Living the dream with TMJD

It's been 10 days since I first started wearing my TMJD appliance.  For those of you who are curious about what this thing looks like, I took a picture.  Sorry if it grosses you out.  I get grossed out really easily and it didn't bother me too much so you will probably be fine. 

I turned it upside down to take the picture so you could see the metal parts and how it fits over my bottom teeth kind of like a retainer.  I have to wear it 24/7 except when I eat or drink anything besides water. 

Top 5 reasons my TMJD appliance is not my friend:

1. It makes me have a serious lysp (sufferin' succotash Sylvester!)

2. It takes up so much room in my mouth that my tongue has no where to go so it is harder to breathe when exercising.

3. It makes my breath smell wicked bad even with multiple scrubbings every day.

4. It cost $3,800. 

5. After it does "it's thing" I will have to either a. get braces again or b. get crowns on my molars. (more $$)

On a positive note, I sleep like a baby with it in.  (Or maybe that's just because I am dog tired from herding 2nd graders all day).  I did have a nightmare about trying to eat chips and not being able to crunch down on them to eat them so I just had to swallow them whole.  I woke up chomping on the thing. 

Seriously though.  I understand that I am incredibly blessed.  We have the financial means to pay for it (it does put a damper on paying off the car loan, but we can do it).  It might take my migraines away (I would wear this thing all day every day for the rest of my life if it actually did that).  So I am going to choose to be thankful and try really hard not to be a wimp about this.
**By the way, I have had 2 migraines since starting to wear the appliance.

Other random updates...

I have reintroduced sugar into my diet, sparingly over the past month.  I had 8 peanut butter m&ms earlier this week and a fudge bar yesterday.  It was great.  My weight is being maintained and I am still tracking on www.loseit.com.  I need to measure myself again because I've been lax about that lately.  I weigh in again on Monday so I'll let you know how it goes.

I will be auctioning off another painting next weekend so keep an eye out for that.  Bidding will begin on Friday and end on Sunday night as it did last time.  The last painting went for $20 and the proceeds went towards The American Cancer Society.  Super cool.

I have been crossing off more and more things on my 30 before 30 list!!!  Check out by 30 before 30 tab at the top of the blog.  The most exciting thing is being able to do a Bible Study with college women.  I LOVE college people.  They are way cool.  Our first night was last Tuesday and I get to co-lead it.  We are studying Phillipians, which is awesome. 

That's about it.  It is 6:00pm on Friday night and I am going to sleep.  It has been one doozy of a week and I am spent.