Hello All –I finally feel like I have some breathing room and the headspace to write again. It’s good to be back! So what have we been up to, you ask? Well . . . my last month included hosting my parents, performing in 4 concerts, wrapping up my marketing job with Lake Area Discovery Center, moving out of our rental, getting my braces off and planning our big goodbye bash in Bend. Nia, in turn, was focused on her last glider lessons, her 10-day trip to Costa Rica, her 2 concerts, and her 8th grade graduation! It was a lot, but oh-so-fun for the most part.
On Tuesday we arrived in DC to reunite with Nick. He’d left us in early May to head back to work in DC (they are still on ordered departure from Baghdad). We think he won’t have to go back to Iraq, but one never knows these days. His assignment officially ends in early August, at which point we’ll return to Bend to packout before taking off for Berlin in mid-August. In the meantime, Nia and I will reconnecting with friends and family in DC and Minnesota. Should be a good summer, especially with all of July spent in Minnesota!
The Braces Are Off
After 15 ½ months I’m thrilled to say goodbye to braces! They were not very fun, but I’m so thrilled with the outcome that I’d do it again in a heartbeat. I feel like I have totally different teeth—it’s wild! On the downside, I don’t feel like they work as well as they did before the braces went on. It still hurts to bite hard things, so I feel a bit cautious to use them. Hopefully that will pass—maybe it’s like building up a muscle again? Well, without further ado, here’s a before and after.
Before:
After:
If you’ll remember way back to my first post from when I got the braces on, I mentioned that the strange way the brackets were placed was meant to achieve a curvature of the upper row of teeth that matched the curve of my bottom lip. I think it turned out pretty well, don’t you?
My ortho also fixed the chip in my front tooth, did some general shaping of the teeth, and did Interproximal Reduction two times, which is a fancy way of saying he removed the enamel on the side of my teeth with a spinning saw. This created small gaps between several of the teeth, but of course the wire quickly pulled those gaps closed. The result? A reduction in the tissue triangles around the teeth. Pretty cool, huh? I definitely have a greater appreciation for the art of dentistry after this experience.
