Shelby Cass’s Weblog

These are for posterity…hence the embarrassing honesty that this is me. In all my toothy chinless glory. BEHOLD!!!!

I had braces in high school, but I am a “tongue thruster” hey now… which I think was due to the whole “Oh my tongue is preventing me from breathing!” phenomenon. So my uppers were a little protruded, and you can see the permanent retainer on my lower which evidently I can look forward to getting back post othodontial. *joy*



CHEEESE!!! Oh boy. Would that these pics did not exist, but since they do, I share with you. You’re welcome (guh!)


YOW! Aw…what’s up Doc? They jacked my teeth up big time! Well, all in the name of a good (and safe) night’s sleep. Sign me up!
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Thank you thank you thank you Courtland for advising I take my naproxen BEFORE the first post-op orth appointment. Oh boy. I don’t know how they do it in that office. They are so nice and sweet and accommodating…and when you sit in the chair they inflict so much pain, and they remain nice and calm and sweet and they say “Oh, sorry if this hurts.” Are people who work in orthodontia secret sadists? “Ah, the tears are about to crest and pour down her face. My work here is done.” 
 
So, yesterday was my first visit to the orthodontist since the Day of Surge. You know what they wanted me to do? Open my mouth. What’s up with that? And the words they kept repeating “A little wider”…those are NOT cool words. If looks could kill, I might be in jail right now…but I kept my eyes closed (as if I was hiding from the pain). I told them about all the good stuff that has come from the surgery (because you know they mostly hear the ow stuff all the time and that would drive me nuts). I told them I haven’t used the CPAP machine since the surgery. I showed off my new chin. I told them about my nightmares pre-surgery vs. “normal” dreams post-surgery. They looked excited and did a very good job of pretending they knew what I was talking about and that it mattered to them. 
 
Now this may sound callous, and I know it mattered to them a little, but a lot of the time when people ask how you are doing, they are not looking for an involved answer. And even in your doctor’s office when they ask if you have noticed any major changes after your surgery, unless it’s a good story, they probably just want to hear a yes or no answer. That’s just my take on it. I really like everyone at Dr. Quo’s office. They are awesome and funny and I don’t think they want anyone to be in pain, but they know that the pain is for the greater good and someday you will flash a perfect toothy grin at them as you walk out of the office for the last time and everyone involved will know it was all worth it. 
 
That being said: last night SUCKED. hehe. My appointment was in the morning and they told me it would be long because they may be repositioning brackets. I had no idea what that meant but it wouldn’t have prevented me from going to my appointment, so there I was in chair #4 with “a little wider” repeating over and over, and cheek spreaders were involved (I realise it’s a logical name, but when outside of the ortho’s office when you say they used cheek spreaders people look at you as if you’ve WAY overshared), and when they reposition brackets, what that means is they are going to cut off the brackets you have, SCRAPE the remaining cement off your teeth, and then SCRAPE the cement they missed the first time, and then SCRAPE the invisible cement…oh my Lord. The first tooth that encountered the cement scrape gave me such intense feedback I YELPED. Couldn’t help it. Didn’t even know it was coming. Just SCRAPE-YELP. Rinse. Repeat. 6 teeth. Front lower. And the right side of my mouth which has been kind of the problem child side anyhow, well, it is existing in a state of constant “Don’t touch me” pain…not pain killer pain…I’m maxed out on my naproxen doses…it’s really just the feeling that someone has corsetted the roots of my teeth and has roped them to the back of a dump truck and is slowly driving forward. Did I mention that I have been cemented in place, so the roots of my teeth, which are following the dump truck they have been tied to, are slowly migrating out of my face…just enough tension to make me a very pleasant person. Yeah. Don’t come over today. 

They work awesome. I had pancakes this morning and Court served them with fork, knife, and chopsticks. Sweet! We had learned from the Chinese tofu spicy yum that inserting food with chopsticks sometimes works much better than with a spoon (spoon of course works much better with non-solid more goopy food). So tiny chopped pancakes and chopsticks made for a very yummy no-miss no-mess breakfast… And you can do portion control in the beginning (until your hands get stronger) because your hands get tired and you have to re-assess your hunger vs. fatigue ratio. Of course hunger wins always with me, but I do have to remember I am an ergonomist and a rsi due to eating would probably be pretty sad and client-deterring. 
 
