day 12 - sunday

today ron and i went to FL to visit my mom and to help her set up her new ibook!

she bought us dinner, and i wanted mexican. we all wanted something different so we called in our orders and picked them all up and went home. i had a chicken chimichanga, YUM! i knew we were eating up at her house, so i came prepared. i brought my choppy, a flexible cutting board, my waterpik and my toothbrush and toothpaste so i was ready to go. getting everything together was a pain, i think it's preping us for having kids!

day 11 - saturday

today we got another choppy, this one from target. yea! a fleet of choppys has been started!

later ron and i helped my sister and her boyfriend move into their new apartment! however not really. they live on the top floor of their apartment building, no elevator so we're talking 2 long flights of stairs. i wanted to help, but i'm only at day 11! i did carry one small box up the stairs, i started getting slower and slower the more stairs i went up. at the top, i was pooped and done. i spent the rest of my time resting on the couch. :) i know, i know. i feel almost normal, until i try to do normal things.

after we helped for 10 minutes with the moving, i said "let's have some ice cream!" (it was hot out, and i wanted ice cream!) i convinced everyone that we should get some coldstone. so off we went to coldstone. i told my coldstone chick that i needed mine chopped up REALLY WELL as i just had jaw surgery and i can't chew at all. she gently folded my ice cream and mix ins together. she then looked up and said, "how is this?" i looked at her, trying not to give her a look like she was insane, are you joking? i said, "um... not really, i can't chew at all, i need it REALLY chopped up". she then went to town on it and then gave me a snotty look like, fine then, i'll chop the hell out of it. i said, "thank you". :)

oh, and it was awesome!

after ice cream we went to walmart near by. my sister needed some basic stuff for her new apartment. you know, cleaning stuff, paper towels, toilet paper, etc. i'm not into the evil empire, it's safe to say that i RARELY go there. but i went, mostly because i'm up for anything that makes me feel like a normal person. :) we were there for some time getting everything, i was pretty tired by the time we left.

day 9 - thursday

today was my last MLD appt. leslie and i think that i'm doing great and that most of what is left for swelling is the long term swelling that is going to stick around for a while, so she released me from her care. yea! MLD today was amazing. it was like a massage. so relaxing and wonderful. yea!

also today, i went on my first adventure alone! i went up to my hometown where my mom/family is. ron was at poker so my night was free.

on the way up there, i stopped at michaels for knitting needles to help finish up a project i am working on. by some miracle, they had them! whoohoo!

once back in my car i called my friend nicole, i haven't talked to her since before surgery (driving very carefully of course!). ron did call and tell her that i was ok and things went well, but i hadn't actually called her. she told me that she sent me a beautiful big bouquet of gerbs in the hospital, but just got a call two days ago from the flower store. turns out that they delivered them to a different cori in the hospital and they were just calling to let her know. she was a little pissed, they are calling her a WEEK later to tell her this! she said, "i want my money back to my credit card immediately!" apparently the person on the phone gave her crap about it so she said, give me your manager. she got the money back to her card that night. what a bunch of hosers! she said she would send me flowers some day. :) just knowing that she tried makes me feel happy.

my mom wasn't home and my sister was packing so i visited my grandma and grandpa while i was in town. they were happy to see me, my grandma said, "you aren't swollen at all!" i beg to differ of course. no, i'm not that bad, but i am still swollen!

my mom was home when i came back from my grandparents. she wanted coffee but my mom and i wanted ice cream so we went to DQ. i had a key lime pie blizzard, with no pie crust added to the blizzard. it was slightly good, but got old rather quickly.

