Day 54

First off, I'm EXTREMELY sorry about not posting. I've been terrible about keeping the blog updated, especially when it's actally been a fairly eventful 53 days since my last post!

Today, things are great. I've noticed a huge difference especially with my bottom teeth - the gap where they extracted the 4's is basically closed up now on the right side. The left side still has some room but is getting there. The rest of my bottom teeth have straighted out very nicely actually!! For the top teeth, I'm declaring the gap officially closed. There's still a very small triangle at the top, but yes, closed! Okay, now lets update you on the first month:

After getting the braces on, I noticed that flossing was just not going to be an option. I couldn't even thread the floss through to my back teeth and the whole process took 15 minutes. Can't do that. But I am used to flossing everyday and the thought of all that food stuck in there grosses me out, so I immediately bought a waterpik. I love it. According to the waterpik people, it removes more plaque from in between teeth than flossing. It's basically a pressure-washer for your teeth. I HIGHLY recommend this for people who don't have the 15 minutes/day to floss! In addition, I bought some special "braces" brushes for my Oral B Triumph which has been working quite well. I think the brush is just a little softer than usual, and then there's another "pick" kind of brush that I use to clean the metal.

It took me a while to get used to the braces. For the first week, I was holding my jaw closed. When I went to open my jaw to do something as simple as talk, it actually took some effort to unlock my jaw because I was closing it so hard. Weird. That lasted a week or so - I'm over it now.

On day 2 or 3 with my braces, the bracket on the top-2 tooth on the right side detached from my tooth. I think the tension in the wire was too much or something! Anyways, no big deal, got it fixed up a few days later. Then a few days after that, I caught myself grinding my teeth at night (this was when I was still holding my jaw closed), then as I woke up, I heard a snap at the back. The very back bracket on the bottom broke off. The difference this time was that since it was the back bracket, I had a piece of wire sticking out. It wasn't poking at me or anything though. My ortho said that since it was a back tooth, it doesn't matter much, so if I wanted to have it fixed, no problem, but if I wanted to wait until my next appt, no problem either. I decided to wait until the next appt.

What happened next though was awful. With that little piece of wire in there, I would poke at it with my finger several times daily. One night before dinner, I did my routine wire check, then ate. After dinner was over, there was NO WIRE where there had been one before!! Having just felt it before I starting eating, I was convinced that I swallowed it as I ate!! My fiancee's mom is a nurse and told me to go to the ER - after all, it's a pretty sharp piece of metal, and about a half-inch long. That ER experience was the worst. Got there around 10pm or so, and did not leave until just before 6am. And all that time was spent for me to hear from the doctor, "If you experience any sickness over the next day or two, come back." Ugh. Brutal. Anyways, long story short, a few days passed and I was feeling fine, so I figured that everything worked out naturally (sorry if that caused a graphic image!).

Then a few weeks back I go to my first Ottawa Senators vs. Toronto Maple Leafs hockey game ever here in Toronto. I am an Ottawa fan, and have a Daniel Alfredsson jersey, so decided to wear it. For those who don't know the Toronto/Ottawa 'rivalry', Daniel Alfredsson (or "Alfie") is public enemy #1 for Toronto fans. So my sweater clearly garnered some attention. But it wasn't bad until Alfie scored what ended up being the winning goal on a penalty shot. There was this drunken idiot a few rows behind me chirping me for the rest of the night. I kept watching the game, only looking up once to see who was doing this. Some punk, early 20's, drunk, Leafs fan, you know the type. Moron. Anyways, after the game was over, it turned out that he got down beside me and took a handful of his beer and threw it in my face. Can't say that's happened before, but it felt like I got spit on. Given all the chirping and everything, I hurled some insults his way - a total of three sentences. I got down into the tunnel and he decided to take the rest of his beer and throw that into my face. This time, I took it. Walked away. As I was exiting the building, I looked behind me a few times to see if this dick was following me, but could not see anything. Of course, I am not the most difficult person to follow - I'm 6'7" and was wearing a red Ottawa sweater in a sea of blue and white Leaf sweaters. So he must have followed me from a distance and then made his move when I got outside, because about 10 seconds after I got outside, I heard from behind me "HEY ALFIE!" I turned around, and took a big right hook to my left cheek. Big. It didn't knock me down, but there was some significant bleeding. Of course, the dick ran off right afterwards. I'm not a fighter (it was my first punch to the face), but he didn't give me a chance put my hands up or to even take my glasses off. Pretty sure that's against the rules.

I mention that story because LUCKILY it didn't get me in the teeth. His hand would have been pretty messed up had it got me in the mouth, but my teeth would have been worse off. Who knows? Maybe he did fuck up his hand. Anyways, the fall out was bad. I had a mild concussion, and some broken blood vessels in my eye that basically turned my right eye completely dark red and made me look like a zombie for a couple of weeks. My whole cheekbone was deeply bruised, but no broken bones. I filed a report, but there's no chance they'll find the guy. Bigger fish to fry in Toronto. It's too bad though - it's totally a solvable case. I know exactly where he was sitting.
I'm SO sure they can track who used those tickets that night. Ugh. I'm going to call the police tomorrow and ask for a follow-up.

See what I mean by eventful?!?!

Then I had my first adjustment appointment. Nothing was adjusted though. They kept the same gauge of wire in there. Dr. Roy said that the teeth had not moved far enough yet - I guess that's common in adult teeth. We started talking about the big surgery next fall. The surgeons are probably going to start looking at me at my next appointment in 2 weeks.

After that appointment, I went to Ottawa and to Montreal for my birthday weekend. I was out in Montreal wearing my Ottawa jersey (a game that Ottawa won as well) and got no idiotic comments whatsoever. It was a much better experience.

Back to the teeth - my next appointment is at some point this month. I'll try to post then. I also have some pictures that I PROMISE to post on here soon.

Sorry for the novel! Thanks for reading. Take care!!!