Mommy Cat is on a medication for hyperthyroidism. When I took her to the vet they found she had early stage kidney failure (only early?) and hyperthyroidism. The hyperthyroidism explained the extreme hunger and weight loss phenomenon. It also explained her shaky kind of manic-ness. HOWEVER, evidently a hyper thyroid CAN (not always but sometimes) also MASK more advanced kidney disease/failure because it intercepts all the stuff the not-so-functioning kidneys would have had trouble dealing with. Soooooo…the question: treat the hyper thyroid (to keep Mommy from deteriorating away) and SEE in 5 weeks if it was in fact covering up a more advanced kidney disease, in which case she will become fat more lethargic and lose her appetite altogether and her kidneys will stop functioning sooner and she will eventually have to be put down. OR don’t treat the thyroid, and get a heart attack when the body eats the heart. I was thinking the latter (sudden death better than lingering death?) except that the vet seemed to lean towards addressing the thyroid because it only SOMETIMES masks kidney stuff. 
 
Long story longer, I started her on the hyper thyroid meds. 1/2 a pill a day. I got kidney diet food and DiaRira didn’t take well to it. So I have to figure out how to get Mommy on this diet (to stave off the advanced kidney disease that comes after early stage kidney disease). 
 
My mantra: Kitty comfort, not kitty life support. I do wish they could speak a little English though. You know, I wouldn’t mind any language really…as long as I could find someone who spoke it…and sorry, but cat psychics don’t count. I want a language I can SPELL with vowels and consonants in logical places and not repeated as in “mreeooow”. Is that so wrong? 
 
Played a good 30 minutes of Wii today. I have found another distraction (when I want a snack I do this): Mii’s!!!! So I’m working on the cast of Buffy. So far have Buffy, Willow (needs work), Angel (definitely needs work - do I make him angelic face or brooding?), Spike (pretty good I think), and of course Joss. I also added Mr. Garrison (because who wouldn’t?), my best friend the former TLC (though it looks more like Rider I think), my brother (found out you can make a soul patch/flavor saver by adding a mustache, making it smaller, and moving it down a bunch so it is below the mouth), Dr. Idstrom, and then C and Ty had already made theirs when they were here, so add that to SMAC (me), ScamDog (left handed boy version of me). Court (Court), and Courtney (left handed girl version of Court), and when we play baseball we get our pals on our teams… Oh I totally cussed C out though because she caught my pop flies and didn’t drop them like 3 times in a row. Nothing personal, C. It’s just, couldn’t you appear on MY team every once in a while? 
 
I am DREADING going to the orthodontist this week. My top teeth have shifted a little and my front tooth rests on a bracket on the bottom now. I know, bad, but when they move it it’s going to be bad too! Also, when I put the rubber bands on at night in the front, it HURTS when I put them on and in the am I can’t WAIT to get them off. I’m such a wuss bag! I’m sure any chewing I’ve been able to do, any pressure I have been able to exert with my teeth will be curtailed with future orthodontia. Good thing Dr. Quo sent me flowers. Makes it harder to send bad thoughts her way while I am whimpering in toothful agony. Hopefully the dread is worse than the actual experience. Get over it, SMAC! But I’m scared. Yup. Wuss bag. 

blah blah blah blah blahdy blahdy blah….I liked it on the Muppet show when Beaker came onstage and sang Feelings but he only speaks in “me me” so it was funny..and then the cane came out and hooked him offstage. 
 
I have more feeling in my lips I think. Not as much FIRE, more tingly ache. That’s a good thing. Perma-lip fire is not fun. I also have some feeling in my lower teeth on the right which is weird. I wonder if I am not supposed to bite things because it’s BAD and potentially injurious (is that a word?), or because my teeth don’t touch in the back and whatever I bit couldn’t get chewed afterwards. Guess I’ll ask the Li-man.  
 
