I need my teeth!

I had an appointment with my orthodontist today. They took impressions of my upper jaw to make my new pontics and adjusted my wires. Right after I left my orthodontist's office I received a call/message telling me that my orthodontist says that I'm ready for surgery and to call my surgeon to schedule my appointment!! Umm, what?! The message told me to aim for an appointment in December and that I will need to go see my surgeon for my pre-op so that they can take all the surgical records! After all the drama with UCSF, this was the best news ever!

As far as scheduling my appointment, they are two parts my surgeon's office needs before they will let me schedule, first being approval from my orthodontist that I'm ready for surgery and second being a signed financial arrangement. First part down part down and they mailed my financial arrangement last Friday, should be getting it any day now. I'm planning on calling them tomorrow and seeing what I need to do next.

There is still the little fact that my primary insurance switches as of October 1st. Part of me doesn't want to tell them until I have scheduled my surgery, but I don't want that to result into more problems. The good news about my new insurance is that they only take 5 days (I'm assuming business days) to process a pre-authorization request. More details to come!

Side note: When they were going to take the impressions for my pontics, they removed my current ones and I was able to see what I truly look like with my gaps. Here's a picture. It took me a little bit to get used to them, but thankfully they put my pontics back in so I won't have gaps in my teeth while they make my new ones.

Ring, Ring......Hello?

I got an unexpected call from my surgeon's office, well not completely unexpected, but didn't think they would be calling me back so soon. I had sent an email requesting to have my surgeon look over my current x-rays and confirm the treatment that had been set and go over it a little more in detail with me. I got a call this afternoon saying that they got my email and Dr. Bloomquist would like to talk to me and if right that minute worked for me?! Yikes, I hadn't even really thought about what I wanted to ask him, no list, so unprepared, but I wasn't going to let this opportunity slip away. I was expecting them to give me an "appointment" when I could expect a phone call.

I did learn a few very valuable aspects of the surgery from the phone, which I am very thankful! The most amazing thing he could have said and did was that I will not be rubber banded shut!! A miracle if I've ever heard one. How is that possible you ask? Technology. He said that from all his experience he hasn't seen the rubbers to make a difference and in some cases to make things worse. Thank you Dr. Bloomquist! He did say that they do rubber band you shut for the first night due to the swelling, but they normally don't send you home with rubber bands!

As far as needing a splint or not depends on if he will need to widen my upper jaw or not and he wouldn't know that until he takes the molds one month before the surgery. With not being rubber banded shut and the possibility of not needing a split is making the food after surgery not look so bad. He said he would want me to start eating very soft foods after about a week post op since I'll have to learn how to chew all over again. It would be 8 weeks though until I can chew hard food and 10 weeks for contact sports, but I'm not worried about that part. He did say that I can exercise as soon as I feel up to after surgery as long as my face is in no danger of getting hurt.

All in all pretty good new from Seattle for me today. I have an appointment with my orthodontist on the 21st, after that appointment he will send a letter up to Seattle to let them know when I'll be ready for surgery. Once that's on file and I've signed my financial agreement I can schedule my surgery!

There was one hiccup that I'm trying not to get in the way, my work is switching insurance providers, which means that I'll need to get a new authorization on file from them. If the two insurances that I have currently have approved my double jaw surgery, I feel pretty confident that my new one will as well.