Felling a little better

I went to the Oral Surgeon on Monday afternoon. He said everything looked good and that I don't need to come up for follow up. However, he said to keep my appt that's in 2 weeks so we can work out a date for the bone graft. He did think that late June or early July was quite possible for that surgery.
He asked if I would be interested in a fake tooth with some sort of device that would cover up my hole and prevent fluid from going up my nose. I said yes, and he called Dr. F. He didn't speak to him, but plans to. I was so happy I nearly cried, I felt very cared for by Dr. S. He also anticipates that Dr. F will allow my palate to close up a bit before the surgery and said that my teeth are slanted out a bit, which I hear is common with the Surgically Assisted Rapid Palate Expander.

I asked where he gets the skin from for the palate and he said there is always plenty of skin in the cleft (remember it's two separate pieces of palate that are covered. He cuts that skin strategically so that there is enough for my base of my sinuses/nose and enough for the roof of my mouth. That's kinda what I thought, but now I know for sure.

A gross story, but it's almost funny 2 days later

You have been warned... But I think it's an interesting story if you want to know what it's like to have a palate expander.

I used to go to a place at a local mall that does messages on message tables. I went once after my surgery and with the trouble swallowing and laying on my stomach it was hard to keep the saliva in my mouth for 10 minutes, but I was able to do it. I hadn't been there since the surgery since my face was swollen and stuff and this week I thought I would give it a try, big mistake.

So I go and ask for a 10 minute message. A few minutes in the saliva in my mouth in building up and eventually I end up drooling through the hole in the table. Opps. But I feel a little better. Eventually I try to lift my head a bit to slurp up the saliva and swallow it. Another big mistake. It seemed to have pushed the saliva into my sinuses (not hard to do with the hole in the roof of my mouth.) So now it just dripped out of my nose uncontrollably. It was gross and I totally couldn't stop it. Think of a couple minutes of saliva dripping out of your nose...

I wont be going back there anytime soon, and I wont be getting a message while laying on my stomach either. I wonder if I can do one of those funky chairs?

Full expanded and need a tooth

On Wednesday I went to Dr. F and was done expanding! He put something in the expander so it wouldn't move anymore, took some pictures and an x-ray. He told me I come back in 4 weeks and he'll make me a fake tooth for the gap.

Here's where things kinda went sour and the reason I didn't post this for so long. I asked Dr. F what we were going to do about my not being able to talk. Well, he said I was talking fine and left it at that. I'm not sure if he can do anything, maybe Dr. S made up the thing about the retainer type of thing. But I felt like I was blown off. My speech is fine if you're a 10 year old. But I'm 33 years old and speak to government officials at work. I'm in a position at work where I can't afford misunderstandings. In most cases I can be understood, but it's not uncommon that I have to repeat myself or rephrase things so that people can understand me. I'm quite frustrated with this and am not sure how I'll deal with it for another 3 to 5 months. On top of having issues at work, it doesn't make me want to go out and meet people or go to social events. It's one thing to have speech problems with friends and family, it's another thing when you're with people you don't know. It makes a new social setting even more stressful. I start work again tomorrow, it should be interesting...

If I had known about this I don't know if I would have chosen this route. It's not just about my problems with speech, and at the end I'll probably be happy with everything and all this discomfort and frustration will be forgotten. But the palate expander is quite inconvenient, I have trouble swallowing, eating, taking medication, brushing my teeth. If I knew then what I know now I would have asked a lot more questions and maybe made a different decision. There's a lot of things that weren't in the brochure I got.

Also, I was supposed to get my dental cleaning this coming week, that will have to be put off for 6-8 weeks to avoid getting an infection in my cleft.

Update, including gross stuff

Sorry I've been so quiet lately, I've been meaning to post, but just haven't gotten myself together to do it. I've been healing well and progressing well so all of that is good. I'm not in any real pain. Occasionally, I feel a little sore in the cheeks after expanding, but that's more of an uncomfortable feeling then a pain feeling and it only lasts a little while. I have encountered two problems though... If you don't like gross stuff, don't read past here.

If you look back to months ago where I posted photos of my mouth you can see a light line in the roof of my mouth. That is where my cleft palate was pulled together, closing the hole that was in the roof of my mouth. Think of it as the roof palate being made of two pieces that were pushed together, the crease could always allow liquids to pass through, but it was so tightly fit that it rarely happened. Well what the palate expander is doing is pushing those two pieces of palate apart. Now all those liquids can EASILY (especially if my head isn't upright) pass through to my nose. Food hasn't been a problem though. The good news is that my eating is going better, I'm not back to steaks yet but I'm eating nearly as much food as I was in the past at a meal. It's still softer foods, but it's getting easier to find foods to eat on a menu and I'm not stuck eating the same foods for every meal.

The other problem is with my speech. I'm losing a lot of air through my nose and sound very nasally. I'm having trouble enunciating some sounds, it's very frustrating. To make it even worse I have a tendency to talk fast, which makes me even harder to understand.

Dr. S had mentioned there was the possibility of a retainer type of thing that could be made to help, and I think I need that, A LOT. But it looks like Dr. F will have to make it and I suspect when he makes this it will include a tooth (where the large gap has formed.) I'll ask about that next week when I go to Dr. F for my last expansion on March 17.

Days 4, 5, and 6

So Days 4, 5, and 6 of surgery were not good days. All the liquid medications were really bothering my stomach and making me throw-up. Not a particularly nice thing to do after having surgery on your mouth. I was prescribed an anti-nausea medication which was only partly helpful but cost me $60, ouch! I ended up switching my penicillin to a pill and stopped taking the Tylenol with codeine.

On Saturday I went to Dr. F (my Friday appointment was canceled due to snow) and apparently the palate expander wasn't tightening quite right, he said it was loose. I was subsequently rotated 4 times at that appointment causing pain to 1 tooth and a bit of dizziness. But otherwise Dr. F said things were looking good and I wasn't too swollen.

Days 1 and 2 - Post-Op

I'm finally back to report on days 1 and 2 post surgery. They were relatively quiet days, I would take medication every 4-6 hours (I took a total of 5 on top of any medication I was already taking) and was in and out of sleep most of the time. I missed some good parts of the olympics in these in and out of sleep fazes. There was a fair amount of pain, but nothing crazy as long as I was taking pain killers (Tylenol with codeine). The pain was primarily in the area just below my cheek bones, but also a bit in my temples.

Eating was difficult since my mouth didn't open much. Primarily I just had broth, jello and maybe an egg. Eating was slow and I wasn't terribly hungry. I stuck with mostly apple juice to drink.

I slept on my parents recliner/couch, it allowed me to keep my head up without fighting pillows. This was a particular issue since the night before surgery I tried to sleep kinda upright so I wouldn't get too congested and had a terrible time sleeping and had a little bit of a stiff neck in the morning.

On Wednesday I had to use my key to open the expander once. Being the only one who knew how to use the expander I had to do it myself. I got the key in the hole pretty quickly and did it. It didn't hurt much, though I did feel some pressure in my head.