Journal: "Haff Ibbybubby Sheen My Teef?"

Tuesday, I spent most of the day with my hair standing straight up on end just thinking about what was going to happen to Larry’s mouth the next day – that is, having all his teeth removed, and full dentures put in.  Aiiiyiiiyiiiieeee.

A friend wrote to say, “If he’s like many men he’ll want to, and think he can, go back to work sooner than he should.  You may have to play bouncer and push him back in, rather than out, heheh, and keep him home.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, “he’s a hard one to hold down.  Like trying to keep a cork underwater, is Larry!  😃”

Quite a number of friends gave me good suggestions on what Larry could eat in the days immediately after his surgery and denture placement.  I have a good blender, and I have one of those big spinning stainless steel juicers that makes the most scrumptious apple cider, carrot juice (can’t stand it unless it’s fresh, and then I love it)... or whatever you desire to run through it.  I like to add one celery stick and a small handful of baby spinach leaves to a big cluster of carrots.  Never thought I’d like it, since I hate canned carrot juice (though I do like some of the V8 juices)... but I discovered canned and fresh are animals of two different colors.  😉

We needed to be in Lincoln at 8:00 a.m. Wednesday morning.  That meant we needed to leave our house at 6:00 a.m.  And that meant I needed to get up at 4:00 a.m.  Accordingly, I decided to hit the hay at 9:00 p.m.  For once, I fell asleep almost as soon as my head landed on the pillow. 

Five minutes later, I was abruptly awakened by Larry coming loudly through the door, looking for the charger for his phone.  He’d thought I was still upstairs sewing.

Oddly enough for me, I was asleep again in about 15 minutes. 

At 10:30 p.m., I was awoken by Larry turning on the water to fill the tub.  I didn’t sleep again until some time after 1:30 a.m... and my alarm went off a little before 4:00 a.m.

So, with a little less than four hours of sleep despite all my good intentions, I clambered groggily out of bed.

At the dentist’s office, they took impressions of Larry’s teeth, and we waited until 9:30 to make sure they had what they needed to start making the dentures.  After they told us we could go, we went to Walgreens, dropped off the prescriptions, and while waiting for the pharmacist to fill them, I trotted down to the nearby Hobby Lobby to get some acrylic paints to go with the unpainted ceramic lighthouse we’d given Joanna for her birthday, while Larry went in the next-door O’Reilly’s for a brake light for the Jeep.  He put in the light, and then off we went to Cabela's in Omaha to use some gift certificates the kids had given Larry. 

There were a lot of trucks hauling long blades for those big wind generators, all headed to wind farms out west somewhere.

Larry found the shells he needed for his gun, and we picked out a nice pocketknife to give Aaron as a graduation gift.  Then we headed back to Lincoln, where we stopped at a Wal-Mart and unloaded a wallet-full, buying soups, puddings, mashed potato flakes, oatmeal, bananas, etc., all those sorts of food Larry would be able to eat.

And then it was 2:00 p.m. – time to return to the Affordable Dentistry office.  They soon called Larry in.  The surgery was supposed to take a couple of hours, so I headed to LensCrafters to have my glasses adjusted.  That only took a few minutes, so I stopped at Calico House, a nearby quilt shop.  I wandered around... looked at fabric... books... found one I’ve been wanting to get, made sure it had the patterns in it I needed...  It did.  But I will get it on Amazon; it’s half the price it was at that quilt shop.

I’d thought to go a couple of other places, and I’d only been gone about an hour; but I couldn’t think of anyplace I wanted to go except back to the dentist office. 

I carried in my laptop, opened it up, and tried to concentrate on reading email, news, and photo-editing.  Then I realized I was offline, as my tablet, from which the laptop utilizes the hotspot, was out in the Jeep.  I trotted out to get it... came back in... looked at Instagram... looked at the clock...

It was finally ten ’til four.  The waiting room was empty, except for me.  Larry might be done, so they’d said, by four.

By now, the clock was slooowing down, ’til it seemed hardly to move.  Meanwhile, my hair was up on end, thinking of Larry’s ordeal.

I tried writing emails, hoping my brain was engaged in the task well enough that I made some sense.

And then it was 4:30 p.m., and I was still waiting.  The ladies at the reception desk were still chatting and laughing... no loud alarms were blaring... 

