Went to the orthodontist today. I thought selling one of my kidneys would cover it, but now am considering selling one of Andy's also. Let me know......
So we sat down with the good doctor and discussed her "entire profile" which included pictures of some JACKED UP teeth in my otherwise perfect daughter. We had a spacer placed today on one side, and will have one placed on the other side when the teeth fully come in. Remember that Tess's teeth fall out and grow back in on their own time. They don't necessarily follow any normal development schedule. Next will be an expander on the top and rubber bands on the bottom to slow down the growth of her lower jaw. Finally will be the braces at age 10 or 11 to pull everything together in an organized fashion, I guess. I got lost after "first she will need spacers......"
He also informed us, that in a small population of people, this entire process is null and void and the jaw grows wrong anyway and surgery has to be done. WHAT?!?!?! After all this work and money and trips to the office we could still end up surgically correcting this? I seriously hope cutting into my baby's jaw and wiring it shut for weeks is NOT in our future.
The best part came when it was time to discuss the financial portion of our journey. They gave us option A and option B and both of them made me want to laugh out loud. Where are options C,D, and E? Option A was to pay the entire balance in full. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Option B was to pay a considerable downpayment and then fairly large monthly payments for 20 months. The downpayment they wanted today was over $1000. next option, please......
We left without paying a dime today. And we still got a spacer put in.
How? Two things, really. I mentioned that I knew what another family had put down initially and what they were paying monthly, which varied considerably from option B. AND I questioned why if the work was going to take over 3 years they needed all of this paid off in less than 2. I mean REALLY?!?!?! The lady was very nice and quickly said "sure! Whatever works best for your family!" REALLY?!?!?! Why wasn't it presented that way in the first place? How many parents have been totally screwed out of option C?
By the way, we found out today that Tess does not even have wisdom teeth. There is a 5% population of people that will not have them. Those are some pretty interesting odds. Maybe we should consider going to the casino to pay for all this work.
Nope, luck already ran out. Tess just showed me how the spacer wire has fallen out(almost) and we are going to have to go back tomorrow. They said not to eat anything chewy or sticky for fear of pulling the wire out. Well, I do not consider my ghetto fabulous Hamburger Helper to be either sticky or chewy and yet we have a loose wire. This is going to be a looooong couple of years.
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