Wisdom Teeth Removal and an Official Announcement

I have 2 major things to report!!!

First- I had the not-so-fun experience of having all four of my wisdom teeth removed at once. This happened at 10 am last Saturday. Phil went with me as my support and "driver." For the procedure, I was completely knocked out. I was very nervous about this. Going under wasn't so bad actually. But apparently when they were bringing me back in to concsiousness, I had some serious issues! I do remember feeling like I was drowning, and not able to do anything about it. My brain registered one word- "wheelchair" (I guess they were trying to lift me into a wheelchair)- and I FREAKED OUT. They say I started thrashing and hyperventilating. All I knew was that I was sure I was dying and I could feel terrible pain! Phil says it took at least 30 minutes before I was completely back to normal. Anyway, I am now doing fine, and I'm waiting for the last bit of swelling to go down on my left side. Its still pretty sore. In just these few days I've had to make myself eat soft stuff like yogurt, oatmeal, and soup, and I lost 3 pounds in 3 days. I can't WAIT to eat solid food again! I just managed to finish a small bowl of turkey chili, so I'm getting there...slowly but surely! And thank God for ibuprofen and Vicodin...

Secondly- my official announcement is that I will NOT be going on the May deployment with my unit. I have very mixed feelings about this, and definitely appreciate your prayers as I make the appropriate adjustments to my life as a result of this decision. My medical paperwork was reviewed by the State Surgeon General, and my medical flag was not lifted. So I'm not going anywhere- at least for now. At least I finally have a definitive answer!

Birthday fun

Ok, so to catch up, my brother Rob came and visited from February 27th through March 2nd. It was a lot of fun, and I wanted to do something for my birthday (which was on the 5th!) while he was here. So we had a "pre-celebration" at the Wild Animal Park! It was a great day with good hot weather, and all the animals were out and about.







It was a bummer that Rob couldn't make it to my actual birthday. But it turned out well enough! A bunch of friends went with me to the Jasmine Bistro, a cool little restaurant at the Parkway Plaza mall. Afterwards, the people that could make it also came by the apartment and had chocolate truffle cheesecake, baked by my chef-in-training roommate, Tammi! It was by far one of the best birthdays I've had yet!