Just stuff

I really obviously have some weird aversion to sitting down and blogging at times. I get the idea I want to do it but then that idea disappears about as soon as it comes along and I tend to end up doing nothing. Yes. nothing. Well, besides schoolwork and that sort of deal but that's understandable. School comes before blogging, comes before friends, comes before work, all that good crap. Unfortunately when you're in school you give up a lot. But on to the next "subject" or multiple subjects that I might end up coming up with. lol

I met a little boy with a cleft palate at Cold Stone, where I work, and I talked with his mother about it because I saw it as a good opportunity to show her exactly what it was like when you're a young adult with a cleft palate. I was surprised and, quite frankly, amazed when she mentioned she couldn't see that I had previously had a cleft palate. All those surgeries and all that pain paid off well and I felt very nice that I got a compliment like that. Even now I'm constantly wondering if people can tell I've had 35 surgeries to fix my cleft palate and if there is anything that they can see or whatever. I think that's just the nature of the beast, you never can get over it no matter how much older you get. But I learned that Vinnie, as I learned his name, was not much older than... 5 I think, but he looked good. The surgeons had done a great job already and I talked with her about a pharyngeal flap that both he and I had done. I can't remember what it really does but both he and I had surgery on it. The only problem for him was that the surgery site started to bleed. You don't have to be a genius to know that a bleeding surgery site that's supposed to be healing is a bad, bad thing. They took him back in and found cancer. Wow. This little boy had gotten cancer as well as a cleft palate. I hadn't even noticed the lack of hair, I thought it was just the hairstyle that they had given to him but he had been growing it back slowly and they had to wait a year after radiation and chemo to see if it would come back. Apparently this version of cancer isn't easy to get rid of and you have to wait to see if it'll stay in remission for a year before continuing with the surgeries. But he had already had some of the similar ones that I did and had a list of surgeries that were going to be the same as my own.

I don't know what it is when I see another cleft palate child but I just feel like I should talk with the parents, or just talk in general. I feel like there's some kinship with him and I since we're both going through the same thing. She shared with me some of her fears about her child growing older and about teasing and such. I told her I did get teased and apparently when I was younger I'd come home every day crying because of what the kids had said about me or to me. Kids can be harsh, they don't have the same ability to censor that adults have (some adults need to put that more into practice) and they pick up what's said at home and project on the kids in school. So, I get the brunt of that being the most different. Then I become the bully to get the attention placed on another poor student. I was never outright making the comments but I would sit with the kids that were the bullies and point out people and make jokes about them and such. Its horrible but that's how I survived. Vinnie had already been teased about his lack of hair but he was doing great aside from suffering from cancer that's in remission now. I remember talking with his mother and seeing all those fears that a mother has for her child and the desperate need to protect him, to make sure that he doesn't end up feeling like crap or having problems when he gets older. But I tried to give her a few pointers without revealing too much about what I've been through as I don't know her and I didn't feel comfortable revealing too much, but I tried to tel her as much as I could.

Unfortunately in the middle of our conversation my boss's wife rudely thrust some papers in my face, waved them about and informed me, under no uncertain circumstances, that we had cakes to build. Apparently my coworkers with me that day are dunderheads and can't build cakes and I'm the only one. That kinda irritated me but I apologized to the woman I was talking to and told her that I wished her well and she said she would be coming back, yadda yadda. My coworker told me that she would have been politely asking me but my boss's wife rolled on up there with fire in her eyes that I was, gasp, talking when there was no one there! Apparently she thought this woman and I were friends, we aren't, I just randomly met her. Then I go to apologize to her, telling her that I'm sorry if my speaking with that woman made her angry but since her child had a cleft palate and we weren't busy that I felt inclined to talking with her and she tried to cut me off several times but once I said my piece she told me she wasn't angry. Excuse me but I'm allergic to bullshit, let me go have my sneezing fit now. But that was beside the point and I just left her be to stew in her own anger and went about my business. To put it plainly, I don't take kindly to rudeness, even if it is my own boss, and when I step up to be the bigger person here, don't be stupid, accept it and move on. You look juvenile if you don't accept it.

Anyhow, lately I've been slammed with school, Karate, work, just anything you can think. I have almost no time to myself and what little time I do have to myself I tend to be allocating it to doing schoolwork or spending time with my family. Which isn't bad, mind, but I just wish I could have a bit more time.

