Braces, Xanax, Happy Juice, and Balloons......

Ok, I should be sleeping, but I'm not at all sleepy so I decided to blog. In just a few short hours, the sun will be shining and I will begin a busy Wednesday. I'll start my morning at the Orthodontist with my 12 year old, Kylee. She will be getting her braces put on today. My 17 year old, Haley, has already been there, done that and as you can tell from my pic, I am currently there, doing that (for the second time). Next month will be a year since I had my braces put on. How I ended up with braces at 37 for the 2nd time, you ask? It's a looong story that I will post one day. It is just another testament to my craziness, if you wanna know the truth.

Well, since I am WIDE awake, let me give you the tootsie roll version, short and sweet....I wore braces when I was a teenager. Very uneventful, nothing out of the ordinary. I wore my retainer, as instructed, for the year following their removal. Little did I know, over the span of 20 years that followed, my teeth shifted.

In the age of MySpace, my daughter posted pictures of the family on her profile. I was looking at her pictures one day and one of them was a side view of me smiling. I saw a gap in my teeth, not like a little gap, but like a BIG GAP, where you could do some serious shopping. Now, my family and friends would debate the size of my gap, but it may as well have been the Grand Canyon because that's what it looked like to me. So, 2 weeks later I had braces. I couldn't stand that gap. I didn't know I had a gap that big. Certainly, nobody told me and I didn't look at myself smiling in the mirror sideways. My teeth were perfectly straight in the front or so they seemed.

So anyway, I have braces for the 2nd time and LAST time. I will wear that retainer forever cause believe me, I won't be attending this rodeo again. Yes, my hubby and my friends think it is absolutely ridiculous that I have braces, but I don't care. I thought about that gap all the time. So, hopefully in about 8 months I'll be finished and best of all, GAPLESS!!!

Anyway, back to Kylee, she has hers put on today. She is only excited about the pretty colored rubber bands she gets to have, lol. I will need a Xanax for the appointment, not because braces are bad, but because Kylee is a horrible patient. I'm telling the truth, she is, she knows it and will gladly admit it.

I can't take a Xanax, however, for two reasons: 1.) Because I don't have a prescription for Xanax, good reason, huh? 2.) I have an appointment for an EGD tomorrow @ 1pm and I can't have anything after midnight, which was about an hour and 15 minutes ago here in Bama. That is the procedure where they run the light down your throat and see what is going on in your esophagus and stomach. The GI Doctor is 99% confident I have a narrowing of my esophagus from acid reflux, thus the difficulty swallowing and hoarseness. The difficulty swallowing, of course, from the obvious, the esophagus narrows, food doesn't go down easily. The hoarseness, from the acid irritating my vocal cords. The acid causes you to develop scar tissue, which in turn causes the narrowing. Makes sense, huh? Once he locates the narrowed area, he will inflate a balloon to dilate it open again.

Oh, the marvels of modern medicine!!!! I just praise Jesus, for the happy juice I will recieve prior to this procedure. He also changed my medication around and told me sleep propped up on pillows. I usually sleep completely flat, without a pillow, so this has been quite a change. He said it was like any other irritation, once the irritant was gone, it would slowly get better. I pray this is the source of my problem and this fixes it.

Say a prayer for me. The worst part of the procedure is not being in control. Like, I hate the fact that I will be out of it after the procedure when He is discussing the findings. The nurse in me needs to hear each and every detail and ask questions. Ok, the OCD, control freak that happens to be a nurse, needs to hear each and every detail and ask questions =) There is nothing I can do about it, though, except think of all possible scenarios and make a list of questions for the Hubby to ask, lol. I'll be out of it for a good part of the afternoon so I will catch up with all of you, my blogging friends, as soon as my happy juice wears off.


=],

Gracie