Shelby Cass’s Weblog

Had to check to make sure it wasn’t a dream.  Yeahoooooo!!!!!

Well Gollllyyyyy! So this is life post-braces. Bring out the gum!

Let me tell you a little story about my yesterday.

Walked into Dr. Quo’s Mid-Peninsula Orthodontics and saw my name on the big screen, hailing my soon to be un-braced status. Christina greeted me with her usual lovely smile, checked me in, and away I went…

Christina

There are many awesome women working with Dr. Quo, but only one lucky woman was going to get the honor of prying pieces of porcelain from my teeth. Turns out Jamie got Shelby detail.

BEFORE (ugh self portraits while lying in a dentist’s chair…I don’t advise this for your portfolio)

and….

drumroll….

Where’d they go?!?

Oh, you thought we were done.

NEVER. BWA-ha-ha-ha This is another self-portrait. I kept cracking Jamie up because she’d maneuver all this goop in my mouth and while waiting for it to set, I kept pointing the camera back at her.

Dr. Quo makes her first appearance on my blog! She calls everyone “my dear” and is full of awesome. Right before this picture was taken, the whole team got together with noise makers and screamed congratulations and gave me a bottle of the bubbly. Bubbly what? Martinelli’s of course. It’s chilling as we speak.

Today I saw my dentist Dr. Steve and found out I got one little cavity (I have named it crapity) on the back of one of my top teeth, but ooh how I love me some slippy slidey teeth!

It’s official. I have reached New and Improved Shelby Status! I have cool night breathing action and BONUS slippy teeth! Buy one, get one free! Limited quantity. Hurry now!

First food post-braces: See’s candy butterscotch lolly (no teeth used, but nummy just the same)

First action post-braces: FLOSS (without a stupid threader!)

Second action post-braces: Totally DISCO dance in front of the entire office.

Regarding my surgery here’s what I have noticed. I can now feel (that sounds weird, but it’s the only way I can describe it) the places that are numb. Turns out I have one spot on my lower lip still MIA and most of the fronts of my gums are on haitus in the sensitivity department. My teeth are SOOOPER wiggly but I can’t tell since there’s no feeling in my gums…but Dr. Steve had fun wiggling them around a little.

I now move into official post-post surgery status. And so it goes…

Dr. Quo said, and I believe, that my braces come off today. So here are the last pictures EVER taken of me with braces…(so far)

OUTTA HERE!!!!

Dreaming of slippery teeth…ahhhhhhhhhhhh

Ah, the loveliness of the world that is timeshares…and if you JUST SAY NO you can get FREE trips to Vegas.  But if you say yes, you’ve bought yourself a monthly payment that you get to will to your kids.  Won’t they love you?  Anywho, before all the kidney fun and braces banding and shredding of my lips, I had “won” this trip, so Wednesday night saw us sliding onto a plane to Sin City, and what followed after that…well, I know what happens in Vegas is supposed to stay in Vegas, but I’m going share, as is my nature.

First of all, I couldn’t get Courtland to NOT work, so of course he brought his computer and I figured, heck, if he gets to geek out, I can at least check my email.  So I checked…and found out that a fellow Kasey’s Kid (that would be another person who had the same surgery for sleep apnea) was in town…so we arranged an impromptu meeting.  It just underlines the fact that I cannot go ANYWHERE without running into someone I know…  So SeattleBill, Courtland and I met up and hit the town.

  Courtland and Bill reenact the tragic Sigfried and Roy event.

mreow

And then it happened.  Only hours before our flight home, we stopped for lunch at what appeared to be your typical diner…but no.  On the menu was something that made my heart (and cholesterol) leap.  It read: Barbeque Pulled Pork Nachos.  It must be mine.  So I ordered, and the waiter IMMEDIATELY said, “Um.  It’s BIG.”  I said, “Okay” and he said, “No, I mean REALLY BIG.  4 people could share it.  It’s like our house specialty.  People get their pictures taken with it.”  And I looked at Courtland and he said “Get it” and I said to the waiter, “You can charge me full price and make me a mini one” to which he replied, “No.  But you can take the rest home with you.”  So we got the camera out, I took the rubber bands off of my teeth (I’m sure the waiter was wondering how the heck I was going to eat anything talking through clenched teeth like I was), and we waited…and it was worth it.

And with that, my diet was over.

The eyes in the Entire restaurant followed my nachos from the kitchen to my table and people were staring so much and so shocked at the enormity of it that I invited everyone over to try some.  No one took me up on it…they just stared.  And I ate.

And I ate.

And I ate.

Our waiter was so impressed he asked to have his picture taken with me.

