I am such a ...

dork. It's super early where I live and I'm up becuase I can't sleep. Wish I could... I had three wisdom teeth surgically extracted mid-day. One would think I'm awake because I'm writhing in pain. Nope. I think I can't sleep because of the twilight sedation they gave me. I "slept" so hard it took away my need for sleep during sleeping hours tonight. Bleh.

I put off having this done for a couple of years because I've been having some other mysterious health stuff. I finally "womaned up" (is that a term?) and I got it over with. Awesome surgeon, real cool.. and turns out my nurse is also married to a LEO. Bonus! She was extra nice to me.

So, I get there, they do a panorex, they tell me I have three horrible wisdom teeth that are "sidewinders" and that behind one of them I have a cyst which luckily was only fluid and not very big. They did all the scaring the hell out of me by telling me my two lowers were literally sitting right on the nerve and the bone, etc. etc.

Doc has me sign my life away and leans my chair back. He puts the nitrous over my nose and swabs my arm. We had moments before discussed how we were going to avoid using fentanyl on me as it gets into my marrow space in certain uses and it causes my blood pressure to crash. Where was I? Oh swabbing the arm.. IV needle goes in. I hear him ask for the Versed from the nurse. Then I hear him ask for the fentanyl. To his shock and amazement, I opened my eyes about half way and said, "No fentanyl, remember what you said?". Luckily the nurse hadn't handed it over and they ended up giving me something else. I was still not out of it at this point and even mentioned perhaps my vein rolled on him or something. He took a look and sure enough, there was a problem with the line and he had to fidget with it to get the meds in. He looked a little shocked but I was totally calm and relaxed (thank GOD) and then he plunged the propofol and I smiled and said, "Ok now I feel that". Off to sleep I went while he cut away.

Then the most hilarious thing happened. I woke up in this really narrow room on a little cot with a small, almost inappropriately tiny blanket over me. Just so happens when I came to, the nurse had literally just stepped out and I had NO CLUE where the hell I was. I started crying (not hysterics or anything) but it was so funny. I thought I was in JAIL. HA HA HA.

The hubs and my mom came in with the nurse (turns out she was going to get them when I came to). Although I don't remember crying at all, I specifically remember thinking I was in a jail cell. Yikes!

The doc had given me a prescription for Vicodin and told me how with it being a holiday weekend he wanted me to have the "strong stuff" because I'd likely be in a lot of pain since I'm OLDER than most of his wisdom teeth patients. I told him the last pain pill I took was in 1996. He was surprised. After my neck surgery in December I only took straight liquid Tylenol. I'm really thankful for whatever freakish powers I possess that let me have a grip on painful procedures.

I'm rambling I know.. but I'm bored to tears. I took one Vicodin on the way home yesterday and my mom and the hubs were expecting me to be all goofy. I don't know if I lack the enzyme to convert it morphine or what, but it has zero effect on me....

UNTIL this morning. I was laying on the couch about 4am and I started itching like some street corner junkie. Yuck. So, needless to say I'm throwing this crap out and sticking to my Tylenol alternated with Ibuprofen.

Wish me luck that between the ice packs for the rest of today and the OTC meds I'll push through without any problems!

Thanks all for letting me ramble. Hubs is at work and I'm all alone (but don't tell the oral surgeon, ok?!)

Brochacho

Last night I had a fantastic time watching my brother and some other family members from one district play a softball game against another district in the metropolitan area where they work. My bro is one of those guys who had the potential to play professional baseball but just didn't want to. Anyway, it was a great time, but had a scary few minutes. Bro was running to third base and knew he was going to mow over the third baseman, so he jumped to go over him. As bro jumped, the guy started to stand up which then launched my bro about five feet in the air. He promptly landed on his right side and I watched in horror as the side of his head literally bounced off the dirt. He lay there writhing for a minute and all the police there started to gather around him.

I am a very overprotective LITTLE sister. It took everything in me to NOT run out to the field and lift him up like Shera and take him back to the dugout. It was rough watching, but then all the guys scooped him up and put him back on his feet. My bro, the nice guy he is, just laughed and waved to everyone and said he was fine, only his pride was hurt.

