the night in.

For the past year, every 6-8 weeks or so- Nick and I get the itch.  The Disneyland itch, that is!

Although the wedding planning is in a state of limbo, I've still been looking at wedding venues around town and I actually found one that was off the beaten path and I just fell in love with it via photos online.  There wasn't much information out there, but I knew that they did weddings from some reviews and blog posts that I had read.

So, I called them up for more information and the lady who answered sounded a bit surprised.  She told me that they had not really done weddings since 2009 and she would have to speak with the owners of the restaurant portion of the hotel to see if they could accommodate me.

It sounded doubtful, but I didn't know why.  If they had hosted other weddings in the past, what would be so different about mine?  I was willing rent out all 20 of their hotel rooms for the night and I had it all planned out in my head... it would be the perfect spot for the elegant/vintage wedding I am aiming for.  Plus, it's a little silly, but the town that the hotel is located in is also the town that my grandfather is buried.  So, in a way, he would kind of be nearby.

The owner of the hotel side of things called a few days later to say that they had recently had a meeting to discuss whether or not they could have the wedding there and that they would get back to me.  Again, I was a little dubious... I wasn't planning on throwing a rave at this hotel.  Just a nice wedding.

TAKE MY MONEY.  PLEASE.

Ahem.  So, I waited a week to receive a voice mail today from the restaurant owner letting me know that although they do host events at the hotel, they are not staffed enough to host a wedding of my "size" (60-80 people).  And that was that.

I'm baffled and sad.  Dramatic of me, yes- but now nothing else seems to measure up to the plans I had for this venue.  Should I call her back and ask for more details, or just drop it completely?  I suppose it's back to square one...

This will probably be my last post about my wisdom teeth recovery, because I am feeling better... and if I do start feeling bad again, it will probably be much of the same.

On day 6, I intended on going into work, but again- I woke up early and in tears.  I really did not want to take my pain medicine because I knew that would mean I couldn't work because of how drowsy and dizzy just one pill makes me.  I took 2 Advil and sat for awhile.  Nick got a little frustrated and told me to just take the pain killers.  So, I did and fell back to sleep for a long time.

When I woke, Nick brought us some food because I had taken the pills on an empty stomach and needed something because they made me feel sick.  This helped a lot, but made my mouth really gross so I had to complete the 20 minutes process of cleaning my teeth/mouth out (I had been doing it every time after I ate).  I went to take a shower and noticed a wash of hives all across my stomach.  I assumed it was from the pain meds because initially it had just made my skin really dry and itchy.  Since I had taken 2 at one time the night before, I'm thinking this was the result.

The day went on and I slept some more.  I started to feel really bad again in the evening and took more pain medicine.  Nick looked at my hives again and was completely freaked out by the way they looked.  He made a paste out of baking soda and we let it sit on my stomach for 20 minutes.  I know it's really gross, but when I washed it off, the hives had turned into weird, gross open sore type bumps.  Ick.  So, we put some aloe vera gel on it and went to sleep.

I woke at 6 am this morning.  Took an Advil and tried to mentally visualize myself feeling better.  This did not work, so I took a pain pill. :(  I only meant to sleep until 8 am, but since I had taken the pill on empty stomach it seemed to make me even more tired and slept until 10 am!  I went to the dentist around 10:30 am and the doctor confirmed that I did have a second dry socket on the left and he re-packed both sides.  I also mentioned the hives and he prescribed Motrin 800 as an alternative and told me to throw away the other pills (they are a generic of Lortab which is codeine and Tylenol).

I felt amazing after (and right now as well).  We went and had the RX filled, picked up some Benadryl cream at the suggestion of the pharmacist.  We grabbed some coffee from Starbucks (I'm having another unmentionable side effect from the pain pills which I won't go into detail, but I'm hoping coffee will solve), and some lunch to take home.  I successfully ate part of my burger and a few fries.  It's very irritating right now because I can't clean my mouth since it will take the medicine out of the sockets.  But, I have not needed to take any of the new pain meds so far which makes me happy!  I hope that things continue to progress in this direction... I feel as though with this entire experience I would have been just fine had I not developed dry sockets.  My word of advice to other women who get their wisdom teeth out is make sure you're not on birth control at the time because it increases your risk of dry sockets immensely and is not worth it!

I know these posts might be getting a bit dull, but I really do want to document what this entire process has been like.  I'll try to sum it up as quickly as I can...

On Day 4 of recovery, I was feeling "eh".  Not great, but not terrible.  The pain in my mouth was pretty constant.  I woke up at 4 am again and took an Advil, went back to sleep... same routine.  Nick had to work, so I managed to get ready and drive to a friends house just to get my body used to being out and active all day again.  We got some food which I had a hard time eating (note- cheeseburgers are really hard to chew after wisdom teeth removal).  I went home that evening and felt so bad I took one of my pain medicines.  I took another before bed and hoped for the best.

