I am charging my batteries as I speak - and will take a few pictures and post over there with a new ticker and everything. *big grin*.
This is what happened at my appointment today:
I waited. Then I waited some more. And then I waited a while longer. And then... I waited a bit longer. Finally the DR came to my side with his gentle smile and bedside manner equivalent to Sir. Denzel Washington and said: So, Kari...are we ready to do this? I grinned back and said yes. I had brushed and water pik'd and applied a fresh coat of chapstick and had made my way earlier to the bathroom and I was ready for the first of many dates. He patted me gently on my shoulder - gave me a High Five and left. I knew I should have applied makeup, I thought to myself.
The D.H. came over to me with tools and chart notes and searched my mouth and then gave me the news I thought I would never hear. "You have no spacers/separators up here." I gulped. Then gulped again.
Those spacers in my upper molars had been in (or were suppose to have been!) for 20 days! I immediately thought back to the last days of toast and egg whites thinking that perhaps the crust had been the culprit. Maybe it was the snack mix I had had 2 days prior. I had carefully removed the pretzels and opted instead to suck and gnaw on the crackers and chex mix type snackies - but maybe that was too much for the spacers to bear. I thought about my oral b toothbrush and the intensity of the brush spinning against my teeth and thought maybe it was then that my spacers ran away. Or maybe it was the water pik. Confused I looked at her and she quickly reassured me that there might be space enough for the expander (the WHAT?!?) to go in. She would see. She also had to replace 3 brackets that had fallen off. At last count there were only 2 - so somewhere between yesterday and today another had bit the dust. As if getting a 70 on my math test yesterday wasn't bad enough - now I was flunking my ortho test as well.

"Is anything poking you?" She asked after my pale pink ligs went on. "Nah uh, I sdon't sthink stho." I replied horrified at the speech pattern I had now adopted. "Then you are good to go - let me have the DR look at you before we leave." More handshakes all around - and I was out the door. Next adjustment in a month. The expander sentence is for 6 months "or so". My darling DR smiled as I left, but then compelled I turned around and spoke, "You know, DR." I said, speaking slowly so as to emphasize my disappointment in him. "You should really give flowers and take me out to dinner first before giving me such a gift as this lovely expander." He smiled - then laughed - then his face turned serious as the glare in my eyes pierced through his heart. "I'm thowwy, Kahwee. I will do bettah nexth time." He said.
My DR - the comic.
X.