then on my way home i gave into one of my many cravings and stopped at arby's on the way home. i got potato cakes and mozzarella sticks. yum! had an issue where the idiot running the cash register gave me $5 in change, when the total was $4.56 and i gave him $10.61. um... he gave me the five and shut the window. i looked at the five in my hand and thought, dude i may be on pain meds but this isn't right... i need $6.05 back! the guy finally came to the window with my food and i said, 'hey! i need more $, i need another $1.05, i gave you $10.61!". he said, "no, you gave me 51 cents, i threw in a nickel we had on the register." i said, "whatever, i still want my dollar." he had to go find someone to open the register, blah blah blah, i finally got my dollar. dork. i felt silly fighting with him, my speech isn't amazing yet thanks to swelling and my splint, i didn't want to fight him and i found it hard to get myself understood, but i did it anyway.

so i got home and mashed up my potato cakes, drizzled ketchup on them, yum! it worked well. my mozz sticks were another story. didn't work that well, i fork chopped one up and gave ron the others. oh well. win some, lose some.

day 7 - tuesday

so when i woke up, my tongue is covered in ick, i made the mistake of looking at it and it looked like kinda dried blood and ick. ewww! i used the tongue cleaner attachment for my waterpik to get the ick out, and used my new scope (but at a like 8:1 ratio, water:scope). it was MUCH better but gross overall.

today i showered, yea! it was good. amazing how that works.

this evening i went to group with my mom and sister, got tired. stayed only an hour into it (it's a two hour group).

on our way home we got chipotle! and i did too (chicken bol, rice on one side, chicken on the other, cheese on the whole thing, tomato salsa, sour cream and guac on the side)! my mom ordered for me (i'm not comfortable talking to people i don't know).

i blended my chipotle up with our stick blender, it worked well. i was happy, real food!

day 6 - monday

today i FINALLY felt better! no more puking! thank god!

i woke up with TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE breath and gross taste in mouth. the first thing i did was waterpik and brush. when rinsing and waterpiking i was spitting out lots of clots and ick. so gross!

ron stayed home with me all day today to make sure that i was ok, isn't he sweet?

had cream of wheat for lunch. did ok, yea!

i had MLD #3 today. i was nervous, i was kinda associating MLD with my weekend of puking since it started after my MLD. i have no real idea of why i was puking, could have been anesthesia post effects, could have really been the Vicodin, could have been my removing the anti-nausea patch from behind my ear. Who knows. MLD went well though. Leslie is great, so kind and gentle and I felt good afterwards.

we went to visit dr. keane for post op appt week 1. he says i look great, things are healing well, my rent looks like it's healing well. everything is good. we asked about the stank breath and he said i can use diluted scope, as long as it's at least 1:1. he doesn't want me using full scope, it's too strong and he doesn't want the alcohol upsetting the balance in my healing mouth.

after my appt even though i was totally exhausted, we went to walgreens and picked up some boost juice. it's not bad and full of nutrition, better than regular juice. we also got some scope and tom's of maine mouthwash.

my mom came over to visit later in the night. she was very happy to see me feeling better (so was i!!!) later i had a stuffed green pepper and she had the other one. even though it was stouffer's, it was yummy! i blended mine up with our stick blender and it worked well. i was starving so i had peaches too! (also blended with the stick blender).

Surgery day!

surgery in just a few hours! i'm nervous but doing ok.

today was my last day of work. i'll be out for the next 3-4 weeks. my team is unbelievable. they had treats for me at the end of the day, my manager got a bunch of cookies. not only that, but they also got me a HUGE bag of stuff. they are so sweet. i have play-doh, origami paper and instructions, lotions and potions and bath stuff to pamper myself, travel connect four, other crafty things to do while i'm out. my manager's husband got me a box of jaw breakers. ha ha ha! :) that's my kind of sense of humor.

ron and i went to baker's square for dinner tonight. we already did the sushi blowout last week, and his steaks over the weekend, so we weren't doing fancy tonight. plus i LOVE the grilled cheese and fries at baker's square. so it was all good. last real meal for some time!

tomorrow i'll be in the hospital at this time! mom is sleeping over with me if she can (apparently it's only allowed in private rooms and they are first come, first serve and they cost extra, that insurance won't pay... fun!), yea!