To be completely honest, Courtland helped a little.  he had like 5 chips, so I didn’t do it all myself.  And to be even more honest, I really just took a fork to that mountain and ate all the BBQ pulled pork off the top of it, then asked the waiter to bring the plate back empty.  But don’t get me wrong.  I ATE A LOT.  And it was good.  And I am so glad that I hate Las Vegas and won’t go back anytime soon because more than one mountain of BBQ Pulled Pork Nachos in one’s lifetime is probably quite enough.

*burp*

Do you remember those sexy C&R commercials? Oh boy, I wanted me a fireman. okay anywho…

So yesterday I was guy smiley…until smiling became not my friend and my lips formed an odd attachment to hooks and…well, don’t click on this picture if you don’t want to see extreme ick closeup.

notice the LACK of smile

So taking the bands on and off is NOT an option since it takes me and my butterfingers at least 10 minutes to try and try again to get every single tooth hooked…and obviously the corners of my mouth are not happy with that game either.

The good news is (and yes, there is always good news) that Operation Birthday Suit is progressing in leaps and bounds (thank you sick diet!) and I am very very close to my OBS goal. I fit into another pair of pants that have been collecting dust since Operation Cake A Day, and I believe I weigh less than my boyfriend. Awesome!!!!

So, have a good evening. Eat something. Chew and revel in the chewiness.

Oh Dr Quo how I do love thee, despite the pain thou dost inflict upon me. I can’t help it. She’s so sweet! And everyone who works there is an angel, so I LOVE going…but I don’t so much love how I feel for a few days afterwards. Always a trade. Kind of like this kidney infection sucked big time, but since any pressure on my kidney from my stomach caused immediate pain/pukeage I had to eat much less and consequently got down to 151.5 for a moment!!!! That means I’m down 10 pounds!!! Hooray sick diet!

So this is what the good Dr. Quo did to me today:

One full week of this she says, but after 3 days I shouldn’t hurt as much. As much? Well, she explained with a kind of apologetic pained expression that my teeth were going to hurt A LOT…possibly more than they did when I FIRST GOT BRACES. Wow. I knew I should have eaten breakfast. By the time I got to work the throbbing in the head had begun and I couldn’t get pills into my mouth without un-banding (which I didn’t want to do). My boss and co-workers are wonderful and supportive and told me to get the H out of there since my job is talking and that wasn’t working well. I did some work, came home, and got some pain meds down. I’m just going to say this is all for the best and at least it’s all happening in one big fat chunk instead of sporadically. Right?

Ooh, here’s some fun news. Court bought me Guitar Hero the 80′s edition. Rock on sistah! I REALLY didn’t like the music on the first one…too heavy…hurt my head. But my new friend Lisa showed me the song list on the 80′s version (How can you say no to “Turning Japanese” and anything Oingo Boingo?), so I sat my butt down and rocked it. Mochi helped.

On a less pleasant note, I have officially confirmed my suspicions that the smell of leather makes me VERY nauseated, especially in a car, or probably any confined not extremely ventilated space.  Add a the stop start stop start of traffic, and you’ve got me tossing my cookies on the side of the highway.  That’s hot.  NOT!  Friday night it was raining, my friend Lisa picked me up, and the second I got into her car I felt REALLY bad. Leather seats have always been a problem for me, but I think since Dr. Li fixed my deviated septum and gave me ultra super smell power +5, it’s just plain unbearable. I wonder what that is. Allergy? On the one hand, I’m thrilled to be breathing better, but on the other, I had uber sensitive scent picking-uping nose before, and the more air in with each inhale thing makes stinky times EXTRA STINKY. I was hypnotized once by The Amazing Alexander. He told me his breath smelled like a rose and I couldnt’ get close enough. Then he told me his breath was horrible and foul and I gagged and almost uked on him and he had to quickly tell me the smell was gone. Maybe I need to get hypnotized to not be bothered by smells because Court is severely bummed now since the he was hoping his next car would have leather seats.

What to do…what to do… For now I think I’ll just concentrate on healing everywhere. Maybe if I get really in shape I’ll just run alongside the new leather-seated car. hahhaah

Do you think this will help?

Desperate times, people. Heh. Only kidding. I know the weight has to come off BELOW the neck. But I did FINALLY grow enough hair to harvest for Wigs for Kids or Locks of Love (haven’t sent it in yet). I needed 10″ for LOL and 12″ for WFK. I got about 13″ in that puppy, so I’m covered for either. They say it takes some huge number of ponytails to make one hairpiece, but I have SO MUCH HAIR (those words have been uttered by anyone who has ever embarked on the cutting of my hair journey) I think they should get much more out of these locks.

So what do I look like now? Well, I guess I’ll show you.

tada! New face, new hair…can you even recognize me? (evil laugh) bwahahahaha

I think my face is weird…but that’s maybe because it is finally proportional. Is that right? Well, My face used to end right below my mouth, but now it doesn’t.

