OH NO, NOT AGAIN
So I was wrong (but not by much) in the last round of the playoffs, but I can easily see crying in the streets of Vancouver tomorrow night. In fact, it’s looking like the most likely outcome.
What a horrible way to end the season.
EXCELLENT
I thought this article was a good read. It combines two unlikely recent events, the new X-Men movie and the war in Iraq. It also gives me a chance to mention my always simmering crush on Famke Janssen.
Here’s a funny related anecdote. I was playing tennis with Marcia and Mitchell today. Mitch asked me if I had seen X2 yet. I said yes and I thought it was awesome. He saw it with Matt earlier this afternoon and he liked it too. Marcia asked him who was in it. Mitch replied, “Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, and I forget who else… that was it I think…”
I had a chance to see the movie again tonight, but the timing wasn’t right. Maybe again soon.
This is off-topic, but remember exactly one week ago, I had my dental surgery? Yeah, we had cheeseburgers that night for dinner. I had my burger frozen. Tonight, I de-frosted it and ate it. It was tasty. Yeah it was.
THE TWINKIE EXPERIMENT
When I was at Wal-Mart, I bought an eight-pack of Twinkies.
Today, I brought them back home with me to SJC. As an experiment, I taped one of them to my messageboard. Next to it, I wrote “Free Twinkie! Please, take it!”. I timed it to see how long before someone took it.
About five minutes after I put it up, I started surveillence by peeking out my peephole. Some guy totally passed it by. I waited but no one else came. I had other crap to do, so I left it to be.
Around 8:30pm, I came back to my room and it was gone. Total approximate time before it was taken? Three and a half hours.
What did that whole exercise tell me? I’m not really sure.
MOM AND POP’S
No, post-op complications have not prevented me from accessing the Internet. I’ve just been kinda lethargic and this weekend, I took my recovery back to my parent’s place.
After having a fantastic recovery hours after the surgery, the morning after I was faced with the harsh reality of having your gums operated on. The right side of my mouth was swollen as my periodontist had warned. I looked like I had a huge wad of chew in my cheek. It was then the five pound bag of ice I had bought came in handy. Not only did it reduce the swelling, it was soothing to the touch.
The swelling was there the next day as well. That also signalled the beginning of the fatigue. I’d wake up and be awake for two hours and then I’d get really tired. I’d sleep for the entire afternoon and then wake up in time for dinner. Which at that point still consisted of protein shakes and scrambled eggs.
I think the peak of the swelling occurred on Friday. I had several women ask me if they could touch my cheek. I said yes of course. I can’t remember the last time that a woman asked me if they could touch a swollen part of my body. My afternoon-spanning slumber nearly caused me to miss the game on Friday too.
On Saturday, I took my recovery to my parent’s place back in Port Moody. When I got there, my parents were nowhere to be seen, having taken off to play mah jong for the evening. I did, however, find notes littered throughout the abode, pointing me to where I could find various items of food. I was starving at this point, and I was really fed up with eating soft crap. My mom had left some chicken and strawberries, and I ate that in one sitting. Then came the nap.
I awoke only to find that it was past 8pm. Wow. A friend called and after speaking with her, I was off to get some dinner. First, I stopped off at Wal-Mart at Lougheed Mall. You know, I haven’t seen so much big hair, mullets, and Camaros since, well, since the last time I was home. Feeling brave about eating chicken earlier, I went and got my dinner at McDonald’s. I am pleased to say that I can most definitely eat french fries in my current condition.
Today my parents took me out for Shanghai for lunch. I discovered that there are still some items I can’t eat, chicken feet being one of them. I was going to go to Ikea afterwards, but a chance phone call led me to the Coquitlam Silvercity Theatres. It was there I met some friends who were coincidently also in Coquitlam to visit their folks.
We were fortunate enough to catch a viewing of the new X-Men movie. I’m not going to provide a full review, but I will say it’s an excellent movie, better than the first one. Everyone has great hair in the sequel.
I’m spending one more night here with my parents and I’ll be back on campus Monday morning. I’m hoping to get my webcam working again so I can take a picture of what my mouth looks like.
I’ll see you guys when I get back to SJC.
POST-OP
As scheduled, I had my gum re-sectioning yesterday. As I sat down in the chair, I noticed that they had a TV installed in the ceiling. My regular dentist has none of these new fangled ammenties, so it was a nice change. They also put these wireless headphones on me so that I could hear the TV. I turned the volume down to basically nothing though because I wanted to hear what was going on.