The way I see pain is: if it hurts I worry I am doing something to negate my surgery. If you tell me I am SUPPOSED to feel that pain, I’ll live with it. Like in PT post knee surgeries (all 4). You don’t want to end up under the knife again, so you tell your PT when it hurts and they make you stop doing whatever it was that was hurting. But if you have a conversation with them about the KIND of pain you should and should not feel, you can safely get through it without risking injury. Does that make sense? 
 
One time I had scar tissue. It hurt…it was preventing my knee from bending all the way. So I would lie on my back and hold me thigh perpendicular to my body and let gravity pull my lower leg down…it hurt when it pulled on the scar tissue. But when the PT explained to me what I was pulling on, I didn’t mind the pain and I was able to relax my leg a little more, let gravity do a little more work, and SNAP! (loudest thing I have ever heard come from my body…it sounded like a bone breaking!) my knee bent all the way. I shot upright so fast with that noise…and BOTH my PT’s who were on opposite sides of the pretty big clinic came RUNNING over to see if I was okay, and when they got to me I had tears in my eyes because in the SNAP moment I imagined all my stitches has just burst and I was going to have to have surgery all over again, but when they asked if it hurt I shook my head no because it didn’t. So sometimes pain is good…I just want to know the kind that is bad so I won’t do that. 
 
Dr. Li says after the weekend I can start doing jaw exercises. Open, close, open close…then said “well, I guess in your case that would just mean more talking.” Ha. Ha. I don’t think he understands that I am back to full talking capacity. Yes, it hurts after too much talking, but it’s just muscles and tendons being cry babies. I talk whenever I want to. I answer the phone too. I just sound like I am storing a few marshmallows in my mouth. So starting Monday I add jaw exercises. I wonder if I can start exercising my jaw with severing food. 
 
I’m pretty sure I will not want to see the baby food aisle for a very long time after this is over. I made chicken (a la Gerber a couple nights ago and I just could NOT eat it. I guess I’m not as desperate as I was when I thought it was semi-palatable. Desperate times…desperate measures. 
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Who knows what week this is. 
 
Today I met with Dr. Li and I no longer wear the pachooey chomp, but I do wear rubber bands at night still…but I have to put them on the front teeth. I had been avoiding putting them om the front because my lips get slaughtered for some reason, but doctor’s orders. So slaughter away. 
 
I mentioned to Dr. Li that I had occasional sharp sudden brief scream out loud pain and he looked at me funny (as if thinking pain was odd), which I thought was odd. He asked where it was and I pointed it out on my chin and upper lip and he paused, then shhok it off and said “Oh that’s right. I forgot. You’re SENSITIVE.” I must remind myself I have a wonderful wonderful surgeon whose bedside manner is less than ideal but because of the wonderful wonderful part I am okay with that. But still. I have this overwhelming urge to 1. feel guilty for having pain 2. never tell him I hurt again and 3. hit him because who is he to imply I have less pain than I feel? I wasn’t saying there was anything WRONG…I was just letting him know how I was healing. But I guess when you do this surgery 3 times a week you really don’t care after a while how the patient feels, as long as they are recovering, which I am. But really, the third time he emphasized how “SENSITIVE” I am, I wanted to stick my tongue out and make a phbllttt noise…but I physically can’t… 
Wait…I just tried. Yes I can! Oh he so has something to look forward to in 2 weeks if he brings up my “sensitivity” again. Bring it on Dr. Li! Oh, and thank you for my surgery. 
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Sleep, that is. 
Okay I’m gunna get sleep…I already get lots more sleep than I did before…but someday _I_ will be dictator of WHEN that sleep happens, and it will be at NIGHT. Hrm. 
5:15 am and I have been online for a good hour, wasting time–I mean, neing extremely productive. My dad emailed me. That rocked. He said he loved me which was very cool, and then said Anna Nicole Smith was dead. Lo and behold…she is. That’s just crazy. 39. My paternal grandfather died in his sleep at 44 and this surgery was to add a few more years to my life past that number, barring runaway trains and falling pianos. 
 
