Space Cadet

See that blue guy there? I have 7 of those in my mouth right now. They hurt like hell - honestly, more than anything up until now (with the exception of opening my mouth the first few days after surgery). 

After sitting for 20 minutes in the chair at the ortho, she (the ortho) comes in, pokes around and gets down to business. I was annoyed how long I waited. I was also under the impression that I'd be getting metal spacers like that of my childhood (only on my upper right, which prevented evil toothhood) where they pulled my first pre-molars. Nope. She flossed these suckers in and it made me wince each time. But thanks to that metal spacer I had back in the day, I only needed one of these jerks on my upper right. Then she proceeded to tell me (although she prefaced with "I shouldn't tell you this but...") that during final exams (HS? college? dental school?) she had just gotten the same spacers and they drove her nuts, so she kept pulling them out and putting them back in.

Five minutes later, it was done. She sent me packing with some extras attached to floss in case any fall out. I get them out next week when the braces go on, so really, if one comes out, I don't think I'm going to bother. I'm assuming that this pain will be similar to what it feels like to get braces tightened, which will be happening every 3 weeks, starting next Tuesday. 

I proceeded to eat a sandwich, which took about 20 minutes. Probably because I was cutting it and am still new to the whole fork-and-knife thing since I've spent most of my life avoiding foods that can't be cut with the side of my fork. The sandwich, although delicious and more healthy than just drinking an Odwalla Super Protein drink, was probably a bad idea. The spacers make it feel as if something is caught in your teeth and I've been obsessively checking to make sure they haven't fallen out since I ate. Took 2 Aleve at work, but that didn't seem to do much.

Guess it's back to the oxycodone for me...