you are viewing archives from 2005

jabber-jaw

feel like a coma victim who’s just woken up to realize that a few weeks have passed and I wasn’t around for any of it. It’s not that I haven’t written because I have nothing to say; I haven’t written because I don’t know what to write.

I went home for Russian Christmas. I saw my parents and family friends, I drank champagne and ate pierogi. I slept with A. bundled up under three sets of covers in my childhood room. We ate Alfie-Burgers and drove into Chicago on a foggy night, pointing out the sights of the city.

We flew home, slipping into LAX between rainstorms. Then my New Year truly began. Except that the year has gotten away from me a bit, and I won’t get it back until mid-March at the earliest.

Why not until March, you ask?

On February 3rd, I’m scheduled for my jaw surgery. This is what the past two years of braces have been leading up to. Between my adolescence and now, I’ve spent about seven years in braces. That’s a little over twenty percent of my life.

Of course, it’s not just called ‘jaw surgery.’ That would be too easy. No, I’m having a Multisegment and Bilateral Sagittal Osteotomies, along with Chin Repositioning and possible Cheekbone Augmentation. In lay terms, they’re moving my upper and lower jaw forward and up. If I ‘lose’ my cheekbones because everything’s being moved so far forward, the surgeon will give me new ones. Oh, and he’s gonna liposuct under my chin, well, because he’s there and why not?

Fortunately, the guy who pioneered this surgery is the guy who’s doing mine. He’s so popular that it took me six months to get a consultation. I was referred to him by my orthodontist, who tells me at each appointment that this is The Guy. The only complaints I’ve ever heard about the surgeon are that he’s too expensive, and that he’ll spend an extra two hours in the O.R. to get an A+ result instead of settling for an above-average B.

So this is the guy who I want to rearrange my face.

The downside is that while my insurance has deemed the procedure medically necessary, they won’t say how much they’ll cover. So I have the fun of writing a check to pay for the surgery outright and then submit paper to be reimbursed later. I’ve tried calling and yelling and sending notes, but that seems to be the way insurance companies operate. I’m beginning to think I pay just to have the spiffy card in my wallet.

This whole thing occurred simply because I wanted a decent profile. Anyone who knows me in the flesh knows that I go Sean Penn on anyone who takes a candid photo of me from the side. You see, I have this little issue called lack-of-chin. For as long as I can remember, I’ve made it a practice to jut my lower jaw forward to compensate for my receding profile. When I went through braces the first time, my mother asked the orthodontist if I’d need surgery to correct my enormous overbite. He said no, he could fix it. And fix it he did. He stuck me in a headgear and moved my upper jaw back to compensate, ruining my profile permanently.

Bastard.

So here I was, fifteen years later, wanting a consult with a plastic surgeon to fix my profile. An online friend of mine who happened to be a dentist told me that I should consult an orthodontist first. I laughed at her but asked my dentist when I was in for my cleaning a few weeks later. He referred me to his orthodontist (as my dentist was in braces himself), and the orthodontist explained that my bite is so screwy that I’m wearing down my teeth, and if this keeps up I’ll be in dentures by the time I’m sixty.

If someone said that to me when I was fifteen, I wouldn’t have batted an eye. I would have simply smirked and said that I wasn’t going to live past forty, thankyouverymuch. But in my early 30’s, realizing that adulthood kicks serious adolescent ass, I’d like to stick around and have my own choppers for as long as I can.

Post-surgery my mouth won’t be wired shut, but the jaws will be connected by heavy rubber bands, presumably so the joints can get some work. However, I won’t be eating solid food for three to four months. Most normal people would be bothered by this; me, I look at it as an opportunity to be forced to eat well. While obviously I’m not going to intentionally diet during recovery, patients who undergo this sort of procedure generally lose anywhere from ten to forty pounds. During the holiday season I decided that I wouldn’t necessarily stuff myself, but I wouldn’t watch like a hawk what I ate. I’ve come to two conclusions: my body likes to be fat, and I have finally convinced myself that I will always, always have to watch what I eat. End of story.

A., as you can imagine, is a bit freaked out. I like your face, he keeps telling me. I promise him that I’ll still look like me, only I won’t hate my smile and freak out every time someone hauls out a camera.

I’ve spent the last four years making myself over: redoing my mind, redoing my body. This is the last step in the process, and I’m ready to be done, Six months after surgery, the braces come off, and I’ll be done.

DONE.

Until I can find something else to fret about.