Suddenly Craving a Hamburger

I just spent an hour combing the web for liquid diet recipes for post-surgery. And in reading the meager recipes I've found out there, it just kind of hit me as to what not being able to chew for at least 6 months is really going to be like. Burritos? Right out. Meat that's not been blenderized? Basically gone. Bread? Not really. Pasta? Only if its in pieces small enough that I can swallow with some broth. Crunchy vegetables? A memory.

What it look slike I *will* be eating a lot of is strained soup, yogourt, soft fruits, juices, soft tofu, cream of wheat, protein powder, ensure shakes, and possibly even baby food.

I am trying to look at this as a good opportunity to look at what I eat, make better food choices, etc., however I think even the blender-half-full folks out there will admit that this diet is going to get old. Obviously it'll be harder in the beginging when my mouth is banded shut. And then I'll have to do stretching exercises to re-teach the muscles in my jaw to stretch and such so that I can actually fit a spoon into my mouth.

Things to buy before the surgery: a food chopper, a food processor, and this sexy item.

I am going to make the best pumpkin smoothie for Thanksgiving, though, even if all that ends up being is a straw in a can of premade pumpkin pie mix. :)

And I am going to run across the street to Johnny Sprockets right now. (drool)

I Gave a Horse a Boner Today

Yes, you read that correctly.

Exposition:

I treated myself to an afternoon learning how to care for, tack and ride a horse today with these fine ladies in Woodside, CA today. It was a total hoot.

I'd been jonesing to go riding for several months now. I was reminded that I enjoyed it last quarter at school during the "Life List" assignment we had to do for our career development class. You know, make a list of all the things-you'd-like-to-accomplish-before-you-die kind of thing. I'd actually made a similar list when I was in high school all on my own - something more along the lines of 30 Things to Accomplish by 30 - which I still have somewhere. Anyhow, even as a teenager I've wanted to go on a cattle drive/dude ranch (thank you, Billy Crystal,) and this class reminded me of that. So I started kind of half-heartedly poking around for places to ride horses in the area, but could only find the touristy trail rides with the animatronic horses. I didn't want to do that; I wanted to Ride a Horse. Not, you know, ride a horse.

Amazingly I found this place through the mom's club I'm on. Someone posted an email about these two women who have a women's only, remember when you were a little girl and loved horses kind of workshop going on, and they were having an end of season sale. Sign me up!

Now the last time I'd really been near a horse that wasn't a pony at the local petting zoo was probably, oh, back in Girl Scouts during grade school. And even then, they didn't really let a bunch of pre-teen girls do a ton by themselves. But these ladies - who may I mention were both as tall as I am - walk you through everything in the 5 hours you are there: how to approach a horse, put on a harness, tie the special knots, how brush a horse, which brushes to use in what order, how to pick rocks out of their hooves, and how to do basic riding. And by walk you through, I mean you do everything. This was very hands on. I was covered in dirt within an hour. The only thing you don't actually do, although they do walk you through everything, is saddle the horse (I'm guessing insurance reasons.)

(And in case you were wondering about the afore-mentioned boner, this is the part.)

There were four students in the class, which was just about perfect. We got paired off, and I got this great German woman named Ank3. Her daughter normally takes lessone at the stables, and was goaded into a lesson by said daughter. She and I had a blast. Early on in the lesson, each pair of women was given a horse to brush down. Our instructor P came by and was explaining some of our horse's body language as we were doing it. Turns out he was a bit uncertain about A and I, and was not entirely relaxed. This was in direct contrast to the horse across the aisle who was enjoying having his tummy being brushed so much, he was soon sporting enormous horse wood. We're talking the Trojan Horse, here, folks. Big, black; an equine porn star.

Now, apparently this is all fine and good and normal and whatever, butI started joking about how we had obviously been poor brushers and shouldn't give up our day jobs. We started snickering and giggling and joking back and forth about how our careers as horse fluffers was off to a poor start. More snickering and snorting came from our side of the barn. Soon everyone was giggling and guffawing. Needless to say it was a running joke for the rest of the day.

After lunch we were given two different horses that were actually going to be saddled and ridden, but still needed to be brushed down first. A and I were paired up again, and we each took a side of the horse. Everyone was kind of chatting and doing their thing when A exclaimed from the other side of the horse, "Hey, we did it!"

"What?"

"He's got a boner!"

And in my usual completely dignified manner, I gasped, "Really?!?" and immediately doubled over to see. Sure enough, that was definitely an engorged horse penis, all but poking me in the eye.

There was much celebrating and subdued cheering about our newly acqured skill (don't actually want to scare the horses screaming and all,) and more extensive giggling. I had a great time riding this afternoon and learned a lot of other stuff, but yes, I will admit that this was probably the most memorable part of the day. I can't even really say that my second most memorable part was that much classier; I dropped the hoof pick we'd all been given to use and keep as a souvenir into my lunch bag full of left-overs after the lesson to have one less thing to carry. Forgot about the part where it was still crusty with horse shit I'd scraped off the bottom of the horse. Yeah. I'm a natural horse woman, all right.

At least I know where not to get my business cards made for my new horse fluffing career.

Note to Self:

Get -

* food chopper thingy
* small white erase board (or master ASL in a few weeks)
* pack halloween costume for hospital just in case
* start compiling soft food recipes
* make sure we have a strainer and/or cheesecloth (for straining solids out of liquids)
* look into acupuncturist and/or massage therapist for post-surgury swelling

You There! With the Creative Ideas!

On a similarbut less-snivelly post, anyone have any ideas for a good surgery blog name?

