterday, everything just hit me harder than usual, and I walked out and got in my car and cried.  Just in a mood I guess, but I've already been through 22 months of braces the first time and all it did was make me worse.  Now I'm only on month 7 out of 25 this go around.  I have no clue when my surgery will be and can't start planning for it.  I am going to lose all of my front upper incisors.  They really manhandled my mouth in the appointment yesterday and I was immediately sore.  All the stress with the FAA stuff and trying to schedule around a major surgery that I have no clue when it will be.  Just everything got to me I guess, and I had a moment where I am just sick of being in this position.  I'm sick of being in braces still. I am sick of not being able to chew right, talk right, and constantly have a headache and now ear aches.  Maybe it's because I feel like there is no end in sight with not having the surgery date estimate.  I don't know.  I'm probably just too stressed all around.  Oh well, sometimes you have those moments and need a brief pity party for yourself.  Yesterday was my day for that.  Thank god today is my Friday at work.  I think I just need a few days to clear my head. 

I wasn't going to blog again until I saw my ortho next for what I think will be a major update for what is going on with my case.  Maybe even get my surgical date or at least a healthy estimate of it.  I see my ortho on Tues, but, now I've got a fly in the ointment that I need to bring up with my team.

I've pretty much not kept it secret from friends and coworkers that I was thinking about pursuing a switch over to doing air traffic control.  I graduated with a degree in aviation AND meteorology AND air traffic control, so the option was always there for me to do this, but I chose to go the weather side of my degree when I got out of college.  ATC always seemed too high anxiety for me.  You always hear about the stress.  It kind of put me off of it.  When I started working in an air traffic control facility as a meteorologist, I got to see first hand how these guys tick.  They're not stressed.  They train hard for a job and know how to sit down and do it.  They're given ample breaks, and the system is set up for them to be able to control traffic with ease.  It has it's moments, but I've never seen one person yet blow up over anything.  I think I get more high strung than they do and I just do the weather.  #SFO problems.  Anyway...about 3 years ago I was really looking to make the switch.  Enter the big government sequester, then the hiring freeze, and then some other issues, and the 3 openings I was on a panel for ended up postponed and then ultimately canceled.  It's a long story what happened with the opening in 2014, but the FAA really screwed the pooch on some new hiring process they were doing, and less than 10% of all applicants made it through the new screening.  I was not in that 10%, and unfortunately I turned 31 later that year and aged out where I could never apply again.  I said good bye to my ATC chances, and thankfully, I am still employed and going strong in the other half of my degree field.  Fast forward to this year, and it so happened that congress took note of the new hiring and to keep a long story short, they found the FAA did it improperly and said people like me who aged out because of it could get one more shot to apply.  I wasn't going to bother, but I ended up putting in for it last minute.  About 25% or so of applicants made it through this time, and I was in that group for this round! 

Long process, having to re-take the air traffic aptitude test again (that I took 3 years ago), and a lot of waiting, but I've finally received a tentative offer letter of employment for the FAA as a controller.  Problem with all of this is, there is a good chance I could be placed in the FAA academy for a 4 month stint starting by the end of Sept.  Right smack in the home stretch of my pre surgical treatment.  There is no second go with the FAA. You don't like the class date they give you?  See ya, thanks for your interest!  No bs'ing with them.  So, if I get a class date for Sept, it's take it or else.  A few options though.  1.) Go back in to ortho pause or take the braces off completely and push surgery back into 2016.  2.) Flat out beg the FAA to push an academy date back for me until late spring 2016.  I'll need that long to recover and be back to normal for what is already a grueling process to get through there.  If I go in to ortho pause, that is going to make life difficult too.  I won't be able to fly back and forth to see my ortho for the needed adjustments, so it will be purely 100% a pause with no treatment while I am in Oklahoma.  Also, my jaw is set up with such a bad bite right now that the headaches and aches and pains in my face are going to make life suck.  The FAA academy is already hell to go through (50% pass rate right now), so having to deal with all of my jaw and face aches and pains will make it that much worse.  I am really in a damned if I do and damned if I don't situation here for the most part.  But, I am also putting the cart before the horse worrying about all of this.  I don't have a final offer letter in my hands yet (but it's pretty probable I am going to get that in the next week), and I also haven't made my final final final decision yet on what I want to do.  Do I really want to give up the weather gig that I've worked so hard for?  I am incredibly fortunate to be in my NWS position.  There are only roughly 80 of us across the country, and it took me a long time to work my way up here.  I definitely have a lot of thinking and soul searching to do before I make my absolute final decision on all of this.

So, until then I wait for Tues. I am going to bring this up with my ortho and see what he says and what he thinks the best option would be for me if I end up in this situation.  Otherwise, I hope to get some big updates at this appointment.  Crossing my fingers for an estimate surgery date!

I feel like every time I turn around it's something else.  Either another tooth root is dead and will need to be pulled, another issue with the ortho, another issue with the surgical plan, another issue somehow stemming from the first surgery, etc.  Back in Jan I started to feel some irritation around the circle with the 1 on it in the picture above.  I could feel a notch on my cheek, and it wasn't hard/infected kind of painful, but just not right and it was sore.  Doc said the screw was backing out of the bone there.  Normally they would go in and take them out if you run in to complications where you reject the hardware or it gets infected, but since I am getting everything out in revision, as long as I can take it and it's not infected, we decided to leave it in so I can avoid being sliced and diced yet another time through all of this.  Fast forward 7 months, now the plates and screws around my nose on the right are feeling funny (circle 2).  I almost thought I felt a pop in there a few weeks ago but I just thought maybe it was pressure equalizing in my sinus cavity or something.  But, that too now is feeling weird and sensitive when I catch it the wrong way or push on it with my fingers on purpose. 

This is not the first issues I've had with that spot.  Pretty soon post op this area was super hyper sensitive, vs the rest of my mouth/chin/lips/face up to my eyes having lost feeling all together.  It was kind of weird, but I was so sensitive I had trouble brushing.  At first I couldn't tell if it was my k9 that was sensitive, but I think overall it was the whole area including the gums up through the area where the gums hit my cheek.  It ended up settling back down after a couple months, but it's never been back to normal.  And then the area around that plate and screw has always been weird for me.  The two sets around my nose have always been sensitive and tender from the start.  Now, even 16 months post op, it's is still that way.  But when I press on this one spot over the set on the right (the set that is bothering me a bit now), it causes this shot of numbness to shoot down through my gum/lip/teeth below that area.  The entire area which was hypersensitive at first.  So.... I am willing to bet money that the plate/screw set there is near or in a nerve.  Thanks again, Dr. O'Ryan!!!

I'm not even going to bother mentioning this one to my surgeon.  Unless I feel like it's starting to get really weird and infected, it's just going to stay until revision anyway.  At this point, what next? Every time I turn around it's something else, which means every time I turn around I am out another couple hundred bucks here and there and adds to the money pit this has all become.  I was thinking about that the other day-- how much money I've spent in all of this up to this point, and the thousands and thousands of dollars I am going to be out for restorative work after now.  It made me pretty sick to my stomach, so I'd rather not think about it!  Lets hope that there isn't too much lurking to happen next after this.  I just don't know how much more I can take!