Day 5, 3:30 am and I woke up in tears from the terrible pain on the right side of my mouth.  I felt like I had an ear infection.  Took another pain med and googled the symptoms for a dry socket.  I matched with it and dread came over me.  I called the dentist in the morning and they had me come in for treatment.  The dentist irrigated the right side of my mouth and packed it with some sort of gel that tasted like medicine and ginger to me.  He also poked at the other areas of my mouth and they all felt fine.

Back at home, I took a pill and was up and down all day until the other side of my mouth began to hurt too.  Terrible... just awful.  Now I had a headache and felt nauseous, so I drank a bit of Coca Cola.  After a shower, I was feeling better for about 30 minutes.  Then, it hit me again.  My head, ears, jaw... everything hurt.  I started to cry a lot.  I had never felt pain like this before.  Nick came in and gave me two of my pain pills (I had only taken one at a time up until this point) and forced me to eat 2 bowls of oatmeal so my stomach would not get upset.  He left to get some clove oil which is supposed to help with the dry sockets, but by the time he returned the medicine had kicked in and I was left with a headache and no mouth/ear pain.

And... that was all about an hour ago, so I'm just waiting to see what is next.  For the record, dry sockets are no fun at all.  In fact, the pain is one of the worst I've experienced in life so far.  I have to work tomorrow, so I'm not really sure how that is going to work.  Hopefully the clove oil will help out.  I definitely just want my life back!

On day 2 after my wisdom teeth removal, I woke up multiple times during the night in pain.  Finally at 4am, I got out of bed with my pain pills, went to the bathroom and took one.  The pain was so excruciating that there were tears coming out of my eyes (I wasn't exactly crying, it was just that kind of pain).  Nick woke up too and got me some yogurt to eat and frozen vegetables for my face.  I couldn't fall back to sleep, so I watched Marley and Me on TV and finally dozed off around 7:15 am.

My pain pills wore off around 8:30 am, so I woke again to take another and my antibiotics.  Nick cooked an egg for me and I tried to eat most of it.  He had to work, so I was set to fend for myself all day until about 7:30 pm when he would be home.  The whole day consisted of me trying to make simple meals for myself, shower, rinse with warm salt water and apply heat compression on my face every 20 minutes.  It was basically very exhausting in conjunction with the pain meds.  And the fact that the medicine kept wearing off so quickly was really terrible.  It was probably the worst day of pain so far.  But, it could have been worse!

Day 3, I felt much better.  I still woke up at 4am, but I refused to submit and take more pain killers.  I spent the whole day taking Advil instead, which simply dulled the pain but did not take it away completely.  We actually left the house for about three hours and I had some rice, beans and half of a cheese enchilada   It was like heaven!!!  I would have scarfed the whole thing down if I had been able to.

My mouth then started to really hurt again when we got home, so I napped and took more Advil and then napped again.  I waited all the way until 10:30 pm to take a pain medicine before I fell asleep because I couldn't take it anymore.  I'm trying to imagine what work will be like on Monday because I absolutely cannot take the pain killers since they make me tired and dizzy... hopefully Advil will be enough by then!

For days (okay- really weeks) before my wisdom teeth surgery I researched the experiences of others looking for the positive stories and trying to give myself hope for the day that I was terrorizing myself about.  I was convinced that the actual surgery portion was just going to be awful, when really it was not too bad at all.  So, I just want to share my own experience so that maybe others can find comfort and reality in the whole wisdom teeth removal... journey.

I really wanted to eat all of my favorite foods the week before the procedure... however, life decided to give me food poisoning instead so I was unable to eat a real meal until the night before the surgery.  My last meal consisted of half a Bobbie and half a Philly from Capriotti's, plus brownies with vanilla ice cream (that was a little over kill considering my stomach was recovering).

