No Surprises

This is from an email I sent to some friends and family members yesterday afternoon after surgery - As you can read, there were no surprises and everything went by the book.
My sleep was restless last night but I am taking it easy today and Cory's Dad told him to stay home with me too, which is awesome. It's nice having him here to take care of me :)

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12th Aug at 17:21
Everything went well this morning. Last night I was very anxious as I went to bed but I woke up this morning filled with peace and the nerves had reduce substantially. (I didn't even cry as we drove to the appointment - and I'm telling ya, that is a first).

Dr Johnson performed the surgery expertly. He reported that the cyst was large but that they were able to clean it all out nicely and graft the site with bottle-bone. He also removed some tissue underneath a 1st molar on my lower jaw - it looked like it was forming a cyst there and they didn't want to take any chances. Thankfully we didn't need to graft that site and hopefully it will heal well by itself. The cyst in this site was so close in proximity to the other cyst there that it doesn't appear to be anything to worry about. They have sent the cyst tissue to OSHU for biopsy and I will receive the results in 2 weeks. Dr Johnson is 99% sure it's the same type of cyst we found on the upper jaw and should be nothing to cause further concern.

Everything went so smoothly, my Doctor couldn't have wished for anything to go any better - this is also a first for my surgeries and I am very thankful!

I'm in a fair amount of pain right at the moment but I have some pain killers that I will use tonight if necessary and they already gave me some meds through my IV that should keep the swelling and bruising to a minimum. Movement in my lower jaw is very restricted at the moment but I'm doing good & Cory is doing a great job of taking care of me.

D-Day tomorrow

I know I've been bad at writing, I've been both busy and not really in the best of moods, so I figured it would be smart to not write while that's the case. It'd only end up with short sharp posts anyway! ha!

So, tomorrow is D-Day for me. I will be having my latest maxillofacial surgery. I was scheduled to have two implants placed tomorrow, two bone grafts (one upper & one lower), a cyst removed and teeth pulled but it turns out that we have had a change of direction.

The 3D scan showed that I do not in fact have enough bone in the upper site to hold the Ti implants. The bone has reabsorbed into my body and is now too thin to hold the implants. That was a major blow that I hadn't really expected to hear. I thought we were doing really good with the bone strength up there.
The other thing that changed the game plan was the position of the canines. I need to have them moved a little so that the implants can go into exactly the correct spot. Ugh.

So the treatment plan has changed. We will be leaving the implants until the end of orthodontic work which will be in about 30 months (+/-). Tomorrow we will remove the lower incisor (for ortho) and a lower molar and also they will remove the cyst that has grown in my lower jaw at the front, they will also bone graft the site at that time.

I'm hoping it will not mean a loss of nerves to the teeth above the cyst, but it's a risk we have to play with.

In approx 6 weeks I should be good to go into ortho and get that ball rolling. We're going to have to keep a really close eye on the upper bone grafted site to make sure that the bone loss there doesn't get too much worse, and if it does it means dropping implants during ortho to stop resorption and save what they can. If everything goes to plan, after ortho I will have one final surgery (which I didn't expect... ) which will place an autograft - a block of bone taken from my own body and placed in the site - and also a Xenogenic graft which is a block of bovine bone.
I will have a soft tissue graft at that time and the implants placed. It sounds like a lot, well, it is a lot but I'm really trying to not worry about that right now. I'm just trying to keep stress free and rested for surgery tomorrow and worry about each procedure as it comes up.

I'm just very thankful for good doctors, who know exactly what they're doing and have a vision in mind. They are fighting for the very best for me in this situation, so that's definitely something to be glad about.

Hummmmm.... Pie

Our neighbours (and good friends) are having a big party on Saturday evening in celebration of their daughter's recently wedding that took place in beautiful Mexico. They have been planning, prepping and working so hard for months on end to get their place ready for this big day - it looks amazing - and now it's just a couple days away (YIKES)!

So, we offered to help them out with whatever we could and I somehow also volunteered to make pies, 3 of them to be precise. It's not like I didn't have anything else to do, far from it, but they wanted home made pies for dessert and the number of people who are coming quickly jumped from 65 adults to just a handful shy of 200... they were really short on pie and I like to bake... I just made sense to me that I'd do my bit!

All that aside yesterday I had grand plans of cleaning our house and getting all organised and everything ship shape in preparation for my surgery next week, because I knew I wouldn't have any time this weekend and didn't want a mad rush on Monday & Tuesday.