Hours and hours and hours later, the hands on the clock were pointing at 5:02 p.m., and I was still waiting, waiting with all my might and main.

Finally, finally, at about 5:15 p.m., the door to the nether regions of the office opened, and Larry walked out.

I took a quick look at his face, hastily shoved my arms into my coat, grabbed my paraphernalia, and we headed for the Jeep and were soon homeward bound.

The dentist had had a hard time getting out the teeth that were broken; that’s why a job that usually takes him about two hours had taken over three.  Larry told me today that the doctor, who is in his fifties, had taken two or three breaks as the surgery wound on, as his hands were getting tired, and starting to shake a bit.  He was careful with his task, so as not to cause any more trauma to Larry’s mouth and jaw than necessary.  He deadened the area with shots as he went along, and had to stop and give Larry another shot a couple of times when it wasn’t deadened enough.

Larry’s mouth bled on the way home, making him feel like he was choking; that was scary.  We got home at about 7:30.  Whew.  That was a long, long day.

Larry most likely bleeds more than usual because for quite some time he took an aspirin a day for heart health and blood pressure.  Since losing about 20 pounds three years ago, he hasn’t had to take blood pressure medicine, and he rarely takes an aspirin... but those few he does take have thinned his blood a bit.  Larry didn’t take any aspirin for the last couple of months, knowing this surgery was coming; and the dentist, somewhat concerned over the matter, put a stitch into each spot where he removed a tooth.

He managed to get a pain pill down, with difficulty.  The bleeding gradually slowed down through that night and the next day.  For several days, he switched back and forth from a gel pack to a bag of peas, wrapping them in towels and resting chin or cheek against them.  Why didn’t I buy another couple of gel packs when we were at the store?!  Didn’t even think of it.

Keeping the swelling down helped a lot with the pain.

{The rest of the pictures in this letter will be from our September excursion to Colorado.}

My mother-in-law Norma went to the dentist when she was 16, and he decided she needed all her teeth pulled – without even asking or contacting her mother, who was at work at the time.  Grandma came home to find her daughter lying on the couch with her face so swollen she could hardly breath.  She at first didn’t even recognize her girl.  It was nearly the death of her.

These days, if a dentist pulled such a stunt, he’d be dangled from the top of the Empire State Building until he confessed all his crimes and promised to live a life of virtue, and then he’d still be tossed into the calaboose and fed nothing but bread and water.

I can report that all this trauma did not wipe out the old Larry; he was still in there, regardless of the pain and discomfort.  Witness:  I walked over to the recliner where he was sitting, napping now and then, and asked if he needed anything, as I was going to trot downstairs to conduct my nightly ablutions, so as not to be in his way if he needed in the upstairs bathroom.

He shook his head, pointed toward the bathroom down the hall, and gestured that I could go in there; I didn’t need to go to the downstairs bathroom; he was fine.

So I did.

He immediately sent me a text:  “I NEED IN THERE NOW!!!”

Ten seconds later, a second text followed the first:  “Not really.  🤪 😜 😝 😛 😉”

Teddy stopped by that night to see how his father was, and made him look all twinkly-eyed when he asked in great concern, “Didn’t they give you one of those white bandanas to tie around your head, winding up with a little bow up on top?!”

I hastily shushed him up, “Don’t, don’t!!!  Don’t make him smile!  It’ll hurt!”  Teddy grinned at me, the same mischievous face he presented when he was barely old enough to sit up on his own.  But of course the reason he came is because he was all worried and concerned, and he offered all sorts of suggestions that might help.

Soon it was time for Larry’s next pain pill, and I thought it would be good to sleep while he was sleeping.  The bedroom is only a few steps from the living room.  I would leave the door open and put the pet gate in the doorway, to keep that punkin of a Tiger cat out and off the bed.  That wouldn’t keep Teensy out, though, and his favorite place to land is ka-WHOMP, right on my stomach.  I gave Larry a bell to ring in case he needed me, set my alarm for his next medicinal dose, and tumbled into bed. 

He slept fairly well that night.  I woke him up a few times to give him his medicine and to make sure he was all right.  Teensy cat, as predicted, gladly and happily woke me up a number of times, purring and making bread on me.  The pet gate didn’t stop him!