Basically as soon as I got into the chair, the dude was sticking me with a needle. He did the entire right half of my lower mouth. A few minutes of waiting and then he was off to work. He first used this non-powered tool on me. I thought he was going to use a scalpel first, but he didn’t. He did a whole bunch of digging on both sides of my tooth.
Then he and the assistant got into this discussion about some boxes that just got delivered.
“Don’t you think those boxes are in Paul’s way?”, said the assistant.
“Oh when did those get there?”, asked my periodontist.
“Just a few minutes ago while we were starting here.”
“Those shouldn’t be there.”
“Look, I can’t be everywhere at once. Bonnie was out there when the delivery guy came. Why couldn’t she have told him to put it in the right place.”
“Hmmm… turns to yell out of the room Bonnie, do you think those might be in the way?”
At this point the attention is back to me. I’m starting to flip around the dial. Nothing is really interesting. Jerry Springer is on, but it’s hard to watch when you know the real violence is happening in your mouth.
The digging goes on for a few more minutes. I see his latex gloves are stained with blood. Not a lot, but enough that I know this isn’t a normal cavity fill. I’m also wearing protective glasses. The assistant says it’s for potential water spray, but what goes unsaid is “and if some blood happens to arc out of your mouth and into your face…“.
Next, he starts using this powered tool. It’s not a drill I think but it had a long bit on the end. Who knows. He’s working it on both sides as well. The assistant leans in says I’m doing great. I bet she says that to all the boys.
I’m waiting for the stitching to start because I know that’s signalling the end. Soon enough, the tool is replaced and I’m biting down a gauze pad or something. I forgot to mention that they’re suctioning the entire time and I’m thankful the hose is opaque since I’d probably be seeing red all along it if it wasn’t.
The needle and thread make an appearance, and I wondering how many it’ll take. I’ve had at most two or three stitches in mouth before. He starts the needlework and I count three before I kinda lose count of what’s he doing. Suffice to say, he’s threading a lot more than I had expected.
After the stitches, he places something over the area. I can’t see what it is.
He takes a wet cloth or something and wipes my mouth and lips down… thoroughly. I must have been a bloody mess.
The chair goes back up and for the first time in over an hour I speak, albeit with a slight slur.
“How many stitches did you put in me?”
“Eight, we did a lot of work on you today.”
Eight. That’s a lot… for me. The most ever I’ve received in one area.
He goes over the post-op care with me. There are lots of things to remember but it’s all on a sheet. There’s rinsing. Icing. Painkillers… two types. What to eat… what not to eat. When to remove the dressing. Who to call. When to call.
When we’re done, I hop out of the chair and into the waiting area. I pay an exorbitant amount of money for this which seems hardly fair. A grocery list of things flash through my head that cost just as much, but where I would derive waaaaay more pleasure from.
I also forgot to mention my father was kind enough to drive me to the appointment. However, he’s no where to seen. I go downstairs and walk toward the car. He meets me halfway. He sees me and thinks I’m might be groggy. He reaches out to hold my arm.
“Dad, I’m fine. We need to go to Safeway.”
“Don’t talk!”
“Ok, but you need to get me to Safeway.”
We drive to the Safeway on 10th. There, we get my Tylenol-3, Advil, Listerine, eggs, yogurt, ice, ice cream, and meal replacement shakes.
We come back to SJC and I’m surprisingly fresh and not at all sore. The freezing is still in effect though. I take two Advil right away. I was told only to take the Tylenol-3 if absolutely necessary since it makes you loopy and constipated.
My father leaves me to be and I thank him for all his support today. I look into the mirror for the first time and nervously open my mouth. There is what appears to be white gum surrounding all my teeth on the lower right side. I can see red between the white gum dressing and my teeth. It must be quite a sight underneath that. I decide to rinse out my mouth. The water comes out only slightly rose coloured.
I stink and I need a shave so I take care of those things. I then drink of those nutritional shakes. It’s not half bad, but it’s certainly not a cheeseburger, which was dinner that night.
At this point it’s about 5pm. There’s croquet and soccer going on in the courtyard. I go out into the lobby to take a look. As I get there, Rhonda is coming in. She’s holding a bouquet of flowers.
“These are for you… they’re from everyone” she says.
“Thanks Rhonda, these are really nice.”
