It is OUT, GONE, BANISHED

Okay

Maybe I should start telling you guys about the trip to Bergen?
The plane ride was fine, I'm getting so used to them now.

I had two appointments, one with a surgeon/nurse at Haukeland hospital, and one with an orthodontist at the Institute of Clinical Dentistry down the street.
I arrived an hour early for my appointment, and I had brought a project that I could work on while I waited. The moment I started embroidering, I heard a nurse call my name! Fuck. So with hands full of embroidery, yarn, jackets and purse I was clumsily led into an examination room. It was the same nurse I had the day of the surgery, so at least it was a familiar face!

The nurse/surgeon who examined me was unfamiliar, he had very little knowledge about my history or procedure, so he was like "ok, this looks fine.. what did you get done again?". It was a bit awkward.
But, I got to tell him about some of my worries, I don't know if he remembered everything if he even passed it along to my surgeon. He seemed a bit clueless poor guy, but I guess I would be too, the procedure I had isn't super common here in Norway. I told him that my open bite was still very much there, and he also had doubts that the SARME procedure + braces would close the bite. He said I couldn't rule out lower jaw surgery just yet, but we just had to wait and see.

Then, I went to the Institute of Clinical Dentistry (Institutt for klinisk odontologi) to get examined there. That's the place where the "regular" orthodontists hang out, where most of the pictures and x-rays are taken. A nurse took some pictures, and I was taken into the examination room. There was a dude there, not the orthodontist I had the last time. But oh well, he seemed like he had more knowledge about my case, and he was really nice! After that, I was free to go.

I had my dinner at Inside Rock Café, sat outside in the nice weather, and went to the airport to go back home. Also, I was on business class on the flight home, the free beer and chocolate was nice.

LOVE!

So.

A week later, this last Tuesday, I went to see my orthodontist here in Trondheim to get my expander removed.
So HECK YEAH the expander is out! ..mostly.
I've often read online that the expander is just little by little pulled out, and that it's very painful. My ortho filed it away, without removing the rings. The braces are attached to the rings, so I'm guessing they still have some work to do.
But the thing giving me a speech impedement and difficulties eating and drinking is GONE!

Just for the fuck of it, here a progress collage of the roof of my mouth! All done in 8 months.
Before braces, before expansion, after expansion and after removal of expander:

I actually had to double check I hadn't stretched the images, it looks soo weird! Look how much it's been expanded! You can also see in the latest picture there is a small part of the metal still left, but my ortho said it still had some work to do.

My orthodontist and the Bergen Orthodonist had been talking together. Turns out, the orthodontist dude from Bergen is some kind of head surgeon at Haukeland hospital, not a regular orthodontist? He had apparently taken a lot of interest in my case, and drove from home that day just to have a look at me! He had taken a glance at me and concluded I needed a maxillary impaction surgery, a surgery that I (in earlier stages) tried to get through with the other surgeons, but they were like "noo, that won't be necessary.", it feels good to be right!

So my ortho back here in Trondheim told me this, and the fact that I was removing my expander wasn't really important to me at that time. I'm getting the (second) surgery I originally hoped for!! Hurray! Here is an illustration video of the procedure:

I haven't gotten any particular surgery date or anything, so I won't get my hopes up too high. No date, no certainty.
Here's hoping.