It made me think back to September 30, 1999. He was then 23 years old. One night at 3am my phone rang. And yes, this is back in the day before I had a cell phone or caller id. This is back when, if the phone rang that time of night, you knew something was wrong.

Bro called and sounded concerned because he woke up to some really bad chest pain. I asked him for the details (I was in nursing school at the time) and decided I should come pick him up and take him to get checked out. I drove like an idiot to get to him, scooped him up curbside and drove 90+ to the hospital while trying to watch him but not crash at the same time.

I squealed up the ER doors, practically carried him over my shoulder into the ER and they hooked him up and did an EKG and some labs immediately. He was awake and talking to me, actually laughing about how the ER Doc had the same last name as one of the Simspons characters.. (go figure).

The Doc came in a minute or two later and as we were giggling about how this would probably turn out to be bad gas, the Doc said very abruptly, "You're having a heart attack right NOW".

The giggling stopped. NO.FREAKING.WAY. He was 23 years old and the poster child for healthy living. Worked out 5 days a week, ate healthy, etc.

Doc said the things he had going against him were being male and smoking cigarettes. Anyway, long story short, I vaguely remember walking next to him as they wheeled him up to the coronary care unit and the next day they did a cardiac cath on him. I was so terrified for him.

Turned out there was about 5-6% damage to his heart and the Doc said if he quit smoking and maintained a healthy lifestyle that it would probably never effect him. I breathed the hugest sigh of relief. I couldn't leave his side until he was released a week or so later.

That was eleven years ago. Even though he is a big tough Policeman now, I still can't help but worry like crazy about him whenever something happens. When he made it back to the dugout I gave him two ibuprofen, a bottle of water and a towel to wipe off the dirt with.

I am SO thankful he was ok. I watched him like a hawk for the rest of the game and then called him later on to make sure he was ok.

He's my Brochacho. I love him. (sigh)

Eighteen Years

"It is with deep grief that I learn of the death of your kind and brave Father; and, especially, that it is affecting your young heart beyond what is common in such cases. In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all; and, to the young, it comes with bitterest agony, because it takes them unawares. The older have learned to ever expect it. I am anxious to afford some alleviation of your present distress. Perfect relief is not possible, except with time. You can not now realize that you will ever feel better. Is not this so? And yet it is a mistake. You are sure to be happy again. To know this, which is certainly true, will make you some less miserable now. I have had experience enough to know what I say; and you need only to believe it, to feel better at once. The memory of your dear Father, instead of an agony, will yet be a sad sweet feeling in your heart, of a purer and holier sort than you have known before." --A. Lincoln in his letter to Fanny McCullough December 23, 1862

All of the words above hold great meaning for me, but none more so than the ones in bold letters. My father died eighteen years ago today, on his 44th birthday. He was the most amazing single father a girl could ever wish for. Meek and mild, wicked smart and with the best sense of humor, he spent his days teaching us how to lead a purposeful life.

It's hard to get through this day without thinking of how hard he struggled through the years to make ends meet, or how he worked so much I often wondered if he really got to enjoy life - but I understand now as a parent, myself, that everything we really are and everything that really matters can be seen by looking into the souls of our children.

I know that while for years and years I held onto resentment and anguish and horribly vivid memories of watching him die a long, slow, painful death from brain cancer - I am now thankful that I can say we spent the toughest times, together.

I was only 14 when he died and I used to cry my eyes out thinking of the million things he would miss. Graduation, my wedding, the birth of my kids.. It was almost too much to bear.

But when I read the last line of the letter above, "The memory of your dear Father, instead of an agony, will yet be a sad sweet feeling in your heart, of a purer and holier sort than you have known before.", I find solace.

I know that a part of him will always be a part of me. I see him in myself, I see him in my children. His memory is all around me.

I still miss him, but I am content at knowing that I had the chance to stand by him during his darkest hours, that I got to tell him that I loved him, and that in our final conversation he suddenly became very lucid and aware and looked straight into my eyes and with a warm smile said, "Babe, you know I love you and am proud of you, don't you?".

That, is what keeps the sad sweet feeling in my heart.