The Biggest B

It's 11:15pm and what am I doing? Oh, that would be attending a conference call with China and India. The same thing I did Saturday night from 10-11 and Friday night from 10-midnight. I knew being the mother to a 15 month old I would no longer have swinging social life, but I never thought it would turn into this.

Why on earth would anyone have conference calls on Friday and Saturday nights in the US and at the start of Chinese New Year, the biggest holiday in China? That is because I work on a project with one of the biggest Bs I have ever met in my life.

I know, I know...I have my moments but this woman puts me to shame. I work with people from all over the world and I always thought hands down that French women were the worst offenders, followed by Americans....but low and behold I was wrong, terribly wrong. This woman is NOT French or American...she is Indian and she is the worst.

Not only does she schedule conference calls at the most inopportune time, she also just asked me at 11:15pm to redo slides I turned in at 3pm today (yes, on Sunday). Really? I'm sure you can imagine what I wanted to tell her to do with said slides...looks like it's going to be a LONG night.

Dental school here I come

As I was eating lunch today, I had the wonderful experience of the remaining packing on the roof of my mouth coming down. Again it fell down but not off as it was intertwined with the stitches. A-WE-SOME!

I weighed my options:

1. Let this nasty tasting bandage keep hitting my tongue for the next 18 hours until I can get into the periodontist

2. Let Adam perform dental surgery on me.

3. Do it myself

#1 was out because I refused to taste old food and dried blood for more than 3 minutes. #2 was out because all our scissors are right-handed. Adam said he was willing but when he brought up the right-handed thing I knew it was a cop-out. He was just trying to be nice but didn't want to be responsible if I ended up in the emergency room.

So, I said "Screw you, Rookie Amber, I'll do it myself"...and I did with minimal bleeding and keeping all other stitches intact. I definitely fared better than any other time I've been to the doctor. Maybe I found my calling...dental school here I come.

Sliding into Spring

How about 75 degrees for a Saturday at the end of January? There is no other way to describe the weather today than GORGEOUS! We took advantage of the great weather and took Maison to the park. It was so nice to finally get this poor child some fresh air!

Unfortunately, we aren't quite into spring yet as it's supposed to sleet and snow on Wednesday!

Run in with a rookie, Take 3

Seriously? There's really not too many other responses you could have to the following other than...Seriously?

Last night the packing I had replaced on Tuesday fell off...A-GAIN! When I went to bed, I was dreading having to call the doctor first thing when I woke up to go in and get it replaced...again. So when I woke up this morning you can imagine my delight when one of the packings on the roof of mouth was hanging by a thread....literally. It was intertwined with the stitches and was pulling them out of the roof of my mouth. Since the bandage was hanging down I couldn't even talk. It kept hitting my tongue and making me gag.

I was in the waiting room hoping that anyone but Rookie Amber would come to get me. I'm sure the look on my face when she opened the door was "F&%#, why me"??? The doctor comes to see why I'm back yet again. He even asked if I was trying to get a job there. I politely informed him that TWO of my packings that his incompetent staff applied just a mere 2 days ago were falling off. He gave Rookie Amber instructions on what to do and left. Left! Left! I was tempted to grab him by the tie and say, "Screw rookie Amber, I want someone with real medical training to handle my packing issue, for God's sake!!"

But I didn't, and Rookie Amber is who I got. She detached my packing from the roof of my mouth and proceeded to remove my remaining stitches, which, by the way, she was not instructed to do. My mouth immediately filled with blood and she just shoved gauze in my mouth and proceeded to inform her trainee (yes! apparently imbeciles can have trainees) what she was going to do to my new gums where the packing was gone. She put the packing on, packed it down (obviously learning nothing from Tuesdays mistake) and huh! My new gums started bleeding AGAIN! I demanded to see the doctor after she assured me it was ok to bleed. I've had gum surgery before and it is not normal for it to bleed one week after surgery.