I have such a long to do list now. I think I'm just going to try and find a good way to vanish and maybe live life in a vacation setting for the rest of said life. :) That sounds like a plan to me! Oh man, I think the worst part of being a female right now is having a crush on a guy and knowing that you will never tell them or ask them out because you're terribly old fashioned and refuse to go tell him or ask him out. I was talking to a friend who asked me what I would do if he was the type who needed the girl to ask him out and I told her that if that was the case then I wouldn't ever have my crush move on from just that, a crush. She then said you should live a little and I said I'm living I just happen to be living inside of my own values and standards and that's one of them that I won't be breaking for anyone. Yes, even for my "soul mate".

I still have to do an online consultation for this doctor in Texas and getting everything figured out where that's concerned. That'll be fun... Okay, so to-do-list:
- Online Consultation (must)
- More blogging!
- Freeing up some time for myself
- Trying to meet more cleft lip/palate survivors/parents
- Make a website (god I hate HTML/CSS -.-)
- Get better, being sick sucks
- Become more proficient in Karate

Hopefully I can actually start doing more blog posts in the future. I think part of my problem is that I've made this into more of talk only around me and my cleft palate and haven't actually decided to go into my daily life which I'll start doing. This post was part of that. I'll be getting more and more into my day to day life as I continue to blog and I'll hopefully end up with more posts.

Oh but I must go off to get ready to go to work. Yipee.

New year post?

I've finally managed to get to typing in my blog once again now that I'm next to fully healed and pretty much good to go from here on out. Thankfully my lip is healing and I can eat anything that I want now. Not to mention its the best look after a surgery that I've ever had. I don't remember having such favorable results before, its been incredible. I suppose for this blog I'm supposed to include what I've learned over the past year and make some long and rambling post about how I've managed to grow throughout this year. I have learned a lot and I've made some good friends and lost the one friend that was becoming nothing more than a malignant tumor growth. But seriously, typing out all that I've learned I would end up going on and on and probably never stop. Luckily you're spared this and I'll be condensing this to just name those big things that I've done.

As far as being self conscious that has pretty much disappeared. You can almost say that it never was there since it doesn't appear to even have bothered me. I went out the Sunday after my surgery to go watch my Panthers team and cheered them on to victory even in the musky smokey bar that my friends and I congregate at every Sunday to watch them. I couldn't believe that I really did it because its just so near out of the ordinary before but I did it. Sure I was kinda shy about the fact that I had two lines of stitches coming from under my nose but that didn't stop me from going out and spending time with my friends.

New Years was soon on its way and I went to the first party I had been to since I was... probably around my 9th birthday. It was a great experience, meeting new people and having fun with people that I know. I surprised even myself when I barely hung out with the people that I knew and instead decided to hang out with those people who I didn't know. My social life has begun to explode and I'm looking back on the past life and realizing how much i held myself back because of that so called friend who was sucking most of my life away and I allowed it. And I still was feeling self conscious over the fact that I had scars on my face. But scars are just other marks on your body and they aren't that big of a deal. With my scar revision surgery I have two scars instead of many and yeah, I went through pain to get rid of the majority of the scars but that decision was made through careful deliberation. I had decided that I wasn't going through another surgery again because I didn't want the pain but after sitting down and thinking about it even more I realized that I actually wanted to do it and nothing was going to hold me back.