(Whimper)

(Mamamer, you probably shouldn't read this. Look over there at that large distracting thing!)

Just before bedtime I found yet another jaw surgery blog and decided to give it a run. It was from an extremely upbeat Canadian woman, and had a sprinkling of hippie thrown in too. It was informative, had good pictures, recipes, advice; you name it. I enjoyed it. One thing it also had was links to other websites/blogs/the such, so I started to check them out.

Boy, was that a mistake.

Generally speaking, every personal account I've read to date has been fairly upbeat. Yes, they all admit, the first few says are rather hard and sucky, but its so worth it! I've never looked back! Everything is so much better! And then I ran across this particular blog.

I was horrified, but I couldn't stop reading. Surely this is just a passing thing. The anasthesia is just wearing off of the person, right? Then it all gets better? But no, it just kept going, and he was miserable, and he goes into fantastical (and I mean that in the *bad* fucked-in-the-ass way, for those who read the post about my business cards) detail about mucus and blood and drainage and ICU and beeping and blood oozing and eyes rolling in the head and complete delerium and lack of sleep and suddenly ohmygod maybe a CPAP isn't so bad after all, or maybe a tracheotemy (sp) instead...

Right now I am about 10x more freaked out than I've been to date, and I'm desperately trying to not focus on it, but a lot of the stuff this person was talking about reminded me of my experience of ICU or whatever I was in last time and I *really* don't want to go through this again and in ways it sounds even worse - probably because they're going to bust up my FACE instead of just drilling holes - and I'm totally having an oh-poor-me moment but right now I am scared scared scared and I just so wish I didn't have to do this.

(blows nose)

I'm also snivelling all over my keyboard which believe me is much less attractive than anything they're gonna do in surgery. (sniff, snarf, snarkle)

I guess on the bright side is that before I found the almost-worst-case-makes-me-look-like-a-glass-half-full-kinda-person blog and I was still reading the Pink and Sparkly Good Blog from the North (literally), I found a link to a fan-fucking-tastic list of things you should buy and do prior to your surgery to make things easier once you get home post-op. Better yet, its compiled from actual patients, not just a hospital or clinic talking in monotone voices about how you should keep the wound clean, blah, blah blah. I guess none of the stuff is wa-hoo completely novel; in fact most of it is just a list of the little things you take for granted now that you need to be aware won't be so easy after the fact. But that's the stuff I tend to forget, so its great.

Connected to that was also a pair of links for a 'post-op emotions reminder' and a bit of writing about 'post-op depression', which seem like mighty good just-in case things to have around.

Its really hard surging back and forth between "Jesus, I still have to wait 6 weeks?" and "Oh fuck, I don't want to think about this reality at ALL -- look! A shiny distracting thing!! Over there!" REALLY hard. I'd really just like to go to sleep and wake up when this is all over, but I guess that's the problem isn't it, ha ha...ha...sigh.

Ok, I think I've adequetly vomited emotionally to the point where I've talked myself down and can actually go to bed and not be spooled up. I'm thinking it might be time to start a dedicated blog for just the jaw stuff. Its been incredibly helpful (well, except for that ONE guy) to read about other people's experiences with this, and I'd really like to be able to pay it forward, so to speak. Maybe that 365 photo project too.

Ok, off to bed.

Never Say That Burning a Goat Doesn't Help

Well, after about a week of butt-clenching excitement - and by excitement I mean utter stress and freaking out - the business card gods have decided to take pity on my mere mortal self and have delivered both parts of my business card order by winged flaming chariot this morning. And by winged flaming chariot, I mean a brown truck driven by a college student with really nice calves, and that works for me too.

Brief recap:

*Need business cards for last day of class (and thereby approval to graduate) by Monday.
*Order cards from OvernightPrints .com on Wednesday for delivery Friday.
*Call Friday evening as cards have not arrived. Ooops, they've not started to print part of the order. Will overnight half of order for Saturday delivery. Will email shipping info or call to say it did not make it out.
*Call later Friday. Entire order was completed and shipped, but won't be delivered until Monday am.
*Start to find the *bad* reviews on the web. Fuck!
*As of Monday, no tracking info available. Call again, missed pick up entirely on Friday, won't be delivered until Tuesday, which is good because the second part of the order is still in QA. WTF?!?
*Very understanding teacher; give her copies once I get cards. Start to frantically look for local printers. Set up fire pit in yard and run to Whole Foods for a high-quality, organic goat.
*Tuesday - dress toga ruined but cards delivered! Hooray!

Moral of the story - hire someone else to do your fucking card designs so you don't find yourself down to the printing deadline wire, use a local printer and not (what turns out to be) an online printing broker who farms out their work, search for reviews - good AND bad - of any company before you use them, and always spot treat IMMEDIATELY after sacrificing, because goats blood sets very quickly.

Ooooh, and

I've got a new computer monitor today that is actually in focus (gasp!) AND its finally at the correct height so I can attempt to sit at the computer with good posture!! Yes, that means its only about 2 feet from the ceiling, ha ha. Its so bizarre actually looking straight at the monitor, instead of having to have it tilted up at me as I looked down on it.

Wish I'd done this about, say, 5 years ago. Of course, that would have meant lifting that f***ing heavy ass CRT monitor 10' in the air. No wonder that didn't happen.

Push! Push!

Ok, the wedding dress is done, the jacket is almost wrapped up, and the last dress shouldn't (knock on wood) take terribly long to complete. I've also only got about 2 weeks of school left.

In a phrase, I can see the head! Bear down! Bear down!

(pant, pant, gasp, grunt, groan, curse at Husband)