The doctor came back, said it was ok (really, what else could he say? My staff sucks complete a**, sorry for your pain and suffering while we train people?), told the imbecile to stop the bleeding and let me go. She literally shoved gauze in my mouth, told me to get a milkshake on the way home and walked me out. She did add "there will be no charge for today"...YOU THINK?

Anyone want to wager how long this packing will last?

Here we grow again ~ Part 6, Stat Quo

Maison had her 15 month wellness exam today. She was actually deemed well enough to get her 12 month vaccines (no, 12 was not a typo). Other than that, things are just status quo...still not gaining much weight dropping her to 60% but of course she's still completely off the charts in height...a-gain. Here's how she's weighing in...

Age Weight Height
Birth 7 lbs 9 oz 21"
2 weeks 8 lbs 11 oz 21 3/4"
2 months 11 lbs 14 oz 24"
4 months 15 lbs 2 oz 26"
6 months 17 lbs 7 oz 28 3/8"
9 months 21 lbs 0 oz 30 3/8"
12 months 22 lbs 10 oz 32 1/4"
15 months 23 lbs 5 oz 34 1/2"

Run in with a Rookie, Take 2

I was getting ready to take Maison to the pediatrician and had a little surprise as I was going to get in the shower. One of packings (bandage over graft area) came off. Considering I just had my surgery 4 days ago and the packing was supposed to last two weeks, I knew I had to go in and get it put back on. The exposed graft area didn't feel so great, but I was doing pretty good with the pain when I got to the doctor's office.

And then...she was there. Rookie Amber from my surgery would be replacing my packing...aces. She put the packing on, pressed to secure it in it's spot, and basically exploded my newly attached gums into mass amounts of blood in mouth. She seriously squealed and said "Oh my god, you're bleeding". Um, you think? You just forced something on top of a open wound. Needless to say the packing had to be removed and replaced, again.

So she went to get the doctor. He basically told her she didn't know what she was doing and that the packing needed to go laterally but not all the way to the jawline and that it needed to cover both attachment points. Ok, I have NO MEDICAL training and I got what he meant. Rookie Amber had to ask another assistant to do it for her. The doctor came to check "Amber's" work and he threw a fit. It was not done correctly so he went to get the other assistant who then had to admit that she was the one that had done it wrong and had to redo it, again.

I'm sure you can imagine how awesome it feels to have the packing pulled off and redone THREE TIMES. Yeah, with no painkiller but the loratab I had taken about an hour before. It was just the highlight of my day...

Run in with a rookie

I survived my gum surgery despite having a rookie assistant who was trying to do me in. She couldn't get the oxygen/relaxing gas set up right so every time she moved the tube or stepped on it, it would blast a big gust of air at one time.

Then after the Dr put the needle for the IV in my hand (thank goodness she didn't), she couldn't get the IV tube fastened to the insertion point. So she kept bumping the needle while it was in my hand. The result, other than the pain at the time, is a big bruise on my hand at the insertion point and pain up my arm.

If that wasn't nice enough, I have a huge blister on my lip from either the adhesive they used to hold the tubes in place or from the tubes rubbing my lip for 3 hours. That's just what I needed, a blister to go with the roof of my mouth and 2 sides of my mouth being bandaged.

Speaking of bandages, she covered one of my grafts incorrectly and when the real assistant came to check her work, she told her she had done it wrong and it would have to be redone. So with no painkiller she ripped it off (yes, right off of where it was just sewn back together!) and replaced it.

So was I surprised last night when a huge piece of the bandage from the roof of my mouth came off while I was eating ice cream and I swallowed it? Nope, not at all. Am I surprised after 18 hours of taking loratab the only part of my mouth that hurts is where she ripped off and replaced my bandage...not so much.

All I know is I will request that this NON-rookie of the year not be involved in my post-op!

Blister on the left side of my mouth:

Bruise on my hand:

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