That cat. He’s a sweetie.  Too sweetie.  Let me sleep, you cat you!  He went off to pump his paws on an electric blanket folded in the corner – that was still in its plastic wrap!  CRINKLE CRINKLE CRINKLE

I went to throwing pillows at him.  He decided it would be better to curl up at the foot of the bed and be vewy, vewy still.  Good cat.  Nice cat.

Thursday morning, Larry felt better; but his medicine (strong antibiotics, as he still had infection from the abscesses, along with strong pain killers) was burning his stomach.  He drank a yogurt smoothie, and a little later had some oatmeal (blended).  

He was doing pretty good, after that.  Or at least he must have been, as when he finished that big cupful of oatmeal, he pouted and said, “It’s all gone!”

I promised to fix him something else as soon as I curled my hair ... and he smiled and said, “I’m going to puff all up (he gestured accordingly) from food, instead of from swelling!”

Before I trotted off, I reached out to squeeze his hand... managed to snag his right one with my right one, whereupon he did what he’s always done, ever since we were teenagers, if I made that ‘error’:  he shook it (instead of squeezing back, you know).  I usually swat him when he does that.  He knew he was safe from swats, that day.

That afternoon was the funeral of an elderly friend of ours.  Larry couldn’t go, of course, and I wouldn’t leave him.  Twila has been a good friend since I was a wee little girl... actually, since before I can remember.  She was Kurt’s great-grandmother.  She had Alzheimer’s, but was in the earlier stages of it when little Carolyn was a baby.  Kurt, Victoria, and Carolyn visited her after Carolyn was born, and got pictures of her holding the baby (someone was nearby to help, if need be), and they got pictures of Twila, her son Dale, his son Bill, Bill’s son Kurt, and Kurt’s daughter Carolyn.  Five generations.  A very special picture.

I brought a stack of New York Beauty blocks downstairs so I could remove the paper foundation from the backs of them while staying near Larry.  It was a time-consuming operation.

Later, Larry had some ham and potato soup, run through the blender and watered down a wee bit, and some peaches.  His face was less swollen than it was the night before, and the bleeding had slowed down a lot.  We were glad for that!

He was able to talk quite well, too.  Sounds a little bit like he has an ice cube in his mouth, but he’s doing very good at talking with those dentures in his mouth.

Once that afternoon, he rinsed off the dentures... started reinserting them... then muttered, “This bottom one doesn’t fit worth a hoot.” 

So I, all concerned, asked, “Is it because your gums are so swollen?”

And he, after finally getting the denture in place, answered, “Naaa.  It’s because I put it in upside down.”  haha

Here’s something unexpected:  His hearing has improved a lot!  What in the world?  When he was napping, he awoke every time I tried tiptoeing past!  Highly irregular.

I asked if the dentist inserted cochlear implants when he wasn’t looking.  😅  Maybe all that infection was hindering his hearing?  Could be!  I’ve found several medical websites that suggest just such a possibility.

I told this to Larry, and he looked quite surprised.  Or at least as surprised as a man can look, with a mouth full of new dentures.

I washed clothes that day, four or five loads, and got at least half of the New York Beauty blocks de-papered.  It’s a lot of work, removing paper from a gazillion blocks!  Felt like a gazillion, at least.  But I was doing it on the kitchen table...  Larry was sitting in the recliner nearby... he’d started a horse video on our big screen (using our Amazon firebox)... the cats were curled up in their Thermabeds close by... I had a piping hot cup of Wild Berry tea... and Larry was feeling pretty good, considering.  He kept grabbing my skirt and hanging on when I walked past.  It was a full circle-and-a-half skirt with a few narrow pleats here and there, so it took several steps before I found myself brought up short.  😆

That evening, Amy, with little Elsie, brought us some food from the funeral luncheon, along with a jar of powdered protein to mix into drinks for Larry. 

Friday, I had to go get some more thyroid medication for Teensy.  It was drizzling freezing rain, 21°, with a wind chill of 12°, as the wind was gusting at 21 mph.  Since I would already be out, I thought I’d pick up some of the almond milk Larry drinks, and some yogurt.

