The Third Formant

Wisdom Teeth Report + Eowyn

Well, I gots my surgery today. It went pretty well, me thinks. They said the surgery itself went great. It'll be a little on the expensive side (if we pay anything; it may be completely covered by the insurance) 'cause my bottom two were full bony. I think they may also have hit a nerve on the bottom, which is really common with full bony impacted, especially in someone my size. This just means I'll have a numb lip for a couple of weeks or more. Anywho, the only "complication" I had was a little nausea, probably a reaction to the narcotics. But they gave me a "wonder drug" for that, and it went right away. I'm still a little dizzy and jittery, but that's pretty good post-sedation. (Yah. I went for the full sedation. I was out for a couple of hours, I think.) I got some ibuprofen, a prescription anti-biotic mouth rinse, and some narcotics just in case. Hopefully the latter will never be used. Today its an all liquid diet, and ibuprofen every six hours. Tomorrow I start the rinse, and keep taking ibuprofen, then I take what I want for the rest of the week until I return for my checkup. Yep.

In other news, Eowyn is apparentely fishie-speak for "Suicidal Jumper". In case you've forgotten, Eowyn the First jumped out of the tank one night and dried up into a crispy fishy. It took a lot of effort to jump out where she did. It was highly unlikely. Then we got Eowyn the Second, who looks pretty much just like the first. Well, I was feeding the girls their favourite treat (bloodworms) yesterday, and Eowyn got excited and leaped out of the tank trying to get at it. Yup. Out of the tank. She fell all the way down the cabinet and into the pile of paint chips. She just HAD to pull this stunt while I was chipping the paint off the cabinet. Erg. Anywho, I ran and got a wet paper towel and dumped both her and her accompanying paint chips back into the tank, then fished the paint chips out. Actually, she was so wriggly that on my first attempt, the paint chips went in and she fell back down. I was really worried that she got hurt (I wasn't worried about her suffocating. Bettas can survive quite awhile out of water as long as they don't dry out, thanks to their labyrinth organ.), but she was okay. She's swimming around like usual, now. Bad fishie. Shouldn't scare me like that. :P

Anywho, that's the news for today. :)

I Gotsh Glasses

I needz them if I'm ever gonna drive again, which I probably should. *sigh* Anywho, spent about $300 on an eye exam and some nice little glasses. Here dey is, plus a gratuitous picture of Jasmine being cuddly. (She's only cuddly for a little while, then she gets bored.)

Edit: Deezh is the glasses. The color is Fudge/Honey.

House Pictures!

Adventure Sunday!

Dum dum DUM!

This time we went to Watkins Glen State Park. Its a network of falls travelling through a deep gorge, down Watkins Creek and into Seneca Lake. Anywho, the WPA built a bunch of walkways and stairs in the 1930s, so you can actually get around. Its fairly crowded, but... Ish very pretty. Here's a few pictures! The last one is of part of the walkway. Apparentely, this is the pattern of the sand on the sea floor, before it got covered up with more layers of sediment and compacted into rock. Yep. Anywho, purtiness!

I Win!

Bwahahaha!

So, the power button on Patrick's laptop broke. We didn't know why, and I couldn't find anything on the internet about his specific model, so we just took the thing apart.

Patrick took allll the screws out of the back. (Turns out only two needed to be taken out, but whateva. You learn as you go!) Then he fiddled around until he figured out how to pop out the bit between the monitor and the keyboard. (Apparentely called the "keyboard cover", for no really good reason.) This wouldn't have come out if two of the screws hadn't been taken out, so the first part was still mostly worth it. Anyway, we fiddled around with that piece and managed to get the backing off the control buttons. Turns out that the buttons are in two "parts." One big part that you push on, which is fused to one little part that actually pushes on the pressure switch. Little, bitty, tiny part. Just a piece of plastic sticking off the edge of the piece of plastic you push. The button you actually push is *not* over the real pressure switch, but slightly offset. I assume this is so that people pounding the power key will only break the button and not the switch, but I still think its a terrible design. 'Specially since you have to replace the entire keyboard cover to fix it, anyway. (At least, unless you work at Gateway.)

So. A replacement keyboard cover would cost $75. Yech. So we decide to try to fix the button ourselves. We started by trying to hot-glue the little piece back to the big piece (cyanoacrylate can't handle torsion.) But, I tried it about three times and it wouldn't stick, so we gave up on that. It seemed like we were going to have to buy the keyboard cover. But then, I took the cover back off and looked at the buttons and figured, well, it may not be as nice, but you can still press the pressure switch to turn the computer on, as long as you leave the plastic bit off. So we wouldn't need to replace the thing. We decided that was the thing to do.

