Today marks two very exciting things for me.  
First, it's the last official, state-mandated day of the school year. 
Second, it's now only three measly weeks until my double jaw surgery!  
Yikes!!!

Before I get into everything about what has to be done in the next three weeks, I'll explain why I've made the terrible decision to go under the bone saw.  
When I was little I was this adorable little kid with big dimples and a nice pretty smile.  I was a happy child, just being NORMAL.  
Then puberty happened.
I know, I know-- puberty is hard for everyone, but add growing a giant mandible to the list of things that makes teenagers uncomfortable and you've got a very unhappy kid.  
Goodbye precious dimples.  

To be fair, I can't blame everything on the dreaded P. 
Not only did my jaw actually start super-sizing at around eight years old, but there is, ya know, my genes and all.

Since the time I was six I've been sitting in the orthodontist's chair on a regular basis.  My first appliance came at the ripe old age of seven, when I was awarded a palate expander.  It's this neat little device that sits in the roof of your mouth, slightly resembles a 
butterfly, and slowly forces your mouth into an entirely different shape.  Fun!  
It also had these great little hooks on the side to which I attached a torture device that forced my maxilla forward and shoved my mandible backward.  
Pictures?
Picture
Couldn't find a picture of the headgear, but that's okay--wouldn't want to frighten any small children.

When I was nine I ended up having my first surgery.  The problem was that my two front teeth weren't cutting through my gums, so they were going to help them along.  I imagined that the surgeon would just cut two small slits for my teeth to descend through; however, upon waking, I discovered two huge, purple-ish teeth staring me in the face.  My gums were missing.
When I was thirteen I had braces put on my top teeth.  My parents were gracious enough to spring for the clear ones for their poor, tragic mouth of a daughter.  Shortly thereafter, I had another sugery to do something.  This one is a little hard to explain and I don't fully understand what they did.  I had this tooth that was practically growing out of my nose, so the surgeon attached a chain to it and sewed up my gums.
It was pretty weird because the chain was visible through my gums.  They worked for what seemed like endless months to pull my tooth over to the right side of my mouth and turn it the correct way.
After I turned 15, the orthodontist put my bottom braces on.  Did you know they don't do clear braces on the bottom?  Anyway, things have pretty much been at a standstill since then.

And that brings us to the fact that I'm having my surgery June 16th because I have a class III malocclusion.  I realize that to those of you that speak normal English (and have normal jaws, for that matter) that means absolutely nothing to you.  In layman's terms, I have a severe underbite.  
I've heard this surgery called all kinds of things.  I've heard it simply put as orthognathic surgery and I've also heard names such as Lefort I and Bilateral Sagittal Split Osteotomy, amongst others.  Number one on my checklist of questions to ask my surgeon at my pre-op appointment will be what the actual name for my surgery is.

Until then, I'll just be counting down the days... one slow day at a time.