Tonight (the night that technically ended at midnight) Court and I went to dinner at the Van’s on the Hill with our downstairs neighbors MnK. Yes, I like to torture myself around food I can’t have. The restaurant is very nice…much nicer than you’d expect from the outside or even from the doorway. White table cloth, wine list, bread and butter… Imagine if you will, a party of four. The men order beer, the women order something other than beer. Appetizers are ordered, and the house special stuffed porkchop (stuffed with italian sausage and mozzerella) is pre-ordered since it takes 35 minutes to cook. The roasted garlic arrives, and each party member picks up a tiny fork with which they will skewer roasted garlic cloves from the bulb…one of the women produces a pink-tipped baby spoon. What is this? A massive portion control maneuver? 
The spoon, however, does not seem to prevent the woman from eating everything in sight, or at least trying. 
Yup. It’s me. The spoon-bearing, weight gaining post MMA/GA Obstructive Sleep Apnea curing surgery. 
Look for me in restaurants serving creamed spinach near you! 
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At night I insert the lovely (NOT) bite guard to give my jaws and teeth a rest, but I have noticed on days that I talk a lot or stress my jaws out with slightly too big food, I have to do a little more maneuvering to get it to fit. It seems my jaws offset themselves when things get tired…and it feels really weird. When I wake up in the mornings it is so painful…I wonder if I should be doing something more during the day…should I put the pachooey chomp thing in earlier? or between movies? I will have to remember to ask Dr. Li on Thursday. 
 
I am gaining weight and it’s sucking. So I made another cake. 
 
Yeah. 
 
This diet isn’t working. 
 

I have learned, the hard way, that it doesn’t matter from whence the pizza came, if you have to pull the top off and blend it up and eat it all mashed together, it’s just not the same. 
 
David brought over a Zachary’s pizza for me today. Hooray for Dave!!!!!! Bonus super duper friend points. The pizza, Chicago style, had Italian sausage and cheeeeeeeeese. I couldn’t actually manage the sausage at all, so I had to bring in the blender. I scraped the top of the pizza into the blender, then ate it with a spoon…but that just tasted like Italian goop…no Zachary’s flare. So I put the goop on top of the crust and gummed the crust…made it a little better, but still not the same. Alas, I think I have to wait another month or so to really enjoy a Zachary’s pizza, crust and all. I think molars that touch are key in the pizza eating arena. 
 
Today I had 3 different visitors!!! David came bearing pizza. Nicholas came by bearing an assortment of candy I never knew existed that he thought I could partake of in my toothless state. Did you know that Sweet Tarts come in a GEL? Ot that you can get candy SPRAY?!?!? He also brought me a package of Cadbury Creme Eggs (straight from the bunny!) that I could sppon the yolks out of. I don’t know when I’m coming down off this sugar high…and Courtland has been totally dipping into my stash, so he’s a jitterbug too. We’ll never get to sleep. 
 
David, Nicholas, Court and I had a nice visit, and then Cynthia and Ty showed up bearing tons of yum. Hard Cider, Hard lemonade, hard food (Cynthia brought celery for herself)…there was a 24-pack of Coke, a Twosie Banana for me, dip, and other stuff I’m sure but you get the idea. They had also stopped by a store and rented a weird little video game for to play on the Wii called WarioWare Smooth Moves. Pretty crazyy. The ultimate video game for ADD. Mii’s were created, many games were played..I broke 200 bowling (w00t!), and then found out how much I don’t know about the ’80’s in Trivial Pursuit ’80’s edition. 
 
I made it most of the day before pulling on my jaw a little too much with all the laughing. It’a hard to talk about the Wii without sexually slanting every statement someone makes. Hard, but so funny. Tomorrow is laundry, er, Superbowl Sunday. Luckily the game doesn’t start anytime in the morning so I should be able to score some zz’s before heading over to Cynthia’s. She has offered to make tacos (minus the shells for me) for dinner and I am ON BOARD. Have I mentioned how when I was little I used to tell people I was half Mexican and that half resided in my stomach?  
 