Buuuttt.. I didn't like it. Using it like that would mean leaving the plastic bit off, and some of the circuitry slightly exposed. Not so bad, really, considering that desktops are like that anyway, but it bothered me. Plus, the buttons don't stay in place without the plastic bit, which would make closing the computer a hassle. PLUS, I'm big on aesthetics. :D So, I decided to improvise. I had Patrick fetch me some stuff, and used electrical tape to attach a sliver of old credit card where the little plastic bit used to be. This worked until I popped everything back into place, but then it was in too snug, and the button was constantly depressed. So we took that out, and Patrick went and found some plastic packaging that was alot thinner than a credit card. I cut out a sliver of this and tried again, but it wasn't strong enough. So we taped a second sliver on top, and it works perfectly! Patrick says it actually feels like a button, again. :P Its got just the right sensitivity.

Bwahaha! No $75 part for ME! I win!

ER Fun!

So. At about 7:00 today I dislocated my jaw. Yes, Connie, while yawning. You may smack me. I'm usually good! I shall never yawn properly, ever again. Half-yawns with my hand under my chin from now on! Though they ruin the experience...

For those of you who don't known my Temporomandibular Joint (TMJ) experience, its been largely more frightening than painful. Basically, since I was six years old I've had the occasional TMJ "slide". Over time I've learned to deal with it. It happens less if don't open my mouth very wide, so I avoid yawns and big foods and the like. (No corn on the cob! Yeek!) If I notice my jaw has slid, I've learned to relax my jaw muscles then pull it down and back into place. Its very nearly painless. If I don't notice its slid, well, Connie cover your eyes, it "crunches". I close my mouth anyway, and the result is very painful and equally frightening. I can hear little bits of bone tinkling in my jaw for awhile afterward.

Aaaanyway. That's been the extent of the problem, until now. I've entered Connieville. I had my first, bona-fide dislocation that I could not fix. And it was a yawn, which makes it very fitting. :P In any case, it was bad. I couldn't move it. My mouth was stuck agape. (Apparentely this is a slightly more rare form of the problem: they're usually stuck shut. I think Connie is like me, though, right?) Patrick, of course, was at the grocery store. I didn't want to interrupt him with a cartful of groceries, so I waited 30 minutes before I finally called him. As soon as he got home, he took the milk and butter and stuff inside (I told him to!) then accidentely set off the alarm, calling the cops. *sigh* We were in such a hurry we couldn't keep up with it. But we managed to call Doyle and get them to call off the cops. I suspect there will be a charge on our next bill, though.

Anywho, we arrived at the ER, but there was no parking. So I went inside to check in while Patrick parked. By now it was about 7:45. So, we waited in the waiting room for about fifteen minutes before being called in for triage. Triage was nice. About three different people asked us the same basic questions: what's the problem, how much pain, what's my age, etc. Y'know, I thought we made the situation pretty clear.

Apparentely not. We were escorted out to a bed in the hall, where I lay and felt miserable for...wait for it... 3 and a half hours before ANYONE who knew what they were doing came by. People were being helped all around us. Some made sense, some not quite. While I pity the man who'd been hiccuping for three days, I'm not sure he belonged in front of me in line. I mean, I had a joint problem, I was in fairly severe pain (it kept getting worse and worse; it wasn't bad when it started), and I was throwing up every fifteen minutes because of all the mucous draining down the back of my throat. I think the mucous was a reaction to my mouth being so dry, but all it did was go to my stomach and make me sick, so I had to carry my basin everywhere.

Finally, an RN showed up. She asked me a few questions, then messed with my jaw, then told us (in so many words) that someone had reeeally screwed up. She was expecting dental pain. DENTAL PAIN!!! Yaaargh! So she runs off for something. A while later, the doctor shows up, tries to move my jaw back into place, but decides I need muscle relaxants. He runs off. About fifteen minutes later, sometime around 11:30, an orderly shows up to wheel me off in a little wheelchair to get some X-rays taken. While I'm waiting there, (some screamy kid was getting x-rays done), the doc shows up with my muscle relaxant and injects it into my arm. Kinda hurt a bit, but not much. Then I get all my X-rays done: One where I'm seated on a chair and the x-ray is aimed at the front or the back of my head, then a panorex. The panorex was funny 'cause its specifically designed for people to bite down on the little plastic piece. Its the same thing they use at the dentist. Anyway, they improvised. :P

So, after that, they wheel me off to the trauma ward, where they had to move some furniture to get around some crazy guy going on about the cops stealing his watch because they had to take it off of him. Why yes, he was strapped down! So, we squeezed past him. They took me to a little, um, cubicle thingy with the curtains and had me lay down, but with the back part sitting up so I was only really reclined. The doctor tried to replace my jaw again, with the muscle relaxants, but they didn't do much, so they decided to go ahead and sedate me. They stuck me with an IV, attached three little, um, sticky thingies, and stuck this little thing on my finger that tracked my pulse. I assume this was all to make sure I wasn't having an allergic reaction, or somethin'. They also stuck a little two-pronged thingy up my nose to make sure I breathed properly under sedation. I wish I had a picture. My first trip to the ER, and it looks like I had a stroke! :P They had me sign a paper for the IV, saying that I know of no allergies, and I don't hold them accountable and all that. Anyway, they stuck this stuff into my IV, and I started feeling a bit loopy and they told me to lay back. And, um, that's all I remember.