I was super nervous the night before, especially since I was not able to drink any water after 11:30 pm.  I have always had a really weird thing where water calms my nerves... or sometimes it makes things worse.  When I was younger I would drink so much water that I would end up throwing it up.  Really strange, but it's a mental block that I have.  So, I went to sleep early and tried not to focus too much on the water obsession!  The morning of the surgery I was a nervous wreck... my stomach was even more upset than it had been when I was sick, but thankfully Nick was very calm and we left the house at 7:15 am since my appointment was at 7:30 am.  When we arrived, we had to watch a video about wisdom teeth that was made back in the 1980's... more than anything, it scared me all over again because it really emphasized the risks of surgery.  But, again, Nick reminded me that thousands of people have this procedure done every day and are just fine.  Then, there was MORE waiting... and I really just wanted to get back there and get it done and over with.  Finally, at about 8:10 am, they called me back and I kissed Nick goodbye.  They took my blood pressure, which was of course sky high.  In fact, they took it multiple times to see if it would go down.  My medical history was reviewed... and then they made a huge deal over the fact that I have mild asthma.  I did not bring my inhaler because I have not used it in months, and my asthma is typically brought on seasonally with allergies.  So, they had an inhaler on site and asked me to take a puff before they would do surgery because they were afraid I would panic and have an attack.  In addition to this, the oral surgeon confirmed with me that I really wanted all four out at once because I had 2 partially erupted teeth on top and 2 impacted teeth on the bottom, one of which he said had grown in sideways and may be difficult to take out.  But, I definitely wanted them ALL out.  I was not going to put myself through this again.  He also warned me that women generally always get a dry socket and they are not sure why, and that I may wake up weepy and/or hysterical.  Super- this was also a big fear of mine!

I waited some more.  It felt like days until someone finally came to get me.  Everyone was generally nice, one nurse even complimented me on my shirt (Walt Whitman FTW).  The room that the surgery was performed in was far smaller than I had expected.  I sat in the chair and they hooked me up to the heart monitors, the blood pressure cuff and that little monitor that goes on your finger.  Then came my biggest fear- the IV.  Not because I am scared of needles, but because my veins are super tiny and nurses always have a hard time finding one to stick.  But, surprisingly they found one right away and started me on a saline drip.

Oh, and then more waiting.

I remember looking at the clock on the computer monitor in front of me and it read 8:47 am.  I know there was some fuss because they had run out of paper for the machine that reads my vitals, but one of the ladies left to go buy some more.  An oxygen tube was put in my nose which felt really weird and I did not feel loopy from it as most people described.  The surgeon came in and told me that he was going to put something in my IV to make me relax.  I watched him inject my IV line with two different syringes (I'm assuming one was an anti-nausea medicine and the other the general anesthesia).  Someone asked me to open my mouth as wide as I could, and they put a foamy block thing in to hold it open and then I was out.  I don't remember feeling sleepy or closing my eyes.  Nothing.

The doctor had told me before the surgery that I would be able to follow their commands and answer questions during the surgery, but the anesthesia would cause an amnesia affect so I would not remember later.  However, I do remember some of the things that went on during surgery.  None were really bad and I was so out of it that I did not care.

At one point, I remember gagging and hearing an assistant say, "She just gagged" and the surgeon replying, "Did she?  I didn't see."  Then someone called my name and told me to take a deep breath through my nose, so I did and it made me feel better.  Later, I remember hearing a tool in my mouth on the lower right side, but then I fell back to sleep.

Toward the end, when I had gauze in my mouth, they began asking me questions to see if I was waking up.  I remember being asked "Do you know where you are?" My reply, "Dentist."  "Do you know why you're here?"  My reply, "Wisdom teeth."  "How many teeth did we take out"  My reply- I held up four fingers.  "Do you know what day of the week it is?"  My reply "Thursday"  "Who is here to take you home?  My reply "My fiance"  "What's his name?"  My reply "Nick."

My eyes were not open at this time, but I remember this all very clearly and I must have fallen back to sleep for a bit.  Then, someone came in with a wheelchair, helped me put my sweater on and into the chair.  I did not cry or fight like most people said I might.  I just felt very serene and like I had waken up from a night of deep and pleasant sleep (with my mouth packed full of gauze).  She took me into the x-ray room, helped me put on the vest and took an orbital x-ray of my teeth.  I remember her handing me back my glasses and I said, "Thank you." and she looked quite surprised and responded with the standard "You're welcome."  Maybe recently drugged up people are generally not so nice afterwards?

Then, I was wheeled out to the front, through a different entrance/exit and Nick was waiting for me with the car pulled up and I hopped right in.  I felt great, coherent and immediately went for my phone to spread the good news.  We went to Walgreens to fill my RX and grab some soups and drinks.  I didn't go inside, because while I felt quite awake I was still a little dizzy.

When we got home, it was a rotation of gauze, ice, jello and pain meds.  I did accidentally pull out a clot when changing my gauze, but it re-clotted itself soon after.  The whole day was breeze until I got a killer headache in the evening that not even the medicine could take away... and that leads us into day 2 which I will conclude tomorrow!

The moral of it all- the surgery and general anesthesia were not so bad.  I wouldn't want to do it again, but I'm glad it went well and it's over now!

Disclaimer: This post was written after recently taking a pain med.  Sorry if parts are confusing!

Here's what I've been up to this week...