But first... I started the ice-coated Jeep and put the defroster on full-blast... then sprinkled de-icer on our walks... then spent a while scraping windshield and windows.  In town, most of the main roads had been treated, but Old Highway 81 out here in the country was slick.  I knew this, because, once I pulled out onto it (carefully), I gunned the engine... heard the tires give a valiant effort at spinning and then catch and take me forward... then I stepped sorta hard on the brakes, and the ‘intelligent braking system’ came on and stopped me quite quickly.  When my sure-footed Jeep does that, I know it’s really, really slick – and this was confirmed when I stopped at the mailbox and stepped out.  Slick, slippery, slick!  I was glad for my Jeep... and glad for my heavily-treaded snowboots.

Pet Care’s sidewalks were slick... but I didn’t have far to walk.  Thankfully, Hy-Vee’s parking lot was treated, and not slick at all.

Home again, I blended some Old-Fashioned Vegetable Beef soup and some peaches for Larry; and then “for a reward for eating that,” as I told him, “a milkshake.”  This consisted of vanilla almond milk, cherry yogurt, a banana, two farm-fresh eggs, and two scoops of powdered vanilla protein.  Mmmm, it was yummy.  I tried it.  😉

Yeah, yeah, I know all about the salmonella risk.  But even Healthline.com says the risk is low... and these eggs, as I said, are very fresh from our neighbor, refrigerated promptly.  Larry could use the nutrition – and he couldn’t very well have them cooked.  Long before we knew about the salmonella risk, my mother made milkshakes with raw eggs... and I did, too... and none of us have ever gotten sick from them.

I gave Teensy his medicine... and then I was ready to continue with the paper removal from the New York Beauty blocks.

Caleb wrote a note to Larry:  “How are your teeth?” 

Larry wrote back:  “I don’t know, I left them in Lincoln.”  😅

Saturday, we went to Kurt and Victoria’s house so Larry could retrieve one of his folding meat-cutting tables (they’re complete with sink, faucet, and drain).  By the time we got there, Victoria had made Larry a puréed chocolate/blueberry smoothie, and me a raspberry latte. Yummmmmy.

We stopped at Bomgaars on the way home and replenished our supply of black oil sunflower seed, Nyjer seed, and suet, and when we got home, Larry helped me fill the feeders.

Later that afternoon, Jeremy and Lydia and the children came visiting, bearing still-warm homemade applesauce.

“It’s supposed to taste like apple pie,” said Lydia.  “I thought maybe you both could imagine you were eating pie 🙃”

It did have that flavor about it.  Really good, whether applesauce or pie.  Scrumptious, in fact!  We gave them some frozen, smoked venison in return.

I told Lydia that right after her father and I were married, I tried making applesauce.  It tasted good, but the texture was odd.  I kept running it through the blender... tried puréeing it... and finally called my mother.

She listened to my story, then asked, “How long did you cook it?”

((pause)) 

“Cook it?” I asked. 

Mama was quiet a moment... choked... snickered... then laughed and laughed.  My mother hardly ever laughed at me.

Wouldn’t you know, I was working on those New York Beauty Variation blocks right at the kitchen table when they came -- this is the quilt I’m making for Jeremy & Lydia.

The good thing about this, though, is that I find out what she thinks:  And this is what she said:  “Oooo... that’s sooo pretty.”  So I pulled out the block with the Venice lace on it, showed it to her, and said I was going to put pearls on the lace.  “Ooooh,” she said, “That’ll be beautiful.”

So now we know what Lydia thinks of the quilt. 

After they got home, Lydia sent a picture of their meal:  mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, and the venison, writing, “It’s really tender!  And delicious!  The flavor is perfect!  Even Malinda likes it ☺️”

When the girls were younger, and even now sometimes, I often call Lydia “VicLydia”, and Victoria “LydVictoria”.  It happens so much, I have asked them if they think they got switched at birth.  (hee hee  Lydia is 5 ½ years older than Victoria.)

But the real humdinger was the time I got all bent out of shape at our eldest, Keith, and yelled, “Aleutia, cut it out!!!” 

Aleutia was our big Siberian husky.

The kids all burst into gales of laughter, and even the dog swished her big fan of a tail, pointed her nose skyward, and added to the merriment, “OOorrrrOOOoooooRRRRRRRooooo.”