The next thing I remember is being awake in my bed, laying down, with MY MOUTH CLOSED!!!! Yayyyy! I missed the worst part! One of the nurses or students or somethin' said something and Patrick came in. I, um, said some things. I wasn't entirely all there yet. I honestly don't remember most of what was said at this point. Patrick says something about the time, so I ask him what time it is.
"About 15 til."
"15 til midnight?"
"Uh, no... 15 til 3."
Eeep! How long was I out? Then the orderlies came back to wheel me back to the X-rays to see how it went, then brought me back to the trauma ward to get all set. A doctor came and told me the obvious (as she put it): Don't yawn! And don't open your mouth very far. Ever. Evvvveeeer. Then she said that the X-rays showed no fractures. (Yay!) Then she gave us some paperwork, took out the IV (oooh! Lookit all the blood that comes out!) and sent us on our way.

That was a miserable experience. Really, just the waiting was miserable. Once I actually got to see a doctor, they seemed to figure things out really quickly, and it was practically blissful. 'Specially since I got to be sedated.

I never, ever, ever, ever, ever want to do this again. Maybe I should make a little chin-cap that doesn't let me open my mouth very far. :P

This, of course, makes me curious what Connie's ER experience was like. Worse? Much worse? Lotta lotta worse? I have trouble imagining it was better, unless the wait time was better. But if you didn't get sedated for the, um, replacement of the mandible. *shudder* That would almost make up for the huge, painful, nauseating wait. (After they put me under, I never felt sick again.)

Anywho. That was my adventure. May it never, ever happen again.

Fun Fact: This was my first ever trip to the ER.

Flowery Stuff

Look at the size of our neighbour's Rose of Sharon!

Rose of Sharon in the front...

Rose of Sharon in the back...

Purty Gladiolii.

Adventure Saturday!

So, last night was fun. The power went out at about 4:30, 'cause of a thunder storm. No fans! Eeee! It got really hot, and the power was out for two hours, so we didn't get back to sleep until about six or seven. The sun was up, anyway. Bleh.

But today was fun! We went to Chimney Bluffs State Park and hiked around for a total of three miles, after having a quick lunch at the picnic area. Here's how it went.

Ooh, let's take the Bluff Trail! See how pretty it is?

Hmm. Looking more like a trail now. Still pretty, though!

Swamp, what swamp? Oooohh... Time to turn around.

A quick look at the beach. We can see the start of the bluffs in the distance!

Lets try the East-West Trail. Oooh, bunny rabbit!

Pretty wildflower... And a great picture, too! *preens*

More wildflowers...

Funny bulbous bit on a wildflower/plant...

Hmm. The trail is looking slightly less manicured. The ruts on either side are full of water. Still not as bad as the Bluff Trail.

Spotted Jewelweed! *Is proud she knows this.* Its a natural antidote for poison ivy! It also likes the same habitat.

Eep! Well, we've come this far... Yes, that pond is the trail. Splashy, splashy!

Ahhh, the bluffs!

Ooooh.....

Poor stubborn plant life.

Aaaahhh....

Look, mom! See how close I am to the edge? :D Why, this trail probably used to be a good five feet from the edge.

Yep. That's where we came from.

Bluffy bluff bluff.

The "stairs" to the Bluff Trail. Huh? What stairs? (Turns out there were stairs for the first 10 feet.)

Prettiness.

We took the Seaside Trail, otherwise known as the beach, back. It was drier. And shorter. (Two miles through the East-West to Drumlin to Bluff Trail. One mile along the beach.)

A view from below...

Spiky!

This, boys and girls, is why we don't wander too close to the edge of the bluffs.

Cute waterfalls at the base.

Fin.

I figured it out!

We have a few dark purple Rose-of-Sharons.

By the way, this is what a Rose-of-Sharon looks like:

clicky

:D I'm excited! They haven't bloomed yet. We should transplant some of the little guys. These can get pretty big. Might be useful.

I Spy Three Kitties

Where oh where could they be?

Answer (Highlight with your cursor.): Jasmine is in the shadow between the plastic bag and backpack in the upper right corner. Oro is to the middle left and Meara is on the bottom left.

Silly kitties. Oh, its so hot out! Lets lay out on the hot porch!