Okay, granted self-portraits don’t look great, you can see my chin is very much in plain view. You can also see that I still have some swelling in the jowl area and I look like Droopy Dog. teehee I’m not complaining. It is what it is. I have found that smiling (however weird it may feel with lots of numbness) is a better look for me and my new facial addition.

Um…probably a more normal smile would work better, but you get the picture.

So here’s what my smile looked like before surgery and after:

More chinnage.

Okay it took way longer than it should have for this blog to be written and all…so I am off to do Monday things in a Monday way. Ciao. – smac

Mmm mmm good! I can’t stop gnawing on things! Why? Because I CAN!!! I’ve been getting my chopers back slowly but surely. I do my little “open up and saw OW” exercises to get my mouth open wider and Dr. Quo’s Otrhodonic force to be reckoned with has gotten my molars a bit more intimate, though still no touching. YET. Naughty teeth. I know what they want.

Okay moving on.

Court makes this wonderful little breakfast food called..um…Sausage Court Muffin…that sound just so wrong. But it’s a Sausage Mc’Muffin minus the Mc and plus the Court. How would you put it? Anyhow, I found these cool pre-formed just throw em in the oven biscuits in the pudding part of the Safeway refridgerator section, so I brought them home and one night we had breakfast for dinner and I got to eat the thing…assembled! Didn’t have to dissect…cause it was squishable. So exciting.

It was THIS BIG!!! (pre-squish)

Say “AHHHHHHHH” Okay…”OWWWWW”

I think it’s stuck.

You can DO it!

NUMMY!!!

I know you’re jealous. Get your own. teehee!

UGH. Ever had one of those days…two days in a row? I have. Don’t try it. It, in a word, sucks.

Jewelry is not treating me well these days. Don’t know why. Just is. I have one worksurface for both computer work and jewelry work. It’s a built in security measure. Security from what? From me leaving my jewelry stuff all over the place. The other security measure is having two cats who have no respect for trays full of loose beads, but I guess that wasn’t enough pressure for me in the past (my multiple bags of “non-sorted” beads as proof). Anyhow, I pushed my keyboard back, lowered my chair, and decided to be creative yesterday. Creative my big fat (nowhere near 135 lb.) BUTT. Jewelry-making is supposed to be kind of Zen..it has been in the past. Well, the kind of zen moments I was having yesterday involved detailed thoughts of death and dismemberment, so perhaps I should find a different word. I give up. 4 hours later I had jack all to show for my time and a pain in the neck. Literally. How ergo is that? So then Court and I got in an argument over why I should (he says NOT) get the electralift desk I found on sale (only problem is it’s blue–who cares? It’s an electralift desk!!!). I say I need it or I will never make jewelry again (melodrama anyone?) He has some logical argument I refuse to listen to. Whatever. We all know I’m right. Right? Right.

So my conclusion yesterday was: Who the hell am I to “make” jewelry? Do I think I’m something special? And Court said that was irrational and non productive thought. Who _IS_ this man? I went to bed, played Sudoku, and had dreams of a room full of birthday cakes (and I tasted all of them except the carrot cake and what was that doing in my dream anyhow?). I also dreamt I was witness to a dual orca drop from flying blimp pods into a Sea World pool. You shoulda been there. It was awesome.

Today (after enjoying breakfast in bed-yeah that’s right!) I got up with visions of butterflies. Really. I was going to make cascading butterflies out of beads and wire. As with most visions I have, I went to the place where the visions were to be realised, sat down, and did something completely different. Today it was computer stuff. A little of this, a little of that…posted some stuff on eBay…decided to update my jewelry website…worked for 4 hours and then Court said “I made lunch” and it smelled so good so I clicked “Post” and it took me back to the login page. WHAT THE FLOCK of Seagulls?!?!?! I calmly (HAH) cursed out myself and the computer and .Mac and opened a tab and logged in and tried going back to the page I was working on in the other window I’d been working in…and Court tried to both help me and talk me down from the edge of chucking the screen (actual computer too heavy for chucking) across the room and well, THAT didn’t go well. Then I found out it was daylight savings. Another thing for my butt. So I didn’t just lose 4 hours of work (yes, it’s ALL GONE–and yes this has happened before and NO I don’t learn. So be quiet.), I lost FIVE.

Yes, my jaw hurt like heck and yes it hurts now just thinking about it, so I am going to go play Sudoku and dream of a better time and place where three-toed sloths on jetskis drive me to school every day where I get straight A’s.

Oh, here’s some pix for kicks:

this is me laughing because I tried to take a picture and said “My camera is broken” and then realised it wasn’t ON. I smart.

I now have 5 teeth that touch and can eat chicken (like a rabbit eating a carrot). Can you tell I have been eating lots of curry? Blame Court. He’s been experimenting with Indian spices.

Ah, the profile.

Good night.