I’m excited I had such a full day of people and interaction. I feel like I am getting much more stamina and returning to work in a while doesn’t seem so overwhelming. Granted, talking all day is going to be hard so I will have to work up to that, but I’m sure it will come sooner rather than later.  
 
I was out of the house all Thursday and that kicked my butt. I was inside all day today, but I was interacting with people more.  
 
I did mention to Court that I had stress dreams about being under water and unable to surface so I have to take a breath while still under and I realise I can breathe underwater but that it’s a dream and I probably couldn’t breathe in real life and that (the not breathing stuff ) is what I was experiencing 37 times an hour before my surgery. I have all these thought in the actual dream, so of course I have no idea if I am actually not breathing, but the feeling is so strong that I am sure if I had been awake before surgery sor those 37 times per hour episodes, it would feel like my dreams do now. That’s not to say the surgery didn’t work. it’s just something on my mind…how close to a cure did I get? How awesome is it I got a change to attempt that? 
 
My jaw is verrry tired now. Must to the pachooey chomp and bedses! 
 
Goonight. 

Happy belated Groundhog’s Day! 
Didn’t mean not to mention it…I was just so caught up in Groundhog festivities…you know how it goes. 
 
Court and I went to Saffron Indian Bistro for lunch. They have a new cook…he uses lots of spices. Just enough. Oh it was so yummy! How did I eat Indian food? Well, I actually just walked the buffet line and collected various sauces in little bowls meant for other things I’m sure. Luckily they know me there and Pinky (one of the owners) even went ion the back and brought me a fresh bowl of saag (I think that is the name for the spinach dish). Oh it was sooooo good! I was full…but I had to keep eating. How could I not? and there was a yummy smooshed pineapple dessert that was similar in texture to the corn yum they serve on the side of your meal at Chevy’s and other Mexican restaurants (like El Torido where I got to go on Tuesday and 3 people at the table gave me their corn yum. They must love me). 
 
I only had one super stabby moment on my upper lip on the right. My skin doesn’t like breezes, so I try to cover it up (the skin on the lower half of my face that is) but then my skin doesn’t like anything touching it either…so I think spending a lot of time in convertibles or really outdoors is not going to be my thing for a while. 
 
Last night I tried putting a satin pillowcase over my chin because it is nice and soft…but my chin picked up some prickly feeling…so I guess THREAD is an enemy too. I started taking OTC sleep aids 2 nights ago. My insurance doesn’t cover just plain Ambien and Ambien CR seems a little overkill to me. Also Dr. Li doesn’t seem to think I should ever need anything to help me sleep ever again…but I think he’s never had to sleep with hyper skin sensitivity and I know the importance of sleep in getting things in the body to heal. If I have to induce sleep for a few more weeks to get through this, in my opinion, so be it. 
 
And that’s the word. 
 
Good night! 
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http://www.tna-support.org/newlook/definition.htm 
 
So there’s a new (in my world) name for pain. I hope we don’t get intimate. 
 
It slightly explains why I walk around with things wrapped over my face to protect me from the AIR. I also probably look really weird while walking around outside (lots of air out there) with my index and third fingers pressed firmly on my jaw joint next to my ear, making me look like a field reporter receiving input through an earpiece. 
 
I’ve been calling myself a big wuss because when this new lovely addition to my life comes calling I drop like tear from a crocodile’s eye…or perhaps a tear from the eye of the magpie that the “Hemiseritoides heirgriphica” (pardon my spelling) drinks (after alighting on the bird’s neck - thank you Steven Colbert). 
 
After reading Jeremy’s response to my post, I think I may be only half wuss. I think most of my screaming comes from fear that the pain will not go away, or (unfortunately more likely) will come back.  
 
Pain pain go away come again…I’ve said this rhyme before. It don’t listen. 
 
I made a cake. I ate it. mmmmmmm….bye bye semblance of diet. 
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