Looking over previous posts I realized I've never outlined the plan – what my surgeries will entail. From the picture you can tell I have a Class II Malocclusion (overbite instead of underbite). You might also suppose that the person taking the picture needs surgery to correct their one abnormally shorter leg that causes them to list to one side. But you can read more about that in another blog.
As a side note, I have noticed that the Class III Malocclusion patients (underbiters) have done a much better job with the blogs. Come on Class IIs!!! We have to fight the stereotype of being buck-toothed hicks!!!! For those of you who don't know, the Class IIs and Class IIIs have a fierce rivalry resembling that between werewolves and vampires in the Twilight series. (Almost exactly mirroring it actually. In fact, I am brooding about it right now.)
So after consultations with a handful of various doctors, here's the plan:
1. Braces Get braces to increase my overjet (decrease the distance my jaw will be moved in surgery) and widen my narrow upper arch. (done)
2. Wisdom Teeth Extraction Remove three severely impacted teeth early. The gaps left in my jaws need time to fill-in before the jaws are broken in surgery. Also, have excess irony removed. (done and done)
3. Orthognathic Surgery Break upper and lower jaws and move them forward. Set with titanium screws. Use braces to hold in place. My mother is very concerned that I will lose too much weight. I am concerned that I will not be thinner than my arch rival – Abraham Lincoln.
4. Rhinoplasty and Septoplasty Straighten septum. Remove my "dorsal hump." (Before you get excited, that is just the bump on my nose. I am not a mutant, half man/half fish crime fighter. That would be a "dorsal fin". I hope that cleared up any confusion.) My doctor told me that everyone with a recessed chin has a dorsal hump on their nose. Would you like to obsessively look for that on everyone in the subway like I do? Go for it.
Also, when I try to breath through my nose, the sides collapse. So they will remove some cartilage from a rib and use it to strengthen the sides of the nose. (I have encouraged them to remove as many ribs as necessary. While my heart would be largely unprotected, I'd fit into size 29-waist pants. I know. Medical decisions like these can be so difficult to tease apart.)
5. Throw Pillows and Candlesticks The final bits will involve finishing my orthodontics and cosmetic dentistry stuff and I should be a breathing sleeper-through-the-night.
