17 months of braces :( But some good news at last! :)

So, I have now had my braces for 17 depressing months.  I think it's 17, the other day I thought it was 18, but now I've lost my diary so I can't check my brace progress, but let's stick with 17, it sounds slightly less depressing. Here's the usual pics...looking the same as ever.

For ages I've been trying to take a picture that shows the brownness of my teeth...not something I would usually want to display to the world, but I'm worried by how brown they are.  The pic below nicely (not sure that's the right word) shows all the lovely brownness around my bottom brackets.  Is this normal?!!  I hope to God that they can scrub it all off once my braces are off.  I had a hygienist appointment booked for next week, but I've had to cancel it, and it's so hard getting time off work for my many many tooth related appointments

I hope I get these stupid wires off next time I go to the ortho, they make teeth cleaning really difficult.

Anyway, on to the good news!  You know how annoyed I was that my next app with the surgeon wasn't until 27th September and I'd harassed them for earlier appointments but they said it wasn't gonna happen?!  Well, a few days later I had a letter from the hospital, and guess what it said???  That they'd moved my appointment to 2nd August!!!  I literally couldn't believe it, and I rang them the next day to make sure there hadn't been some kind of mistake, but they said that it was right and that my app was on the 2nd!  I was ecstatic.

Then about a week later I got home from work and saw a letter in a hospital-y looking envelope.  I was actually scared to open it in case they said it had been moved back to 27th September again.  I literally ripped it open (and ripped the top off the letter too), dreading what it might say.... But thank God, they just said they were moving it back to 9th August.  That's the day I've got an app with my ortho anyway, so I think they must have just thought it made sense to put them on the same day.  So on Thursday I will have my appointment with the surgeon followed by my ortho appointment.  I'm sooooooo excited!  But I'll be so disappointed if I come away from the appointment without a surgery date.  They're meant to be putting me on the waiting list when I see the surgeon, so hopefully I will at least get some sort of provisional date... although I have no idea how long the waiting list is...probably far too long for my liking!