I'll let you in on what happened between myself and that friend. Basically we had been friends only through the internet for about eight years. The friendship began to fall apart as we got older because she and I had very different ideals on how a person should act and how said person should respond. It got to the point where, after we had sent our own rather nasty emails to one another and had apparently made up, that things were well beyond repair. I began to allow her to have way too much control over my life and ended up to the point of near obsession because she was my only friend at that time. Sure I had other friends but I had pretty much made her the central focus of my life and had all but alienated myself because I didn't seem to care. It didn't just affect my social life, it affected the relationships all throughout my life and my mom and I nearly ended our amiable relationship over this girl who didn't need to have such control over my life. School also took a nosedive and I allowed my grades to slip because of all the stress that she gave me. One moment we're fine and the next she's barely talking to me wondering what in the world I had said or done and that should never have to happen. It got to the point where I was forcing her, I felt I was, to talk with me just to keep it from changing. Basically I was holding onto the friendship only because of some characters that we had made through roleplay (basically you're writing a story but with someone else). It had come down to that and that was pathetic, it had to end. I decided back near the end of April that I was going to cut it off totally and that night I wrote an email to send off telling her that it was over and that I wasn't going to be allowing what was left of the friendship to continue. I let several other friends read it for me because I wanted to make sure that it sounded professional and left things out that could possibly come back to bite me or could make the email overly long. I sent the email when she signed off for the night because I knew that I wouldn't be able to do it if she was still on because I hadn't built up enough of a backbone in that short span of time. I disengaged myself from all the sites that we were on together and blocked her via all messengers, sent the email, blocked all emails and then went to bed for the night. I refused to look at any text messages that she might send me and I managed to find a way to block her number through changing a few settings on my phone and didn't talk to her again since that night.

When you're in a relationship that's basically de-evolved down to verbal and mental abuse (there are other things that I left out, those are for another blog entry if I feel like it) then its hard to break free of that relationship even if you know its not healthy. Basically you're afraid of the unknown and change and while this isn't helping you there is no other way because for so long you've given this person the benefit of the doubt over and over again and its easier to do that when you don't know this person except off the internet. Hearing about their life and if their life is hard then you tend to believe that you need to make it easier but that doesn't do anything good for you and while you may realize it, there's another part of you that says no. Lets not forget the roleplaying that was involved. Roleplay is a great way to release stress and escape into your own little world with people who actually have something of the same hobby as you do and while it is you must make sure not to make it all of your life. With this person I made it my life because this particular couple was eight years in the making so of course I was attached but I was way too attached to this roleplay and needed to distance myself. As with anything that is a hobby, you need to make sure that it remains just that; a hobby. Unfortunately I didn't come to realize that until my life was heading towards a combustion. Once I did, it took even longer to do something about it but you have no idea how many people were happy for me kicking her out of my life for good. While I still have friends I know only from the internet, there is a distinct understanding that we aren't the central focus of each others lives and its stayed that way, not to mention these people are definately different from the person I just mentioned.

Now that I've managed to ramble even while I said I wouldn't, I've done well ever since then. I got a job, my grades are on the positive side and my social life is blooming more than ever. I will be able to graduate from therapy this coming February and will hopefully be coming off the medication as well. I've got great friends and an even better life now that I've moved on from there and taken my life and directed it the way I want it to go. I'm going to graduate college in 2010 hopefully and then find my job and make money, move out of my parents house and find my own place. I'm pleased to be able to go out and do what I want to do and have found myself drawn to Karate after not doing anything like a sport for years after my knees went bad. I enjoy it and love the people there because they are quite like me with their desire for some sort of discipline as well as just getting out and enjoying some exercise and getting self defense tactics as well.

This upcoming year is as much a mystery to me as it is to my readers and knowing what will happen only takes the fun out of life. I'm not really anxious to know what will be going on but I do want to get out and about even more now. My 21st birthday is coming up and I can't believe that I'm about to be turning 21, born on my grandfather's birthday with quite a bit of birthdays in March. I'm excited to see what this year is going to bring and to see what the Playoffs will be bringing as far as my football team. Go Panthers!

Recovery

When I should be sleeping I'm up blogging about the surgery site.

It has healed remarkably well but I still have little to no energy, can't eat anything but applesauce (although I managed some egg and mashed potatoes), can't drink from a regular glass (I use one of the left over bottles from the small Ginger Ale container), can barely sit up without feeling like my lip is losing the battle to gravity and among other things, I'm constantly tired but can't get sleep. Go figure. So I'm pretty much bummed for the rest of the week and on into next week. Hopefully then I'll be able to get up and do more things.

I'm kinda bummed that its so swollen and is apparently taking longer to get unswollen than I had hoped. I look like a chipmunk mixed with Frankenstein on my face. Its simply terrific! But I guess its all good because the end result is what I'm looking to achieve not to come out looking like I would when the swelling goes down. I'm excited to see the end result even though I'm nervous enough to not want to see it. I think thats what everyone does after surgery. They're anxious to see it but they're somehow afraid that it won't turn out like they hoped. I'm afraid of that as well but I'm sure that it looks great.

