How It's Going

I'm a few days post-surgery and things seem to be looking up today.  Tuesday and Wednesday were about what you'd expect - mostly unconscious from pain meds with a few periods of being awake to eat very soft food.  Thursday was my first day home alone with the boys and it didn't go very well.  The bleeding ended up getting worse and I ended up being pretty severely sick to my stomach for a good portion of the day, but eventually felt better.  Aiden did feel the need to argue with me about everything for most of the day, but John was able to come home from work early to deal with the boys so I could medicate myself some more and sleep.

So now we're on my second day alone with the boys and it's going alright so far.  I'm attempting to see if I can get through the day on just aspirin and take the vicodin only at night.  It's about 12:30 and I'm dealing with a little more pain than I'd like, even with the aspirin.  It would be nice if I could make it just to dinner before needing the vicodin.  I do need to do some shopping for Nathan's birthday party on Sunday (yes, I'm hosting a party this weekend - silly, I know) and would like to get that done this afternoon.  But I also know that pain management is still very important until I'm around a week post-surgery, so I'm not going to push myself.  They told me that if I was hurting to the point that I could feel the incision sites specifically, I've waited too long for meds - if I go by that, I don't know that I'll make it to dinner, but we'll see.

Thanks to everyone who has helped us out.  I'm definitely beginning to feel a little better, but I'll sure be happy when I can eat something other than soup and mashed potatoes.

Post-surgery

While I'm in between medicated states (unconscious and confused), I thought I'd give you all an update as to how things went today.

I was prescribed valium to take last night and right before the appointment so I could be as relaxed as possible.  I had been told by many people, including the pharmacist, that it would knock me out and cause memory loss.  Great!  Being asleep and not remembering what happened sounded perfect.  Unfortunately, I apparently don't react to it that way (go figure!).  While I was able to sleep the night before, I merely woke up feeling like I couldn't stand up straight and was a tad loopy.  But I was still nervous.  I doubled up the dosage for the appointment, but it never did make me feel tired and I was very aware and very nervous the entire time.

They gave me many, many shots to numb me up properly and those hurt like crazy.  I was able to bring my MP3 player and headphones with me to give me some distraction and that helped.  I turned up the volume during drilling and was able to focus on song lyrics rather than what was going on in my mouth - most of the time.

However, we knew that the tooth on the right side was a tooth "bud" and would be a bone extraction.  The tooth on the left side was already coming through, so there was no problem getting that one out.  He had it out of my mouth in under a minute.  Impressive!  But when he worked on the right side, the digging just kept going and going and going and he kept saying, "I can't find it!".  After 15 minutes of digging through my gums, he finally got it out.  But at that point, I was in extreme pain and had tears streaming down my face.  I think he felt bad - he kept asking if I was ok and called us a few hours later to check in again.

Here's the really gross part so feel free to stop reading now:

I was advised to change the gauze in my mouth every six hours.  But I bleed like a stuck pig and anyone who has heard my birth stories - or was there to witness it - knows this.  I made it 20 minutes before I had to switch out the gauze.  I changed the gauze in my mouth four times within an hour.  We stopped at Target on the way home so John could get my vicodin prescription filled (I stayed in the car of course!).  There was so much blood pouring out of my mouth, I had to take off my sweatshirt and wrap it around my mouth.  By the time we got home, I was vomiting blood.  After getting that out of the way, I filled up on vicodin and dramamine and passed out for six hours.

I'm in a lot of pain and am crazy hungry.  Let's face it - broth and jello aren't the most filling things on the planet.  I've been advised that tomorrow will be the worst in terms of pain and swelling, but that I should start feeling gradually better after that.  I made sure both of my professors knew what was going on and they are both being very gracious with this week's homework.

As I feel my second round of vicodin begin to kick in and my spelling mistakes are quickly becoming more frequent, I think it's time to sign off for now.  Thank you so much to everyone who was praying for me today. I kept thinking about that during the appointment and it made me feel better to know that people were thinking about me and sending prayers my way.  It really means a lot.

A Little Christmas Recap

It occurred to me yesterday that I had yet to post any Christmas pictures and thought I should get it done before I get teeth dug out of my head 24 hours from now.  My apologies in advance for anything that may get blogged while I'm on painkillers.

