Good morning, World! I am pleased to announce that I am, in fact, alive and enjoying a somewhat drug-free morning in my once again quiet house. I have lots of good news too!

I was completely freaked out by the time we got there and got the paperwork all filled out, but all-in-all, I would describe Tuesday’s event as positive. The surgeon and his staff were just awesome, and the office was fantastic. They had all the latest and greatest in modern dental technology.

The first thing I always dread about going to the dentist is the stupid x-rays. Those horrid large pieces of plastic they insist on stuffing too far into my mouth to get them always make me gag and hurt the roof of my mouth. Not this time! This time I got to stand in a machine, bite down on a little piece of plastic barely in my mouth, have my head strapped in and the x-ray machine zipped around my whole head. Incredibly cool! It produced a single large x-ray that showed everything from my chin to the middle of my eyeballs. That was nifty to look at. I now know why my nose can produce so much snot when my allergies are acting up. I have enormous sinus cavities! Huge!

The first good news I got was that the procedure wasn’t going to be as awful as anticipated. Instead of a lot of bone scraping and sutures, I was going to get out of there with only a small amount of bone removal at the jaw (as expected) and no sutures at all. The only bad news the x-ray showed us was that I was going to end up with a hole between the end of one of the root holes and my left sinus (more on this in a bit). The next good news I got was that the whole thing was going to be about $300 cheaper than anticipated. Yippee!

Then it was time to get to work. I was fine with the surgeon groping around in my mouth, because he was incredibly gentle and explained everything so carefully while he was doing it … and he took his time, stopping when I seemed to be getting freaked out. Then they started hooking up the heart monitors and blood pressure monitors and leaning the chair back, and I really began to get scared. Luckily, one of the things they hooked up to me was a nose piece feeding me a nice blend of oxygen and nitrous. Cherry scented, no less. You can get I was sucking that stuff in, but once he put the tourniquet on my arm to start the IV, I was breathing heavy and my poor heart was pounding so hard it was almost the only thing I could hear. I was very nervous about what it would be like to go under, even though everyone told me it would be nothing at all.

I just laid there and closed my eyes and concentrated on relaxing my arm. “Wow! You have great veins!” the doctor said. That made me giggle. It hurt just a bit when he put the needle in my arm, but then he arranged my arm on the chair and strapped it down, and it didn’t hurt anymore. I opened my eyes at that point, because I really wanted to be in the moment when they started the IV. When I have to experience something, I like to really take in as much of it as I can, so I wanted to be aware of my surroundings as I became unaware of them. “I’m going to start giving you something to relax you now. If you could count backwards from ten for me,” was the very last thing I heard. I didn’t even make it to “ten” before not being at all aware of anything. It really is like turning off a light. One moment I was there, and then I wasn’t.

The next thing I was aware of was the feeling of having a bunch of people’s hands in my mouth. I had a moment of panic as my brain started to come around where I thought they were still working on me and the IV was wearing off. Then I realized it was only the surgeon who had his hands in my mouth, and he was just putting in the gauze packs. I opened my eyes as soon as I could, and the world was all watery and weird. Someone put their face right in front of me and asked how I was feeling, and I started giggling. How could I possibly even grunt with a mouth full of gauze?! I heard a bunch of people laughing with me (or at me), and that’s when I noticed that Lin and my mom were in the room too. Everyone was smiling at me with a goofy look on their faces.

The nurses then shuffled me into a wheelchair, and I swear I must have dozed on while they wheeled me out to the car, because the next thing I remember was getting into the car. Then I had a moment of awareness when we were in the drive-thru at Walgreen’s. I don’t know how I got into the house, but I hear I walked in all by myself. I vaguely remember Lin and my mom fluttering around me for a while, but it was about an hour later before I would say I was at all aware of being a living thing on this planet. Apparently during that hour I managed to take two pills, drink some water, and giggle non-stop. The only thing I remember is thinking my head felt like it was ten times too big for my body.

Then I laid down and slept. I don’t remember much of the rest of the day. I remember Mom giving me pills every so often, and at some point I remember she gave me something to eat (drink), but I don’t remember what it was. A milkshake, I think. By late afternoon, I was moving around the house slowly and watching TV, but I don’t recall much of anything. Mostly, I just slept on the couch. I do recall forgetting to take one of the pain pills on time, and I did feel a bit of pain, but as soon as I popped that in my face, I went back to being a vegetable. It has been reported to me that I asked for food and water several times and got up a few times to go to the bathroom. That was news to me. I would have sworn I was motionless on the couch all day.

By dinnertime, I was really starting to wake up, and I was hungry! Mom blended up some canned potato soup for me, and I drank half of the can. We watched the election results, and then I went back to sleep. I don’t know where I slept.

