A Very Long Introduction

Hey there everyone! I came across this great ortho-blogging thing last week while googling “orthognathic surgery nerve damage,” which, of course, is a VERY popular topic. Anyway, since then, I’ve been reading through tons of people’s blogs and just really enjoying getting some REAL stories. It means so much more to read about people surviving this whole process than just hearing that they really do! I wasn’t sure about blogging myself, but I’ve had a very frustrating time with this whole thing, and there are only so many times that you can complain about insurance with people with naturally perfect mouths and still expect to have friends. So here we go!
My first orthodontic adventure was when I was a kid, when I had the expander, braces, retainer sequence. Most people tend to stop there, but I’ve always liked to be an overachiever. So, despite religiously wearing my retainer, by the time I was a freshman in high school, my teeth were once again crooked. So we went to a new orthodontist (we’d moved) who realized that my jaws were all sorts of messed up. She put braces on again, but warned us that I would need surgery by the time I was in my 20’s to correct that.
Fast forward a couple years and here we are. I got my braces on in January of 2008, at age 21, a year and a half ago. From that point on, not a whole lot has gone smoothly! My orthodontist is wonderful. She had me ready for surgery in August of last year. If only she could do the actual surgery! With the surgeon, it’s been not much but problems. With my first surgeon, I tried to schedule a consultation for about 6 months before they actually gave me one. This was because they said insurance had to approve the surgery before he would consult. Yet every day when I called to see if they had started on insurance, they said they would get right on that. They lost my records multiple times. It was just a mess, all the time. Finally, though, I got a consultation. (This was in January of this year, I’d had braces for a year and been deemed ‘ready for surgery’ by my orthodontist for 6 months) The surgeon came in 50 minutes late, spent 5 minutes with me, literally yelled at me for not opening my mouth exactly as he wanted it, and said that my teeth weren’t ready and wouldn’t be for at least 6 more months. I left the office crying (I can be a little overly sensitive!) super depressed, and really not wanting to see this man ever again, much less have him tooling around in my mouth while I was unconscious!
Since the first surgeon had recently dropped my parent’s insurance, we would be going out of network with him anyway. So we decided to go to another out of network surgeon, and he was wonderful. He spent so much time with me, answered all my questions, and gave me a date within a week. The office staff knew me by name and was SO on top of things. Surgery was supposed to be May 28. I got the surgical hooks on and everything. But on May 18, we got a letter from the insurance company saying that since we were going out of network, they would only pay $3000. We would owe $17,000, plus hospital fees. It seemed the first surgeon hadn’t dropped our insurance after all, so we would have to go back to him. After considering every other option and deciding that winning the lottery wasn’t a feasible plan, I went back to the first surgeon.
But there was good news! He had decided that my surgery wasn’t “financially worth his time” so he pawned me off on someone else that has much better bedside manner! This guy seems great. Unfortunately, I’m dealing with the same generally friendly but overworked office. So it’s been 2 weeks since my appointment, and I’ve started calling them every day, only to hear, every day, “Let me check into it and call you back later.” Needless to say, I never get a call back.
It’s been hard, too, because I’ve put my life on hold this past year waiting for this. I graduated from college last year, and, besides 2 unforgettable months working in Honduras, have been substitute teaching, knowing I needed a job that I could take off from. For a special ed teacher (I was hoping to get a job teaching while working on my certification) that just won’t work. That hasn’t worked out, so I’m going back to school full time next year while working whatever job I can find, and would prefer not to go back looking like I’ve been beaten! So I know this needs to happen by early July, at the latest, but how can I hurry it along more than by calling daily? Not having surgery in May has already forced me to cancel my summer job, which was how I was going to buy gas to get to school, haha… I know I’ll be happy when it’s over. It’ll be so nice not to get headaches, to be able to eat pizza and sandwiches without tearing them into small bites, and, not gonna lie, to have a profile I don’t mind seeing in pictures! The road is seeming so long and hard, but I already feel better sharing, regardless of whether anyone ever reads this.
Thanks so much for sharing your experiences! I’ve learned so much that the surgeons don’t tell you already! Nothing like hearing the real story, without all the sugarcoating!