Un-Brace Your Face Day

...aka "The Great Brace Erase".

Yesterday I got to leave work early and meet Sis at her orthodontist for the great unveiling. This has been 3 1/2 years in the making, with nearly every orthodontic appliance known to man installed in her mouth.

(Ya know why they call them "appliances"? Because you could've bought brand new appliances for your kitchen with what it costs to straighten your kids' teeth, that's why! I guess it's some sort of sadistic orthodontic joke or something. At least that's my take on it.)

At any rate, I've gotta hand it to Sis, because first she had to have an expander put in the roof of her mouth that not only made her talk like Sylvester the Cat (thufferin' thuccotash!), but that with the help of me and a handy-dandy mini allen-wrench, broke apart her palate to make room in her mouth to start her treatment.

THEN, she had to have oral surgery and they went up into her gums and hooked a CHAIN on a tooth that never emerged, for lack of room, and they basically winched the sucker down into place like you'd winch a Jeep out of a rock slide. (The winching took months, mind you, as teeth are more difficult to move than Jeeps.)

Then it was power chains, and rubber bands in all kinds of wacky configurations, molar bands, springs, wires and any other kind of contraption they could think of that would help rearrange her teeth into a proper and attractive alignment.

And ya know what? Not once did she whine or complain about it. Seriously, I can't think of a time. She REALLY wanted her teeth fixed and she was so good about everything.

We knew at her first appointment it was going to be a long haul, because her ortho declared her one of the worst cases he'd ever seen (and he's a specialist that teaches orthodontics, so I don't think he was exaggerating.)

It was hard to believe the day was finally here, and she was finished! Done! Complete!

The last Brace-Faced smile.

And...they're off! (Took only a minute. They just popped them right off.)

The retainers. She got to choose colors and design them. She brought in a little heart sticker that they embedded into the one on the right (her top one) in which she chose clear glitter as the base. The bottom one is glow-in-the-dark green.

(I just couldn't get over the retainers. When I got my braces off they gave me a big rubber mouthpiece retainer (kinda like a sports mouth protector)to wear at night, and it was horrible. I gave up on it after about a week. Had I got to design my own retainer and had something reasonable to wear like Sis' wire ones my teeth would still be perfect.)

The orthodontist gave her some gift certificates for ice cream so that's how we celebrated! Look at that beautiful smile!