Ties her own shoes

Shawna, my kindergartner, surprised me this morning by tying shoelaces all on her own! I asked her how she learned. She said her buddy taught her. Each class at their school has a buddy. The 7th graders are the kindy's buddies. The kinder's are required to learn to tie shoes, which I'm SO grateful for. In the land of Velcro many kids do not know how to tie shoes. Even though this year the school finally allowed 3rd graders and under to wear Velcro, it's still a requirement to learn. I'm so proud of my girl. :0) She even showed me she can do a double knot! Woohoo! One less thing for mommy to do.

I've had a busy week with meetings for school. Tonight Shawna's class will perform a Sight Word sing-song for the families. Shawna is letter "N" so anytime a sight word with an "N" gets chosen she and the other children who have the matching letters with sing the song that goes with that sight word. They did it when Paula was in this grade and it's really cute.

Today Paula gets her oral expander to fix her cross bite. She's very excited. I know the excitement will wear off when she realizes how bulky it is in her mouth, along with the aches she's going to feel. Hopefully it's not too much of a struggle to get her to keep it in. It's removable. A non-removable was not an option since only 1 side of her upper jaw needs to be re-shaped.

I bought a digital scale last night to monitor my weight loss better. I was pleased with the weight I was this morning. I'm serious this time around and it shows.

I want to post a picture from Thanksgiving time frame. Paula, Shawna, their
great-grandmother, Rosie and I. My Grandma is 92 and turns 93 in February. I love her SO much.
See my double chin??? That is what I'm working to get rid of!

Sinus infection from hell

I haven't posted in awhile because I've been in a lot of pain after my titanium implant surgery.

I had surgery on Tuesday, May 27th. I had the normal discomfort associated w/that type of surgery. He raised my sinus on my rear molar and added bone. By Saturday I started having pain that wasn't there before. By Tuesday I had a 100.5 fever and saw my periodontist who did the surgery. He did an Xray and it all looked fine but he was worried I was getting an infection. Keep in mind that from the hour before surgery and 7 days after I was on a low dosage antibiotic to prevent infection.

He put me on Kevlar. That night was up there w/the few in my life that I'd rather die than go thru that pain. My entire left side of my face was so painful. Not even the vicodin he gave me helped. The next morning, Wednesday the 4th I called him to ask if I could take two of the Rx instead of 1. He said yes. He would check on me again later. I slept all day. That night he called after talking to some of his ENT colleagues and changed my meds to Biaxin. Todd went to get that. I was off work from Tuesday to Thursday. I did go in Friday afternoon but w/out Advil or tylenol every few hours the pain was too bad. The nights were better than that one Tuesday night but still I'd have pain, even being woken up from it. I'd also have bad mornings until 10am or so when the pain would finally subside. Friday and Saturday were no better. In fact, Saturday I talked to one of the parents on Paula's softball team who is an RN Nurse among other things a director for San Francisco Medical. She said the antibiotics should have provided relief by now and that most antibiotics kill 80 percent of the bacterias out there, but there are some that kill 100% and I should request that. I called Dr. Lim and told him more of what was happening. He said to double up on the Biaxin and to give it a full 72 hours. Which now that I look at it, it had been 72 hours. Also, doubling up the Biaxin was nasty. OMG I oozed the Rx taste in my mouth. Ick.



On Sunday, today, after another night of being woken up from pain and my morning with major headache, clearly my sinus infection hadn't eased up much after being on 3 different antibiotics in 2 weeks so I went to the ER this afternoon once Todd got home from work. I should also mention that I've been blowing out green stuff that smells, for a week. Nasty. They did a cat scan and discovered that I have puss from above my left eye to the bottom of my face thru out my entire sinus. Basically, my entire left sinus' are filled with puss. ER dr said this would have been coming on for a couple months for it to be that full. I never felt or noticed a thing. The sinus lift from the implant surgery set it off. I'm still not sure how that could have been storing in my sinus for so long and me not know. When I see the ENT I'm gonna get his view.



I'm on 2 new antibiotics. 875MG of Amox-Clav and 750MG of Levaquin. That's a lot of drugs. I also received more hydrocodone. I called my periodontist who did the implants telling him the newest diagnosis. He was going to call the ER to ask what the CT scan showed as far as the implants failing. That's a major concern too obviously. If this can't be cleared up by the antibiotics then they'll have to go in and drain my sinus'. Let's hope it doesn't go to that. I have to make an appt w/an ENT tomorrow. I'm also supposed to stay off work for 3 days. I'll probably have bad diarrhea w/all the meds and one of them makes me a bit lightheaded I noticed but it didn't last long. Geez, who knew dental implants would cause all this?! I'm just glad to be truly diagnosed and that my brain is no longer at risk which could have easily happened since your sinus' lead right up into your brain and a sinus infection reaching your brain usually ends with death. (thanks to the internet I had that knowledge to scare the crap out of me) I even asked him if that was still something I should worry about and he agreed that it could have gone up into my brain but that w/the antibiotics I'm on and how they're closely monitoring it I won't have that problem. Let's pray! Oh, and I'm not going on my work trip to PA obviously. I'm bummed about that but I cancelled all my arrangements this morning after the headache wore off. I knew I couldn't risk it w/my not healing. Now I know for sure I couldn't have gone. The pressure in the plane would have been awful. That was my exciting day. Hope your Sunday was better!

Titanium implants

Tuesday May 27th I had two titanium implants put in. I had an anesthesiologist there to put me out. The surgery only took a little more than an hour. Here is what they had to do and why.



I think I've mentioned how I was born with a condition where I have many adult teeth that never formed in my mouth. It's hereditary from my fathers side of the family. I'm missing 11 adult teeth. 4 wisdom, several molars and the side tooth next to my left front tooth. Over the years I've had 3 bridges. The Maryland bridge they did for my frontish tooth was more than 20 years old and needed to be replaced. I'd also pulled the baby tooth (molar) in the back a few years ago when it started to bother me (I still have 1 baby tooth left actually). I decided now with the great technology of implants I'd go with that. I had to do braces to move some roots around so the implants would fit. This entire thing is costing a fortune. The frontish tooth gum area sort caved in a bit so to beef it up they took skin from my pallet, lifted up my upper gum, stuffed it in there then lay down the gum and stitched it in place. That area right now is bruised and swollen. The area they removed the skin from my pallet is sore. The molar is fine. In fact, if I'd just had the normal implant w/out all the skin stuff I'd be good to go. They also had to add bone to my rear molar.



I'm glad it's done. Now is the recovery period. I'm taking antibiotics, Advil, rinsing with warm salt water and eating on my right side. In a few months when the healing is done, I get the crowns. :0) I'm also going to get my teeth whitened before the crowns go in. Woohoo.