My journey to breathe

One way I find helpful to cope, is to make light of a difficult situation and I enjoy poking fun at myself. Thankfully Freud is not my therapist and can’t analyze me for the next decade on that. I know sometimes it’s healthy and other times it’s me trying to not show how scared I am. With my gap, I needed a nickname for it because I believe when something has a name, it’s less scary…I’m looking at you Voldemort! So, I became Tow Mater from Cars. By September of 2018, I started the Invisalign and by December/January, my gap was gone. I have nothing positive to say about the expander. I loathed every single second it was in my mouth. I was told that it may be able to come off in December. It did not. I would fantasize about roping Gary or someone into snipping it off for me. I need more enabling people in my life. Finally, at 9am on Thursday, February 28 th , 2019, it was removed! The roof of my mouth never felt to weird before in all my life! The expander was cemented...

Many kids have nightmares of needing braces. I had them in elementary school and middle school, 3ish years I believe. I can’t believe I forgot to mention this sooner in another blog, but I’d need braces,....AGAIN! I was also told I needed more width to my upper jaw, or my palate. The first ortho, wanted to pull 2 of my teeth to make this room. While this is still, most unfortunately, common practice, this is an antiquated practice and does not need to be done. If you dentist/ortho wants to do this, run and find someone else. My dentist, Dr. D, interviewed several other orthodontics, have I mentioned how amazing she is???? And I started working with a new orthodontist. Palate expander device Key used to expand the width of device Instead of having teeth removed to create space, I would have my palate expanded. This is a common procedure for kids and adolescents as they are still growing and it’s easy for them to turn the key to widen their palat...

It’s autumn of 2016. I conducted massive amounts of research and called maxillofacial surgeon after maxillofacial surgeon, which isn’t as easy as it sounds. A maxillofacial surgeon is an oral surgeon who has undergone additional training to be able to address more complex medical and dental issues. Sometimes, if you Google maxillofacial surgeon, you won’t find many because they list themselves as an oral surgeon. Some insurance companies won’t even list them separately on their website either and just provides options for oral surgeons. No, I don’t need my wisdom teeth removed, that happened in 2001. I need my face moved. I made a list of all oral surgeons I could find and called them. One by one. I asked if they performed jaw realignment surgery and if they accepted my insurance. At some point in this part of the story, I was hanging out with my friend, Sarah, and her mom, Carlyn, helping to plan Sarah’s wedding as her Maid of Honor. Carlyn is in the dental field in New Jersey a...

I have never been a morning person. As a kid, I would fight with my father every morning, “come on, Al, it’s time to get up”, he’d say. My poor father would holler for me so many times before I actually got out of bed. This man has so much patience! I was, and still am, a monster to wake up. Multiple alarms are always set to go off at different times with different sounds that I snooze or turn off before I manage to drag myself from bed. I also have this uncanny, magical power where the alarm, clear across the room, goes off, and I get up, turn it off and fall right back to sleep. I will have no memory of doing this later. Before I moved to UMBC for my undergrad, I remember talking, half-jokingly, with my family and asking, “what am I going to do? Classes start at 8am, how will I get up?” My sister had the idea, rather genius, to buy me an alarm clock for individuals with hearing impairments. While the alarm sounded at much higher frequency than a standard alarm clock, there ...

It’s now 2016. I’ve been back in Baltimore for a few years now after I purchased my first home in Canton and rehabbed this living shit out of it. That could be an entirely different blog of insanity, perhaps one day. I’m dating Gary, my now husband, and casually mention to him that I’ve noticed a little gap between my front 2 teeth. Gary, having had extensive work done on his teeth, tells me I should see his dentist, Dr. M. I make an appointment and meet with Dr. M’s partner, Dr. D. She completes a thorough exam and informs me that my teeth are not properly aligned. My bottom teeth are angled too far inward, my upper teeth are angled too far outward and my upper jaw sits back too far. My teeth all the way around my mouth touch. Hmmmm…I had no idea that’s not how it was supposed to be. But alas, no. You only want your back teeth to touch, not the front. So, each time I bite down, my front teeth, top & bottom) crash into each other and are loose and have begun to separate un...

Remember the movie American Pie? Who could forget it! One of my clients just reference Stiffler today in session even, it’s a classic! Well, remember that line, “this one year at band camp?” Well, sorry to disappoint, but that is the furthest from my experience as a flute and piccolo player at band camp. I loved spending 8 hours a day for 2 full weeks playing with random kids from all over the county. Then at the end, all our families would gather and picnic at Oregon Ridge a we’d put on a huge concert. I loved playing and have many fond memories of it, but I knew I’d never go anywhere with it. I was never going to make a career out of it; I wasn’t utterly fabulous. I didn’t practice as often as teachers harp on you to and I didn’t have good lung capacity. I noticed that song after song. See, with much sheet music, they place what appears to be a comma in strategic places every few bars. This indicates where the player can take a breath and not skip a beat, literally. I could never...

As you may know, I was told a little over 3 years ago, that I need double jaw realignment surgery. I was shocked as are others who say "you look fine" and "I don't see anything wrong with your jaws/mouth/face". So as a way to chronicle my experience, answer everyone's questions and provide myself with a therapeutic exercise, I've started a blog. Here is entry #1. Enjoy, there's more to follow. As early as a young teen, I frequently recall feeling like I could not breathe. After speaking with my pediatrician, I found myself, at age 14, sitting in the ENT's chair. To this day, my mom and I still half joke about the nightmare that was this appointment. I recall the visit far too vividly. Now, being a trauma mental health therapist, I know that this experience could be classified as traumatic with the flashback images I can still see in my mind's eye. I remember sitting in the examination chair and him telling me how his wife loves having he...