Well, I should start by saying that didn't exactly happen... ok, that didn't happen at all. But I did do a few things around the house in the morning before my afternoon got a little crazy.

I decided that I needed to do a trial run of one of the pies that I would be making for the weekend. It is a recipe that was originally Cory's Mammaw's (Mother's mother). She gave it to Cory's Grandmother (Father's mother) who changed it a little, and then it was given to me by Cory's Mom... (are you still with me? I know, that's a lot of women and mothers, but it's really simple... keep up!).

I seem to have a habit of not really being able to make a recipe exactly as it is written, even if I have tasted the recipe and it seems perfect, there's always a little something here and there that I want to change... this wasn't any different. But since it would be fed to people other than Cory & I it needed testing, I didn't want to be embarrassed by showing up with a monstrosity!

So, I nipped to the store, grabbed a few things I needed and hurried home... Cornstarch sometimes makes me nervous - sometimes it can get messy when you're trying to make syrupy goodness and instead it just turns into lumpy gross yuckiness.

Thankfully this seemed to go smoothly, my syrupy goodness was mixed and was cooling before I added it to the pie crust.

In the middle of the cooling time, and way before it was ready to go hubbie called... He'd gotten a flat tyre about 15 mins from here and needed me to come get him, take him to go get a replacement and then bring him back to change the tyre.

So, I decided that it was now or never with the syrupy goodness I had so proudly mixed. I had no idea how long I would be gone and just had a feeling it would be set in the jug by the time I got back if I left it, so I took the plunge and quickly poured a little on the crust. I knew it was too hot but I carried on.
I added the fruit - yummy raspberries and then hurriedly poured the rest of the mixture on top. I threw it in the refrigerator, grabbed a couple berries as a to-go snack, my keys and handbag and jumped in the truck!

Last night we ended up eating out (read: fast food - but decent fast food, I will say) and by the time we got home neither of us were really up for pie... so tonight we;re going to try it. I hope it's ok!

(As you can see from the photo it has a couple bubbles which I guess are from just throwing the berries in, and then pouring the filling over top but not doing anything else)

I guess I'm going to whip up an apple cake (cleverly disguised as pie) and an English style apple and clove pie for the party, so at least those two are safe bets! ;)

Now I'm about to head and do some of the other things I didn't get done yesterday, and whip up a batch of hubbie's fav cookies too - I like to put them in his lunches!

Oh deer, Oh deer, Oh deer!

Well, it's been a while since I last wrote, but not that much has been happening with us. Cory is heavy into harvest season and that's keeping him (and in turn, me) busy. The cattle also got a bout of pinkeye too, which totally sucks, so on top of grass and wheat harvest they have to keep doctoring the cattle.

The deer have taken it upon themselves to also make sure I do not get bored... it all started one night a few weeks ago. About 4:30am I heard a clonking noise out in the garden (yard). It sounded a bit like a horse walking on concrete. I jumped up like a crazy person with insane reactions and ran out to the living room. There was a huge deer on our deck helping himself to our dogwood plant. Now, I can't really understand why he thought it was necessary to go up onto the deck, he could have eaten it from the ground since it's just a bush like thing.
Anyway, I've decided that perhaps it's their newly learnt talent and they plan to use it as much as possible!

The deer don't even get scared by me any more. I make big gestures, I'm loud & obnoxious and still they look at me with a duh face like they're saying "what's your problem lady?"
Grrr
Well, yesterday I was up and getting ready to leave for a day out with my friend Janet. I come out of the bathroom to find 3 deer going hammer and tongs at the plants on our deck. The dogwood, strawberries and tomato plants!
So, I run out, yell at them and they look at me like I'm insane... they were less than 2 feet away.
I finally get them to run off and I go back to trying to get ready.
A few moments later they're back. One guy on the deck, the other two helping themselves to the bird seed trays -Grrr
I scare them away again, and then again and again and again!
I felt like I was never going to be able to get out the door!
Why couldn't they just eat the yummy grass on our lawn that we haven't gotten round to cutting yet for a while so it's nice and long?????

I tell ya, I was about ready to go and get a BB-gun and give them a sharp warning in their butts!

Anyway, I have a million things I need to do today so I had better get off here and do some of them! :)

I'm in love with Nolan

Yep, you heard it here first.
I'm in love with Nolan...