I feel like I’m Miss America at this point. I go and put them in water, change my shirt and go to the courtyard. The men are playing soccer on one side and the women are playing croquet on the other. I’m no dummy. I make a bee-line to the croquet.
Rhonda’s already out there and she’s kicking some croquet ass. I talk to a few of the ladies sitting on the grass. They can’t even tell I had dental surgery. Arash comes out and says it’s 1-1.
Oh crap the game! I forgot it was in Minnesota. It’s a beautiful day though, so I decide there will be many more playoff games, but only one Year End day at SJC. I stay.
Laura shows up after a while. I make a comment about my strong jawline being intact. She insults my masculinity. It’s all good. Laura wanders off to dinner and I go back to my room to grab another protein shake in a can. I also grab my tupperware container.
At the dining hall, I get my burger to go in the container. I sit down and everyone is eating these huge burgers with fries. It’s killing me. I pop open my shake and drink it.
For dessert there’s an Oreo ice cream sandwich. I can’t eat the Oreo top and bottom, but I can eat the ice cream in the middle. It’s heavenly.
After the dinner, there’s a quiz competition in the Social Lounge. I join Team Rhonda, composed of well, Rhonda, Bruno, and Jin. We’re in the lead for the most of the competition. Then, right at the end, some highly irregular counting goes on and we’re stiffed a bunch of points. We wind up like third.
I call shennanigans, but only some round-headed kid named Kyle in the back seems to care. The prize is a plastic dinosaur half-glued to a rock.
After this, there’s a multimedia presentation of photos from the past school year. I’m having a glass of wine at this point and realizing I’m doing great. I’m not in pain, there’s no swelling, and I can totally speak. I even manage to eat some fried zucchini sticks with the other side of my mouth.
The party went on after this with music and dancing, but my periodontist forbade any activity like this so I had to keep my boogie in check. At midnight, I left the party to go watch the ‘Nucks highlights. I went to bed after that feeling like I had escaped major complications yet again.
Things were a little different today, but I’ll write about that later.
OH DEAR
I should be super relaxed right now with no responsibilities to speak of. Unfortunately, that is not the case.
I am going in for dental surgery tomorrow. I’m having what’s called a “gum re-sectioning”. Usually, when I have medical procedures done to me, I’m quite enthusiastic about finding more info about it on the Internet so that I’m more informed about what will be done to me.
The way the periodontist explained it to me, however, was enough to stop me from gathering more info. Basically what is happening with one of my teeth is that I have formed a periodontal pocket around it. It’s essentially a deep open cavity in between the tooth and the gum. Paraphrasing, this is what he’s going to do to me… “Erwin, I’m going to peel back the gum, clean out the pocket and the root of the tooth, and then re-seal the gum tightly around the tooth again…”
One should immediately take notice of the phrase “peel back the gum”. There are very few parts of the body that you can “peel back” without considerable pain and discomfort. Gums just don’t “peel back”. I take it he’s going to use a scalpel of some sort to make an incision, to form two flaps out of the gum area, and that’s what he’s going to “peel back”. Gums bleed like a sonuvabitch, so I can’t imagine this being pretty to watch. “Cleaning out the pocket and root” is another dandy of the phrase. I bet he isn’t going to exactly be using a soft cloth to do this. I’m guessing “cleaning” and “scraping” could be used interchangably here.
Of course after he does all this, he’s going to stitch the “flaps” back together to make that “seal” he was talking about.
Here’s what I know is going to happen. The whole thing will take only an hour from when I sit down to when I leave. Considering the prep work and the stitching me up, I guess that’s alright. I think root canals take just as long, if not longer. I’m also not going under for the procedure. I think it’s kinda dumb for people to go unconscious for these type of things. When you do, you’re subjecting your body to a double-whammy. Not only does it have to deal with whatever is going on with your mouth, you also have to deal with whatever gas, chemical, and/or drug that made you go under.
When I had my wisdom teeth out, I only had a local. As soon as he said I was done, I hopped out of the chair and was gone. My sister on the other hand, decided to go under and had to wait in the recovering room for almost an hour. When she woke up, she was quite groggy still.
Well, if this thing wasn’t a whole barrel of laughs in the first place, I picked a super day for it. Tomorrow night (the night of the 29th) is when SJC is having our year-end party. We’re having events starting from 5pm on. Dinner is going to extra special since we’re having cheesburgers for the first time that I’ve seen. Of course, I’ll be sitting there drinking my craptacular meal replacement shake as everyone else eats their homemade burgers. At 9pm there’s going to be a multimedia presentation showing pictures and videos from the year past. After that, there’s going to be a bar, music, and dancing.