The next morning I was still foggy, but somehow I got up and made Lin coffee. Hey, auto-pilot is auto-pilot, and I can make Lin’s coffee no matter what my mental or physical state. I’d forgotten to get up during the night to take a pain pill though, and so I was feeling pretty miserable for some hours until I got enough of that under control again. What hurt worst? My jaw, my tongue and my left tonsil. The gaping holes in my jaw itched more than anything, which is a good sign of healing.

Wednesday was just a lot of pill taking and TV watching. I was a lot less foggy in the head, but I was still pretty much out of it until late afternoon when I suddenly started feeling a whole lot better. What was the worst was being oh so very hungry for real food and knowing I couldn’t have any. It was decided “we” were going to have Sonic for dinner. It was pure torture to smell the hamburgers and be sitting there with a vanilla malt. Since the French fries were really greasy and soft, I did manage to eat about 8 fries, and they were the best fries I have ever had!

We all watched National Treasure 2 (not as good as the first one, in my opinion) and then watched the Daily Show and Colbert Report. Since we all had to be up early this morning, we then all went to bed. I know I slept in the bedroom, because that’s where I woke up, but I don’t remember actually going to bed. I was so sleepy and tired by then.

I woke up bright and early this morning to get Mom’s stuff ready to go. I was a little worried, because I wasn’t going to be able to take any pain killers until after I drove Mom to the edge of town and saw her off, but the ibuprofen seemed to do the trick well enough. We got Mom on her way, and I watered the lawn and plants when Lin dropped me back at the house, and now here I sit enjoying the last of my malt from last night. I am so sick of vanilla malts and milkshakes. In fact, I am totally sick of liquid foods. Not much to be done about that. I am not going to be able to handle anything but mush for at least a few more days. It’s not the gaping holes in my jaw that are the problem either. They are already pulling shut quite nicely and really barely hurt at all. The same cannot be said of the jaw, tongue and tonsil.

I finally managed to open my jaw enough a little while ago to get a look inside my mouth, and the whole left rear of my mouth is really just one huge bruise. It’s UGLY! At least I know exactly where it hurts and why it hurts, and I’m not worried about it anymore. I’m sure it looks much better today than it did the last two days. Probably a good thing I couldn’t get a look at it! I can only imagine how disgusting it much have looked.

Today I get to lightly brush my front teeth, and I am so looking forward to that. I’m one of those people who likes to brush their teeth right after eating (particularly creamy, milky things), so only being able to slosh warm water around in my mouth the last two days has been murder for me. My teeth feel incredibly gross and nasty. It’s going to be wonderful to be able to get at least some of them clean. I look forward to next week when I might be able to get back to brushing somewhat normally and regularly.

What I am really looking forward to is solid food. I’ll be looking forward to that for a few more days at least. Eating as much ice cream, yogurt, and milkshakes as you like sounds great, until that’s all you can have. It gets old, especially since I am not really into ice cream and milkshakes so much. I’ve been craving a hot dog, French fries, and cheese-stuffed jalapeños, and I think as soon as my jaw in able to handle the chewing again, that’s going to be my first official solid meal. It’s definitely giving me something to look forward to. I thought I would want a steak or something like that, but no … junk food. I want some damn junk food now! But I can’t have junk food now. Wah!

So I am happy to report I am feeling pretty damn good considering it’s only been two days ago I had multiples of teeth extracted, my jaw bone scraped down, and there’s a hole in my left sinus cavity. Yeah, that one root went right up to my sinus, and now there’s a hole that has to heal over. It doesn’t hurt, but I will tell you I can feel it, and it feels WEIRD. Not being able to blow my nose feels weird too. I look forward to eventually being allowed to blow my snotty nose again too. I’m not supposed to do that for about a month. Yes, that’s grossing me out as much as not brushing my teeth. Yuck.

But yeah … all’s good! I’m not feeling fantastic, but I am not feeling as awful as I thought I would. The greatest thing is I can tell that in a few weeks, I am going to be feeling beyond great! Obviously, having all those awful teeth gone is going to be good, but even though my jaw hurts like hell right now, I can already tell it’s aligning better and I’m not going to have to deal with that problem anymore. No more popping, slipping, and occasional pinched nerves when I move my jaw! It’s so neat putting my fingers on my jaw joint and feeling it working correctly and smoothly! I can’t wait to see what it’s like once everything is healed!

I got through the really bad stuff, and now there’s just the healing to do. I’m off to mash me up an avocado and a boiled egg, and then … I am going to go brush what teeth I can, take my pills, and go play a video game until I get sleepy. That probably won’t take too long. I’m pretty sleepy right now. Healing takes a lot out of a person!