Let me tell you, it’s really hard to work up a proper head of steam again after having your sails so suddenly deflated.  Impossible, in fact.  😉

Larry planned to cut the rest of his deer meat that evening, but I think he chatted too much... removed his dentures to wash them too often (and show them to his daughters, but we won’t talk about that)... and didn’t keep a cold gel pack on his face enough; so he didn’t feel like cutting meat.  So he sat down in the recliner and applied the gel pack.

A little later, I told him, “Your face isn’t as swollen as it was a couple of hours ago.”

He nodded. “I guess I talked too much!” he said.

“Big blabbermouth,” I said – and then we both laughed, because if there’s anything Larry isn’t, it’s a blabbermouth.  He enjoys visiting with his family; but he’s no blabbermouth.

I finished removing all the paper from the New York Beauty Variation blocks that night.  I needed to print out ten more paper foundations, and make more blocks – six for the quilt (how’d that happen? thought I had enough) and four for the king-sized shams I’m going to make.  Maybe my printer didn’t print as many paper foundations as I thought it did?  I thought I had counted these blocks before, and wound up with all 36!  Maybe the Shoemaker’s Elves stole them?

But it was time for bed, not time to print more paper block foundations.  Church was the next day, and Larry said he felt well enough that I didn’t need to stay home with him.

Once upon a time I said to one of Larry’s elderly aunts on a Saturday night that I’d better head for the feathers, so the ushers with the cattle prods wouldn’t get me the next morning in Sunday School... and she thought I meant it!  haha

Sunday morning when I headed out the door, it was 13°... the windchill was 0°... and there was about half an inch of snow on the walk.  Larry cleared a path for me out to the Jeep, so I didn’t get my Sunday heels all snowy.

Home again, in a show of solidarity (or maybe just because it was yummy), I drank a milkshake for lunch while Larry had some puréed soup and applesauce.

Teensy came trotting in and landed in my lap, cold and smelling like the smoke from our chimney.  This meant he’d been outside, where the temperature had dropped a degree to 12°, with a wind chill of -3°.  Teensy always hops up on my lap immediately upon coming in, in order to warm up his cold little paws (or to dry off his wet little paws, as the case may be).  

Larry finished his pain medication Saturday night, and Sunday his mouth was hurting quite a bit.  He took Ibuprofen, and that helped.  He went out into the cold, cold outdoors to get more wood for our wood-burning stove, saying that the cold made his mouth feel better. 

Last night after church, Hannah called to tell me there was going to be an eclipse of the Super Blood Moon, as they call it.  It was 11°... the wind chill was -2°... the wind was blowing at 15 mph... so I informed her that I thought it was really stupid of NASA to schedule these things in the middle of the night in weather like this.  😆

I decided not to worry about such things as eclipses.  Besides, I was getting a cold.

It’s in full swing today, and I feel lousy.  Bah, humbug.  Good grief, what if Larry catches it?!  Aarrgghh.  That’s the last thing he needs.

Today Larry went off to put his paycheck in the bank, regardless of it being MLK Day, and the banks being closed.  When he got home, he set about cutting wood.

Baby Keira, who was 2 pounds, 8 ounces, when she was born April 16, just had her 9-month checkup at the hospital in Omaha where she spent her first two months.  She’s at the 50 percentile mark (that’s exactly average/good) for growth and physical well-being, and mentally, she’s at a 9-month level, which means she’s 2.5 months ahead of where she would be if she’d been born on her due date.  So the doctors and nurses were very pleased, as are Hester and Andrew.  She weighs 15 pounds, 1 ounce, now. 

(Keira is pleased, too, but she doesn’t know exactly why.)

Larry tried eating scrambled eggs this afternoon, found them a bit too spongy, mashed them with a fork – and then was able to eat them.  He can eat soft crackers now, and is happy about that.  He ate cottage cheese without blending it, too.

I just put venison, potatoes, carrots, and onions into my Mexican Dutch oven... and later, we’ll see what he thinks of it, run through the blender. 

He just made a smoothie of peaches, rice pudding, vanilla yogurt, and almond milk.  Yummy!  That was good!  (He made enough for me, too.)

Bedtime!

,,,>^..^<,,,          Sarah Lynn         ,,,>^..^<,,,