My parents wanted me to go home to their place after the procedure, but I said I’d be an idiot to miss the party. So come hell or high water, excruciating pain or Tylenol-3 induced euphoria, I’ll be there.
My long term worry is that I can’t eat solid foods for quite a while. These meal replacement shakes are supposed to be well, “meal replacements”, but I wonder if they’re going to filling. I’m hypoglycemic, so I’m very susceptible to low blood sugar. I wonder if I’ll be eating soft candy a lot.
So there you have it. I’m in for some big time fun for the next several days. You know, several days after I found out I needed this procedure, Brendan Shanahan did a number of Brendan Morrison’s mouth. He lost like three teeth, had a tooth pierce his cheek, suffered gum damage, and was given a whole lotta hurtin’. At the time, I thought, hey, my little procedure doesn’t seem so bad. Now I’m thinking, what the hell? The club probably paid for his dental work, he makes more money than I ever will, and he’s got a great wife (Trenouth met her once apparently). Yeah sure, in terms of just dental procedures I’m gettin the better deal, but what about the big picture? Ha ha ha…
Man, I’m going to have the best lunch ever tomorrow before my appointment!
THE GOLDEN TIME
I wrote my last final exam of the year on Saturday. It will not go down as the best exam I have ever written. I think I passed, but we’ll have to wait and see. If I do pass, I bet it will be by the skin of my teeth.
In any case, that’s all behind me now. As I left the exam, I felt a feeling that I haven’t had for many years. I felt that unexplainable sense of relief. I wouldn’t have to study or read another textbook for another four months. The end of Christmas exams don’t offer the same relief. Sure it’s good to be done, but you’re immediately immersed into holiday madness. With spring exams, you’re just released into freedom, no presents to buy and no relatives to see.
As the feeling of relief subsides, some students enter into what I call “golden time”. It’s the time when you don’t have any more school responsibilities but your summer/work responsibilities haven’t started yet. For some grad students, this doesn’t apply since their research forces them to work year-round. The golden time is the best though for those who have it. After studying your ass off for months, you don’t have to do anything anymore. You can sleep in, watch TV and movies, go shopping, drink, go out, meet with old friends, and spend lots of $$$ that you really shouldn’t.
How long do I have this spring? I really can’t say since I don’t have a job yet. I really need to find a job in the next two weeks. If my search goes beyond that, I’m going to be really worried. Most of the summer hiring here at UBC goes on in the next 14 days.
In the meantime, I’m going to have as much fun as I can in the next little while. Actually, I have one little thing to do this week that won’t be so fun, but that’s the topic for another post.
FEAR
It’s coming down to the last few hours of studying for my last final exam of the year. My assessment at this point is grim.
It’s clear that I won’t get an “A” in this course, but the question that does remain is, just how badly will I do? I must pass the final to pass the course and right now, I can’t say that’s a guarantee. In previous years, this course had a final exam that had an average mark of 46%.
I know I’m going to get my ass kicked tomorrow, but I’m hoping to scratch and claw for enough marks to get me over 50%. To be honest, I don’t know a single person who said they got a great mark in this class.
Time to enter the final phase!
YEAH, I’M GOING CRAZY
I just took a pee. The toilet in my bathroom is right near the door. As I was doing my business, I thought to myself, “Hey, I wonder if I can completely stick my head out the door frame (without moving my feet) and still be hitting the bowl?”
The answer is yes.
UNMOTIVATED… AGAIN
I have a killer exam on Saturday. Yes, Saturday… as in the day after the first game against the Wild. The timing is perfect.
In the meantime, I’ve again developed some serious motivation problems. I wrote an exam this morning and planned on taking the morning and a little bit of the afternoon off. Yeah, try like the entire whole day! I now have basically two whole days to study for my hardest exam.
Old Erwin wouldn’t have let this happen. Old Erwin woulda holed up in his room and focussed like sonuvabitch for days in advance. Old Erwin then would have been prepared like no other student in that class and be the “King of All Geeks”.
Of course, we’re dealing with New Erwin now, who’s a lot less stressed, strangely still wants a good mark but doesn’t put in all the crazy hours anymore, and is easily distracted by TV, video games, women he has no chance with, the Internet, and shiny objects.
You know, just writing this has made me motivated (for now). I’m gonna end this post here and get going! Old Erwin in the house!