Being laid up hasn't given me any interesting insights or any philosophical fodder that I can mold into an interesting post other than making me feel incredibly antsy and wish I could get up and do things. Once I can I'll be extremely happy and then I can go back to work to earn some more money. Then I can start going out and doing things again! It sucks being stuck in the house but it'll be worth it once everything heals up. For now I have to look at my Christmas candy in longing, not to mention my gum. Ugh. I'll have to edit when I feel more coherant to talk more about Christmas. haha!

Day 1 after surgery

Now that I'm a bit more coherent than I was earlier I'll be able to write up a better blog post than I had originally typed the same day of my procedure. Right now I'm still in a good deal of pain but its been able to be successfully managed via pain meds. Although I only have four left over. =/ Sadly, I watched Liar Liar today, which is a bad choice for any cleft lip/palate survivor to watch after surgery. I was sitting there and I told my mom that this was a horrible movie choice. She agreed with me. xP But I'm much better than I was yesterday and I can go into a bit more detail of what I went through.

I'm called back into a room to get information taken, forms to look over and to get undressed into those spiffy back open gowns that if you don't wear panties they can see your shiny rear end. I wasn't too impressed with the nurse, she looked like if I decided to look at her the wrong way she would eat me or something. She kept asking me the questions that are normal but I had already answered them at the front desk. Apparently those at the front desk are missing some vital brain parts because this nurse asked me all over again everything that I had told them. She proceeded to badger me about why I was two months late on my period. Ever since I can remember, which is back when I first turned 13, my periods have been irregular. I've been placed on birth control pills but I started to gain some unnecessary weight. I came off of them and my periods got irregular again. Which is fine with me, I don't care. But she apparently didn't believe me when I told her no, I then came back to tell her it wouldn't be happening unless it was the immaculate conception all over again. She finally got the hint and apologized for being a bit of a snot about the question.

I waited for another good half hour to an hour until I could go back. By that time I had my IV started with antibiotics coursing through my system and after my doctor, Dr. Bowers, came into the room, I was given some mild sedation and felt immediately woozy. Then was wheeled back into the room where the operation would take place. I was transferred over to another bed in the room and was laying there when they tried to put a mask on my face. This was AFTER I told them I couldn't have that on my face. I'm deathly afraid of those things and I will refuse to wear one because it makes me feel claustrophobic. I'm mildly claustrophobic and I don't like going under water, under my bed, in super tight places or having that mask over my face. So they didn't put it on my face and I had to suck in the sleeping gas through a tube. I'll have to make sure I'm more firm about the whole IV thing.

I woke up sometime later in recovery where the nurse kept lifting my bed and every time she did I'd ask her why. She'd tell me why every time and I was like that's stupid, I want to sleep. She would just laugh at me and go about her business. I was finally able to get dressed to head on home. Once I was in the car, I can't remember anything until I got home and trudged up the stairs where I spent the first day and night there dozing off intermittently throughout the day and night. I woke up around six and couldn't really fall asleep after that one. I'm pleased to say that I'm actually able to form complex, complete sentences, finally. All in all it was a rewarding process, a bit painful, but rewarding all the same.

At the moment my face is swollen like a chipmunk with nuts in its mouth, my hair is still horribly messed up from the anesthetic and my lip hurts and is still oozing a bit. Not too badly, but just a bit. I've been keeping up with my regimen of Keflex to keep the infection away and using something called Polysporin to keep it moistened there. I have stiches all up into my nostrils and I get them taken out Monday, something I'm not looking forward to, at all. I'm okay with waiting another good week before he takes those out. Then again, I don't know how I'll feel come Monday. But I am almost out of pain meds so I'll have to get some more sometime. Well, sooner than later because I don't want to have to "tough it out" because that, to me, is stupid to do. Pretending you're so strong to be able to "tough" out something like this is just showing me an incredible mark of stupidity. Taking care of yourself comes first, even if you don't necessarily want to have to deal with pain meds.

