Dental Part 7
Soooo, let’s get to the question you have been dying to ask. How do you look after surgery? Not bad at first but the swelling kicked in on Wednesday and peaked Friday. 
Fair warning, these photos do not grasp the extent of the swelling but perhaps this story will paint an accurate picture. Earl was away for the weekend and when he returned on Sunday the swelling was almost gone. 
He duly noted that and then told me that I had looked like an old lady who lost her teeth. Hot.
I thought I had escaped any real bruising but no I was sadly mistaken. On Friday, two bruises popped and started draining down my face.
Peak blackness was Sunday but those babies lingered through the following weekend. Come up with a good story. People either stare or ask. I like the “askers”. What I needed was some black lipstick to complete the look but alas my black lipstick was in Key West where such things are needed.
To sum up, swelling gone in a week and bruising gone in two. Not a bad tradeoff to reduce the time in
braces/invisalign by more than half. The first selfie above was the day after surgery, the second was 3 days after and the selfie with the zombie base makeup was at 6 days. And for comparison, the nonselfie photo was taken just before all this started. My vanity demanded inclusion of a normal photo.
Advance planning on the food front is essential especially for those who clock in multiple hours a day snacking and dining. The periodontist will recommend soft food. Pull the long ignored vitamix out of the closet unless you find days of yogurt and protein shakes satisfying. I started with foods like soups; blended vegetables with almond milk and protein powder; yogurt with hemp, peanut butter, fruit and walnuts. 
But before long I got really hungry. Drastic measures were called for and I did something that just feels wrong. I added meat to the blender. Cook a sweet potato, sauté shiitake mushrooms with a bit of ginger and put all this in the blender with flavored bone broth, a good source of protein. Add chicken, hit blend and do not look at the mess that is created.
By the fifth day, I was ready to sauté veges with eggs, lots of eggs. It was wonderful. And yes, there was also ice cream.
The tooth fairy was clearly in a bad mood when visiting me. This along with my parents’ decision to forgo braces has led to adult snaggle teeth. A dentist would refer to this as significant overcrowding. My teeth are not straight when viewed from any plane. They jog up and down and back and forth with a bit of caving in to make it really interesting. And when my permanent teeth arrived, the dentist decided to grind down the extra long canines to avoid that unpleasant vampire look. I am not making this up. Plus my teeth were very cavity prone. Not sure it had anything to do the bandaid box of sweetarts I brought to school everyday but lots of cavities meant lots of dreaded dental visits often without novocain. To make it worse our family doctor supplemented our diets with constant antibiotics. That does amazing things to the color of your teeth.
Fast forward to 58 years old. I figured by keeping my teeth tidy and gums healthy, the really scary dental work magnified by an active imagination could be avoided. To this end I had my teeth cleaned 4 times a year, flossed, proxabrushed and replaced amalgam fillings with composite. But the snaggle teeth would not be ignored and I started to experience pain. My dentist said I needed braces. Whoaaa, I am 58, is that even possible? He said to see an orthodontist. This was the beginning of a learning curve that culminated in a decision to fix my teeth with Invisalign and Accelerated Osteogenic Orthodontics (AOO) also known as Wilkodonics. Unfortunately there is an incredible lack of awareness about Wilkodonics, even among the dental community. So in an effort to change that, I will chronicle the process from beginning to end. Hopefully it helps someone else out there.