But anyway, Christmas!  We dragged Christmas out as long as possible.  I tried to have a Christmas activity for nearly every single day in December and for the most part, I think the boys enjoyed it.  Lots of crafts and baking.  We had no shortage of goodies in December, that's for sure!

 Making gingerbread men.

 Using mommy's fancy new pastry bag to decorate.

 Yum!

As you know, we had an Elf in our house this year.  Piper (or PiPi for short) was sad to go, but left a parting note for the boys on Christmas Eve - along with a defaced picture of our family.  What a silly little Elf!

I was all about the homemade gifts this year.  Well, not ALL about, but I did discover that I was happier with the gifts that I made myself and it was kinder to our bank account.  Plus, it makes the gift much more personal.

 I made quickbread in a jar, vanilla and caramel coffee syrups, chocolate dipped candy cane coffee stirrers, and chocolate dipped pretzels.  I had lots of fun decorating each package.

On Christmas Eve, we joined some immediate family at Tigard Friends for the candlelight service and then headed back home for our tradition of watching A Christmas Story while wrapping the boys' presents (after the boys are snug in their beds, of course).

We had a low key morning at home.  Our first Christmas actually spent in our house.  I continued my dad's tradition of making belgian waffles with strawberries and whipped cream for Christmas morning breakfast, then got started on a double batch of pumpkin scones to take to my in-law's house that afternoon.  I received brand new stainless steel mixing bowls from John and was happy to put them to use right away!  The boys got lots of things from their list and couldn't wait to start playing.

In the afternoon, we headed to John's parents to open more presents and fill ourselves with more food.

 Kevin got a new TV!

 Nathan got to become a firefighter.

And Aiden got a new CD player for his and Nathan's bedroom.  He was so happy, he hugged it.

It was a very fun day and we were all quite tired by the end of it.  We got home and went straight to bed so we could head to the coast the next day to see lots of extended family.  I didn't get a single picture - I was still massively tired and just didn't think about grabbing my camera, but you can check out the pictures from the post on Hannah's blog (<--Click here!).

The next few days would be spent clearing away Christmas before we headed to the coast yet again to spend New Years in a beach house.  Pictures to come...

Looking Ahead

So I've tried to write this post about four or five different times.  Mainly because I don't want it to sound like a "poor me" post or anything depressing or grumpy.  I'll be honest and say that I haven't come up with anything else to post about because my brain is stuck on the oral surgery next week.  Yes, it's just teeth and I know that I have an unnecessary fear of dental work, but I've got a lot of anxiety leading up to this.  In fact, they just called to confirm and I had a mild panic attack.  She promised to call in the valium prescription right away.  I have a feeling these next few days are going to drag by.  Someone told me that since I've been through this once already, I shouldn't be nervous.  The problem there is that I remember how sick I got from the medications and anesthesia and am not looking forward to potentially going through that again.  Since there isn't going to be general anesthesia and just local, it shouldn't be nearly as bad - but I'm also not sure how I react to valium.  Bottom line: I just don't want to throw up at the dentist's office (and I'll bet they don't want me to either).

But before my surgery, there's one thing happening.  Something that I should be super excited about, and probably will be once the surgery is out of the way.  I'm starting school.  Yes, finally.  I am registered for two classes, writing and math.  I was low on the waitlist of the math class and didn't think there was any way I would get into it, but as the weeks went by, my spot on the waitlist got closer and closer until I got the confirmation email letting me know that I was registered.  The math class was what I needed to really get this started, since I can't do much of anything else until I get going on the 3-4 math classes I need.  My financial aid finally went through, so I can get this going.

Like I said, I should be excited about it.  But it may just be adding to the anxiety right now.  The classes start the night before my surgery, so I'm crossing my fingers that there will be no homework for the first week.  I'm not great at math in general - I don't even want to know how it would look if I attempted it on pain killers!  I'm sure once I get past next week, stress levels will be much lower and it will finally hit me that I am working towards my much-desired certification.

For those of you who would like to keep me and my nerves in prayer, my surgery is at 10am on Tuesday.  I'm hoping that they are able to extract the wisdom teeth quickly and with no complications, that the valium will make me drowsy enough to not be quite so aware of what's happening, and that the adverse reactions I had to the pain meds in the past will not be a factor this time around.  It will make the recovery a lot easier if my body will handle them normally.

Here's hoping this weekend can be spent playing with my kids and not thinking about next week.