Life happened

Happy Friday, everyone!
Yesterday I took the day off of work to go to the dentist and have a cleaning and my initial orthodontic consultation. As a child, I was recommended for orthodontic treatment but for whatever reason, my parents decided not to go through with it. I spoke with my orthodontist about what I wanted to fix about my smile and told him that my deadline for any potential work would be the summer of 2016. Before I knew it I was filling out paperwork and to my surprise, they fit me in! I got my braces bonded onto my teeth yesterday. I was at the dentist literally all day, so I didn’t have a chance to have breakfast or lunch. When I got home, my teeth were starting to hurt so I had some noodles. I ate them and prepared myself some macaroni and cheese to eat today at work. Unfortunately, everything I’ve heard about braces is correct. It hurts SO BAD. Once I fell asleep, I woke up about every hour (according to my FitBit). At the time I just remember waking up with my mouth wide open, so I would take a sip of water and close my mouth and go back to bed. By 2:00 this morning, the pressure of closing my lips on top of my braces caused me such pain that I couldn’t go back to sleep. Luckily I make my own hours. I stayed in bed for a while scrolling through social media and finally decided to just get up. I was up getting ready for work by 2:45. I threw some Tylenol and Excedrin in my backpack along with 2 of my Fiber muffins and headed out the door. I drank cold water on the way to work which helped sooth my teeth some. I remember wondering if I should stop by McDonalds and buy a hash brown so I could have something on my stomach besides Tylenol. I decided against it and tried to eat my muffins when I got to work. Using a fork, I picked off small pieces and put them on my tongue, attempting to soften them and swallow them without chewing. I’m sure I looked hilarious doing that. It took me about 30 minutes to eat a muffin that way, and I ended up giving the other muffin away. In the middle of the morning, I heated up my macaroni and cheese and had a sudden wave of nausea come over me as I tried to eat it. My boss said that was probably a side effect of the pain, which makes sense because it couldn’t have been something I ate. By lunch time I was irritable. My boss bought me a chocolate milkshake from Whataburger which I half-drank and half-ate with a spoon. I made sure to swish it around in my mouth. I didn’t think it would help that much, but the difference was day and night. I had decreased sensitivity and irritability, and increased energy and tolerance for the pain. It’s been about 2 hours since I ate, and my mouth is becoming increasingly sore and sensitive like it was before lunch. I’m going to try to eat some soup tonight or maybe mashed potatoes.
As I said in my last post, LIFE HAPPENS. To everyone. I had no idea I would be getting braces just a few days after that post. I’m going to try to take my own advice and forgive myself for going off my diet for the next week or so. I’m going to try to moderate what I eat, although I’m limited in my options, and only eat small servings of things I wouldn’t otherwise indulge in. I’m going to try to keep going to the gym and having some sort of physical activity every day, which I can already tell is going to be difficult. Not only am I eating poor quality foods which aren’t giving me the natural energy I normally have, but I’m also in a fair amount of physical pain that I can’t really control. Like happens, and you just have to stay positive. I know I’m on my way to a better smile and a healthier lifestyle, and for now, that’s enough to keep me going.