No, no, no - don't go jumping to conclusions like a little busybody - Nolan is my new motorcycle helmet, and it's mine... all mine.

I've been using a helmet we borrowed from a friend for all the motorcycle rides we've been on but it really doesn't fit well and isn't comfortable, plus it's extremely heavy.

My main reason for needing a new helmet was my jaw and all that dental crap we've been dealing with. My lower jaw is weakened from the cyst that took control over my body so I didn't want to ride with anything less than a full face helmet. It just wasn't worth the risk (trust me) and I totally needed a new helmet anyway.

So, on Sunday after church we headed up to Beaverton and hit the Honda store there. They had the new Nolan 103 modular helmet in stock and after trying on a few others it was the one I wanted. It was light, a full face but also has the modular feature which allows me to lift the jaw section (not sure of it's technical name) and raise it up with the visor.

It's nice!

I haven't had the chance to try it out on a ride yet but I am itching to get out on the bike now... We're hoping there will be a sliver of a break in combining on Saturday so we can go with the Hillriders up to Seaside to the bikefest.

Oh and a big shout out to the Honda store up in Beaverton for price matching for us too - we got an awesome helmet at an awesome deal!

Just a year

Yesterday I was looking through some files on my laptop to try and organize it a little better and move things back to where they should be.

I like things to be where they are supposed to be, for the most part.

I came across this photo. It smacked me upside the head like a lead brick!

Do any of you know just how heavy a lead brick is? I do, I have one in my closet... it's heavy. The reason it's there is because it's so heavy!

Anyway, this photo screamed at me from the screen of my laptop. Just a year... just a year... JUST A YEAR!

A year ago (well, just a little over) we were there, sitting in that luscious and extremely fragrant meadowfoam after being announced Mr & Mrs Fast and we didn't have a care in the world.

We had no idea what struggles were about to face us in the coming year (+).There's no stress or worry in our eyes.

Maybe I was naïve to have let some of the signs of Graves Disease go unnoticed, but right now as I look back I'm really glad we did. I'm so glad we didn't have any worries or stress that day. I'm glad we were able to just enjoy our special time, breathe in the moment and capture those memories that will forever be untainted.



The other scary thing that smacks me upside the head when I look at this photo is how different I look just a year later. In fact, I could see the difference just a couple months from when this photo was taken but it seems like this past 12 months has aged me about 10 years!

Happy Independence America!

Well, our Independence day weekend was quite a lot of fun. We drove up to Mt Hood on Saturday morning (a little later than anticipated, but that's ok too) to meet up with my good friend Dave who is also an expat and his Oregonian girlfriend Katie.

They live in an absolutely beautiful area at the base of Mt Hood, at an elevation of about 1500 ft - I hadn't thought of the elevation being an issue but it was interesting.
After we got there we headed out to the Salmon river and did a little hike. I say hike, which is wasn't really - but it was a little more than just a walk, so I guess it was a 'little hike'. It was beautiful though and fun - except that I was hiking in my flip flops. I hadn't brought any other shoes, just two pair of flip flops, and I managed to dig another one out from underneath the back seat of our truck. Ugh.

After that we headed to the golf course and played a little lawn bowls. It was SO much fun and the weather was just perfect. We played Dave & I against Cory & Katie - England vs USA.
Cory & Katie beat us by a point, which was ok I guess - since it was Independence Day weekend... but we WILL have to rematch sometime (soon)!
We grabbed dinner out and then made a dessert run and got some yummy cakes and pies! The gooseberry pie was my favourite, and surprisingly I really liked the coconut cream pie too - something I have never been a fan of, but it was really good!
Sunday was the 4th, and Katie was snowboarding with her brother up at Timberline so the rest of us had breakfast and then headed up to check out the lodge. I'd been there before and I love the lodge - it's amazingly beautiful and the view is always stunning. It was cloudy at the house but perfectly sunny and clear up at the lodge.

We met up with Katie & Sean (her brother) for a drink and snack before heading back to the house to get prepped up for the BBQ.
We headed home as everyone else headed to fireworks - it was getting to be late and Cory had to work first thing in the morning. Swathing grass seed = early morning starts.

We got to see so many fireworks on the way home though, for pretty much the whole drive, and we made it in record time too. There was hardly anyone else on the road, I guess everyone else was watching fireworks or celebrating Independence somehow!