The Bad News about Good News

Today I visited my oral surgeon for my routine check-up just to see how everything is progressing. Basically, he doesn't do much except ask me if I feel any pain and checks to see that the wires are still holding my jaw tight. Today makes 5 weeks of having my jaw wired shut and now I'm down to a consistent 168 lbs., down 17 lbs. since the day of the injury.

So he does the routine, feels my jaw to make sure I don't flinch or express any pain and then he drops this wonderful line to me:

Well, why don't you come back in another two weeks, which will be seven weeks, and we'll take an X-ray and make a decision whether we can take these wires off at that point.

Of course, I'm pretty psyched as I was actually hoping he'd take X-rays today and see that I'm "ahead of schedule" and tell me that he'll definitely be taking them off earlier than expected, but I guess I can't be too pushy given my luck lately.

So with the possibility of wire removal in two weeks, I decided to inquire exactly what this entails. And here's where he choked the good news with a hearty helping of bad.

First, we're just going to take of the wires that are holding your top and bottom together. That can be done here in the office and it's painless and pretty quick. But then I'm gonna want to leave the bars that go around your teeth on for another 4-6 weeks until we see how you're doing and whether you're able to eat, etc.

I nearly started crying right there. (Yeah, screw you for judging me) Just when I thought this disaster would be behind me in two, maybe three weeks, here he drops another month to a month and a half on top of this. It makes sense, in case things aren't quite healed, it'll be easier to re-wire my jaw, which would absolutely be the worst thing ever.

I guess I sort of knew I wouldn't be 100% after he took the wires off (people had mentioned re-strengthening my jaw), but I figured at least I'd look normal again. Oh well. At least I may be eating something other than soup in two weeks, so that's a tiny miracle.

Y'all are just gonna have to deal with the new Lil' Jon and Nelly inspired J-Man, and my barbed wire grill in September. YEAH!!!