Sage of Wisdom (teeth)

One month ago today I had three of my wisdom teeth removed and boy, has it been rough. I got the procedure done on a Friday and by Monday the left side of my lip and chin were still completely numb so I panicked and called the oral surgeon. He explained how my lower wisdom teeth were so impacted that on a scale of one to ten, they were tens and that made their removal very difficult, however, he said the nerves were intact and "perfect" and that the surgery was a great success. He said numbness was to be expected in a case like mine but it would only be temporary and not to worry.

I thought I'd be back to normal in a week or two...NOPE! The pain was so intense and I would wake up 4-5 times a night in horrible pain. There were days when I'd come home from an 8 hour shift of having to talk on the phone and smile all day and just cry for an hour because I was in so much pain. I don't like to take medication but I had no choice but to take the pain pills they prescribed me. However, those didn't even alleviate all of the pain. I'm pretty sure they had to remove some of the bone tissue in order to extract the teeth because my recovery has been a very slow one and my jaw bone still aches. Besides the pain, though, the loss of feeling in my face has been distressing me the most.

On the 5th of this month I went back in for my follow up appointment and a different surgeon assessed me. He said that the extraction sites were healing "wonderfully" and then he did a test on me to see how bad the paresthesia (numbness) was. He pretty much poked my chin with a small needle and asked me if I could feel it then he dragged it up/down or left/right and asked me which direction it was moving in. I passed all the tests and he confirmed that the paresthesia was only slight at this point and that that was a good sign. He said if my face was still completely numb it would be cause for alarm but since I have regained a lot of feeling that it should only be temporary. Then he said I could feel back to normal in a week or in six more weeks (yikes). So today I hit the 4th week and am just ready for this to be over. I had pizza last night at a friend's house and my jaw still hurt a lot afterwards. I was also really self-conscious that I might have food on my face that I couldn't feel.

I hope that the doctor was right and that my nerves will heal themselves because this honestly has been such a nightmare. I've never experienced so much pain before and it's been so scary not knowing if I'll ever get all of the feeling back in my face again. If I had it to do over again, I don't even know if I would've had the procedure. Before they did the surgery they told me that there was a 15% chance that I would have nerve damage since my wisdom teeth sat right on top of the nerve and were fully developed since I'm in my 30s but I never thought that I'd actually fall into that 15%.

Before the surgery I was pretty hopeful that 2016 was going to be the year I started dating again and possibly started a new relationship but now that my face is all jacked up...I don't know when I'll feel up to it. A guy online messaged me just a week after the procedure and wanted to take me on a date but I told him about my situation and said I'd need some time to recover. At first he said he didn't mind waiting but then he started messaging me everyday asking me if I was well yet. It put too much pressure on me to heal quickly that I just stopped talking to him. It would've been nice to have someone to go out with on Valentine's Day but I don't really want to go on any dates until I've healed.

So that's what's been going on with me for the past few weeks. If you can send any positive energy my way, I'd really appreciate it. I just want to feel like myself again :( You don't really appreciate your health until something happens to compromise it.

Disneyland Part 2

A wild Twinkie-chan has appeared!

Sorry it's taken me forever and a day to continue my Disneyland story but I had my wisdom teeth taken out the week after I got back and have been feeling pretty shitty ever since (which I will write about in my next post). The second day we went to the park we got a pretty late start. We didn't leave the hotel until about 11:30 and got to Downtown Disney around noon. Stephanie needed caffeine in a bad way so we stopped and she got a latte but then we remembered that they won't let you back into the park with a beverage so we hung out in Downtown Disney while she had some breakfast. We entered the park around 1 o'clock and it was pretty much pandemonium. I had never seen so many people at Disneyland in my LIFE (and I've been going every year since I was a bebe). A huge parade was starting on Main Street so they had to herd all of us through this secret door I'd never been through before and we all migrated towards Tomorrowland. As a person with social anxiety, this was a pretty uncomfortable situation. We were completely walled in a sea of people and everyone was pushing and shoving in every direction.

Gramma Courtney needs a sammich

Somehow, we managed to get to Space Mountain where we'd hoped to get Fast Passes but of course we were waaaaaaay too late for that. The standby line had an estimated 80 minute wait so we decided to bite the bullet and just get in it. Well, 140 minutes later we finally got to ride it and I was about to drop dead from not having eaten yet. Stephanie's friend Danielle (ahoymiss) also happened to be at the park that day so we met her at the Jolly Holiday and I got another caprese and tomato sandwich. I was really excited to meet Danielle since I'd been following her on Instagram for a few years (she has one of the dreamiest IG accounts ever). She was there with her bf and his family so they could only meet us for a late lunch/early dinner but it was a very nice visit.

By the time we finished eating it was already dusk so we took barely any pictures that day (to my great disappointment). We made our way over to Adventureland and got in line for Indiana Jones and then things got wacky for a while. First of all, the line was out of control. They had us wait in this labyrinth of a line over by the Jungle Cruise before moving us back to the regular line. When we got in the normal line, though, they turned all the lights on super bright and said that the ride was temporarily closed due to a "routine procedure" so either somebody barfed all over the ride or there was a celebrity on it because they turned the lights on like that and repeated that same message 4 times. Most people left the line but we decided to tough it out since weren't in a big hurry to go on anything else.

I look a little cray cray in this photo

I think all day we only managed to go on a grand total of eight rides. If we hadn't gone the day before too I think we would've been majorly bummed by this but since we'd already gone on everything Friday it wasn't that big of a deal. One thing of note that happened on Saturday was that Stephanie had her first Dole Whip. I wish we'd been able to get one during the day when it wasn't freezing but the line is always a nightmare during the day so when we passed by it again around eight o'clock  there was NO LINE AT ALL. We hoped we could find somewhere inside to sit and eat them but there really isn't any indoor seating in Adventureland so we had to just freeze our buts and guts off outside.

The rest of the night is kind of a blur but what I do remember is that we went to Denny's afterwards for a late supper. I was dying again from lack of protein so I decided to order the loaded veggie omelet since it said it has 20 grams of protein (daaaaammmn!). My whole life I've hated eggs but after being forced to eat so many both in Thailand and in England (both places weren't very vegetarian friendly so my protein options were pretty limited) I've kind of developed a taste for them. Stephanie wound up ordering one too and we both inhaled them! I rarely eat all of my food but that day I was a member of the Clean Plate Club.

Accidental Matching

The next day our flights were scheduled in the late afternoon but check out was at 11am so we killed some time at a Coffee Bean and Tealeaf across the street from our hotel. Luckily, it was really slow on a Sunday because we hung out in there for like, 2 hours. Before we knew it, we were saying goodbye at the airport and going to our separate terminals. I honestly missed Stephanie the moment she left and when I got to my gate and checked my Instagram she had left me a comment saying she missed me already too, haha! I'm so glad that I've found someone who I get along with so well and who is so much fun to be around. We're talking about going to Japan this fall for her birthday so that's my next adventure I'll be dreaming about. I've wanted to go to Japan my whole life so that would be an amazing trip to get to take together.

I hope 2016 treats you all well and that it's filled with lots of good times and lots of adventures!

Xoxo,
Courtney