Braces, jaw surgery...Part II

Three months ago, I visited a TMJ specialist to get a new occlusal splint for my TMJ problem and was shocked by his recommendations.
Yesterday, Taciturn and I visited a new orthodontist who proposes a little surgery, not a huge amount that can only be done by one person like the other guy did. He told us what his tentative plan would be, but we were reassured by his words that he wanted to present my case to his partners (the other guy was in solo practice) and discuss me before he came up with a definitive plan. He said he wanted to use the brain power that was available to him.

The other thing that actually made us feel better in an odd way was that this new orthodontist offered no guarantees. The first guy was kind of cocky in that way. And I always wonder in this day and age about folks in solo practice. Do they not play well with others?

Dr. E agreed with the first guy that my bite is extremely complicated. He looked closely at the mouth model from my pre-treatment in 1982 to see how my mouth originally was before I had braces the first time at age 25, and noted some things in my original bite that made me a set up for TMJ.

In other words, I am one of those people who should have had braces, headgear, the whole shibang when I was ten. But, since in those days my family barely had money for food to eat let alone anything else, I didn't. In fact, my first visit to a dentist took place at age 12.

So parents, when the dentist says maybe you should think about braces for your young children and you can afford it, go for it. Try to help them avoid what I've gone through for over twenty-five years. Better to do this when the bones are still forming than when they are set. This is why I have to have facial surgery. What must be accomplished through surgery now could have been done with headgear as a child.

Again, preventative care simply is better overall in terms of human misery, as well as cheaper. See all of my posts on SCHIP.

Before I get off on that particular soapbox again, we plan to use Dr. E and his partners. They will make my treatment models in a couple of weeks, and present a detailed plan to us on Good Friday of all days (gotta take appointments when they are available). And we'll go from there!

I'm tired

Sorry I haven't posted lately. I'm just tired, bone weary, actually.

I'm not sick, like Eileen and Heather were. I'm just tired.

I'm tired of trying to fight against our President who will let children go without health insurance then have the balls to ask for another outlandish amount of money in his attempt to launch WWIII to mask his disdain for the regular (not rich) American people. It's the regular folks that fight these dumb wars.

I'm also tired of listening to the President and his minions beat the drum against the Iranian government. This sounds suspiciously like what happened before the Iraq disaster. I'm afraid, like I heard a guest on Bill Moyers say a few weeks ago, that our less than transparent government officials will bomb Iraq out of the blue at night when we are all sleeping. I'm tired of listening to Taciturn agree with the President that war with Iran is the right thing to do. His views of our President are the total opposite of mine, so we've agreed to not discuss it as our attempts to do so usually end up in screaming matches that are unhelpful to either of us.

I'm tired of the AAC. My poor mission diocese, which contains the most economically disadvantaged county in the entire United States, cannot deal with this. The priorities must be the heart of the Gospel, not who is pure enough to see in church. Worries about purity then supercede if the people in the pews are eating or not, a very real concern in this diocese.

And I'm tired of having mice in my basement! Last night our kitty Eliza brought a very alive mouse into our living room while we were watching a DVD, then released it. The resulting chaos caused our DVD player to be knocked off its perch (among other things) while the cats and the mouse scrambled all over the place. Finally the mouse got into a gap between our cabinets and the dishwasher and disappeared. We were able to control the mice with D-Con before the kitties came, now we can't use that so we are using something that is not toxic to pets but not as toxic as I would like for mice, either. We can only keep out so many traps!

What can happen

If you are an outspoken opponent of the President's stance on SCHIP.

You become a victim of the smear machine of the Far Right. They have stooped so low as to attack a brain injured child. Read about it here.

See Lauralew shaking her head...

Blame the Democrats

For the failure of the SCHIP legislation? That is what Mike Leavitt, secretary of Health and Human Services, says.

I don't.

I've already written Sen John Thune, R-SD, to tell him how disappointed I was in his vote on the issue and unless he voted to override the veto, I certainly would remember his heartless act when he runs for re-election in a few years.

Again, I didn't leave the Republican Party. They left me.

(Sounds familiar, doesn't it?)