Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Surprise, Surprise and A Little Deep Thinking

So, it turns out . . . my gap in my smile is gone! WOOOOOOOO!

So, to actually explain what this means, I'll actually try to explain this, hahaha. So, for . . . the time that I've gotten my braces, I've had a gap in my smile. A big. Gaping. HOLE. This is also where the fistula was in my mouth. It was between lip and my gum of where my canine tooth or whatever was supposed to be. Actually, I once had that tooth, but the dentist and orthodontist at the time thought that it would be best to take that tooth out and then we'd replace that tooth with a fake one. 

It turns out, now that I can kind of smile (although it still definitely hurts and it strains my face because of the swelling I still have) I can actually see that the gap is gone. It's filled with a tooth!!!! I think what they ended up doing was moving my jaw in a way that filled the teeth in where that hole was and now, I have a 'complete' smile. Well, kind of. 

Anyway, I was actually really happy to see that because I've always hated that gap. It was really wide and I felt really self-conscience about it because well, everyone else I know has a normal smile. A 'normal' face. A face that everyone is so used to seeing while mine definitely has it's differences from everyone else due to me being born cleft lip & palate.

So yay! It makes me even more excited to see what the future has in store later for my smile and my face. I'm just hoping that it won't make more self conscience . . . which I guess, leads me to my next part of this post. 

So I'm going back to school tomorrow. I'm officially twelve days post-op and I'm definitely feeling strong enough to go back to school, as my surgeon/doctor said that it would be okay to be going back to school. However, I still get random dizzy moments and I still feel self-conscience about my face partly because I know for a fact that I look different from what I used to look like. At the end of the day, I know I should be happy about this surgery, but at the same time, I'm so nervous about the results. 

I didn't tell that many people about this surgery . . . just a few teachers (not even all of them) and my best friend who's a thousand miles away and obviously, my family knows about it. The only difference was that I know that somebody was listening to me talking to a teachers so they know about it. So yeah . . . 

I guess what I'm most afraid is people will be judging my face more than I do and even though I know it's not 'right' to care about what others think about you, it's kind of impossible. I think everyone has at one point in their life, dwelled on the flaws about them. I want people to think that I am strong and I'm okay with this process because truth is, I am. I'm keeping an open-mind but I'm afraid people who don't know anything about this kind of operation or my life will end up just going straight to a conclusion about my face and who I am and that is never going to be okay with me. 

I think what's going to end up happening is people are going to want to talk to me and people are going to want to ask how I am and stuff and just observe me but that makes me feel like some stupid science project. I don't feel like being social, although I'm sure a lot of people feel like they should be social after this . . . or maybe they do feel like me? I don't know. I just know that talking makes it even more evident that I'm different and I've got a new scar in me both emotionally and physically and I don't think I can handle that at this point in time. 

I'm hoping I will learn to not dwell on this and I'm able to keep my head held high and hopefully, managed to go back to school unscathed and okay in the end. 

I'm also anxious to see how homework is going to ruin my life. ): Ugh. For all of you wondering, I'm definitely an anxious student who works hard at whatever I can to keep my grades up and being away from school has taken it's own toll. It's hard not to fall behind while missing about five days of school and let's be honest, I'll probably be buried in homework and stuff and that is going to be the death of me. I'm anxious to see how I hold up with the stress.

I'll keep you guys updated and hopefully, I'll be able to post something after I get back from my first return to school.

I hope all of you are wonderful and for those of you also dealing with the recovery of this surgery, I pray that you guys are all recovering nicely and feel just as confident as you should. (:

2 comments:

  1. Good luck returning to school today, make sure you let me know how it goes! Wear that new non existent hole with pride too! :) xx

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    1. Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner! I'm packed with all the stuff I missed from school! (: Thank you so much for your support as I'm sure you know what it means! It went okay! I kind of went into it in a post that I quickly wrote but overall, it was okay. Not great, but bad--somewhere in the middle.

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