So this is an obviously more coherent blog than yesterday because I can actually think straight. But I'm doing quite well, very pleased with the results thus far and I can't wait to get the stitches out to see what it looks like. And I might also have another surgery coming up next summer on my nose. I just have to do an online consultation to see if I would be a good candidate for it so I don't fly all the way down to Texas for a bust. Or drive. Whichever. ;P

Surgery report

The surgery went well, as I had thought it would be. I'm still groggy but not as much as I would be had I been under for more than an hour or so. I'm in a good bit of pain but I'm managing quite well, despite pain. Before I actually was going under, I had a feeling that I didn't want to go, I didn't want to be put under and I wanted to call off this whole thing because it would feel painful afterwards. Not to mention I was getting restless as I happen to get from sitting still for too long. I'm pleased to say that it went well, my scar revisions will look spectacular, as everything that Dr. Bowers does is spectacular. I can't do enough to sing his praises, all the work that he's done on me is excellent and I'm super proud to have him as my doctor.

This is a short post as my brain is hardly working. I've had to go through an fix typos in this particular post nine times over, but I just wanted to let everyone know that I came out fine, it hurts but I came out well. :)

Countdown to surgery; today

So, I'm nervous. I'm fidgety and I've been moving around a lot, not been able to sleep, the like. I think its because I'm just all wound up. This always happens, even if its something minor. I'm not allowed to eat after a certain time, not allowed to drink after a certain time, I'm surprised I'm allowed to live after a certain time. Quite frankly, I'm half ready to just turn this around and say nope, nevermind! But I know if I do, then I'll regret it because I want this surgery, even if I'm nervous as anything in the world. I'd probably do well with some sleep but I can't sleep. I want to do something productive but there's nothing productive to do. I wish I still had school, in some weird way, so that I would be busy. I swear, I'm going to drive myself bonkers tonight just because of not being able to sleep.

I've been playing Rock Raiders for the better part of the day, trying to calm down a bit but the nervousness gets worse as it gets closer. In about four hours or so, give or take, I'll be waking up and getting on the road to be there by 7 am. The surgery itself won't take place for another hour or so, which is always the case, and then I'll be under for about an hour, possibly an hour in recovery and then on my way home where I'll sleep the rest of the day and possibly the day after. Of course I'm having my surgery two days before Christmas so that'll be fun trying to stay awake during that time and I'll be awoken by my family early in the morning to go open gifts. I'll be happy there but still and all. Sleep is my best friend after a surgery.

So, right now its all about being nervous. And knowing that it'll be alright in the end so nothing is really needed to be worried about. Well, here's to surgeries. Yay? I'll be sure to post something when I'm coherant enough to actually make complete sentences.

Countdown to surgery; 1 day left

So, my surgery is tomorrow and I'm not quite sure how I feel about it. Possibly anxious and overwhelmed by the possibility of something going wrong, as could happen, and I do have a bit of fear of never waking up from the anesthesia. That's always a concern of that happening, however slim, but I still worry a bit. I guess thats one of those things that'll never go away. I know what to expect because I've been in 34 surgeries prior to this small procedure that'll only take and hour at the most. Frightening nonetheless because I know what I'll feel when I come back out. The same as I always feel when I come out of a surgery; the pain.

I think thats my main fear; the pain. I hate the pain because it's one of those sharp pains that goes deeper than any other cut. But not only that, it'll creep up on you. After anesthesia you're groggy and sleep most of the time so you aren't really aware of any pain that is coming on until one time you're awake and it feels like that part of your body is imploding on itself, the pain is almost unbearable because its on your face. I think thats part of the reason it's so bad. Its your face and your face is one of the most sensitive, actually THE most sensitive, areas on your body. I remember taking a class called Biopsychology and there was a mapping of the human body and the nerves and your face has the overwhelming majority of your nerves. Your hands are second. But be that as it may, your face has bundles and bundles of nerves. So not only does it hurt but, for whatever reason, it decides that it's not just going to stay in your face. Oh no, you're going to have a headache, your shoulds are going to ache and the rest of your body generally feels like crap. Forget the incision, just run me over with a Mack truck!

But I guess its not all that bad since its a small incision, but it seems to make itself worse like the surgeon sneaks into my house at night and decides "lets cut on Melissa more! She loves it" Quite frankly, I could do without it. All of it. But I want to do this because it's for self-esteem and it'll be something that I can look back on and be okay with it. But it doesn't make me any less nervous than what I already happen to be. I mean, its not as bad as when I was younger but... still. Its no fun.

But here's to the countdown: One more day until the big day, Tuesday. Horray?