The Recovery

January 1999

Wed., Jan. 13, 1999

I am home and online already. No surprise there. LOL The day was uneventful. I had an omlete and cinnamon toast for lunch. I just kind of hung out online. I took a 3 1/2-hour nap from about 4:00 PM til 7:30 PM. I ate chili for dinner. I love my mom's chili. I worked a little on my prep page since I had not updated it since late December. I stayed up til about 4:40 AM.

Thurs., Jan. 14, 1999

I got up at 7:30 AM. I worked on my surgery page some. I should have it up soon. Nothing real spectacular happened today. My mom's birthmom sent me a really beautiful plant. I fell asleep at 6:30 PM and slept til 2:30 AM. I woke up at 11 PM long enough to take my antibiotic and turn off the light.

Fri., Jan. 15, 1999

When I got up at 2:30 AM, I went thru my mail. I found out that my friend Nancy's son, David, has to have eye surgery AGAIN. He had a retina detachment back in December. Now he has a tear in his retina. :-( He will be scheduled for surgery in the next few days. I am soooo bummed for them. :-( I finally got my surgery page done and uploaded. Now I just have to work on the recovery page.

It was too funny.. I got my referral for my surgery TODAY. A little late. LOL I do have to speak to Brenda and Deloris about it because they approved it as day surgery and not an overnighter. Go figure!!!!!

I slept a lot today.. I fell asleep before 12:30 PM. Mom came down and woke me up at 3:20 PM to keep an eye on Kayla while she ran to the dentist. I got up and took my antibiotic and laid on the couch upstairs. As soon as she came home, I came downstaris and slept for another 3 1/2 hours. LOL I am making up for all the sleep I lost before my surgery.

Sat., Jan. 16, 1999

I was up until 2:30 PM today. Before I went to bed, I worked on some graphics. It is soo much fun working on graphics without my glasses. LOL My mom went to the outlet mall in Osage Beach with my oldest sister-in-law. I still have the rash behind my ear.

Sun., Jan. 17, 1999

I went to bed at 2:30 PM Sat. and woke up at 12:45 AM. What great sleeping hours. LOL LOL Someday I will get on the right track.

I've been working on graphics like mad.. My copy of BladePro expires today. LOL

My CD player broke. :-(

I talked to a friend of mine about my rash. She thinks it MIGHT be a reaction to latex. I will definitely talk to my PS about it. I did some research on latex allergies and discovered I am at a high risk for them since I've had multiple surgeries.

I started wearing my glasses some. The ear piece does not rest on the stitches at all. Now I have to get used to wearing my glasses again.

I went to bed at 10:30 PM.

Mon., Jan. 18, 1999

I woke up at 4:30 AM and stayed up all day. I worked on pages. I wore my glasses off and on all day. I skipped bowling because of the stitches in my ear and didn't feel I could wear my glasses all that long. I fell asleep at a little after 7:00 PM. I was tired.

Tues., Jan. 19, 1999

I woke up at about 4:20 AM. I chatted on ICQ with a friend for a bit. I then got ready to go to the doctor.

I got there and he had been called to assist with a surgery. LOL So I sat and talked with Brenda and Toni for over an hour while waiting for PS to come up from surgery. I showed Brenda the referral that I received last Friday.. She will pass it on to Deloris. We talked about everything from referrals (which I need to update BADLY). When PS came up at a little after 11:30 AM, he took a look and told me that it looked good despite what he had to work with. It is a b**** when you have sooo much scar tissue. Tony took the stitches out of my post. The ones behind my ear are dissolving ones.

I do have to have a minor procedure down the road.. Just a MINOR one.. It will actually be a touch up surgery. Then that should be it. The only thing is.. My reconstruction won't be done before my 35th birthday but I am hoping it is done before the end of the year.

I am excited because I am free to look for work now. I am not going to worry about that minor procedure too much because it won't amount to too much.

My dad let me use his CC to order BladePro. Now I have BladePro. It is an awesome plugin for PSP!!!

I wore my glasses pretty much all day.

I went to bed early around 10 PM.

Wed., Jan. 20, 1999

I woke up early again. I finally finished my course of antibiotics!! YAY :-) I worked on pages again. I went to bed early.

Thurs., Jan. 21, 1999

I woke up early. I finally finished the family pages. YAY :-) I had a major attack of diarrhea about 5:00 PM. :-( And I did not feel good all day long. ER was a repeat. :-( I went to bed early.

Fri., Jan. 22, 1999

I woke up early.. I am getting more and more of my pages finished. It is a slow process rebuilding the pages. I popped the rest of the stitches out of nose.. Didn't hurt anything.

Sat., Jan. 23, 1999

Today I went out in public for the first time since my surgery. It felt good to get out. I went to Best Buy to get something with the gift card I had received in December. I got a cool program with all kinds of clipart.

I registered with job service online. My resume is up on their website. I think that I am going to go in person to one of the offices.

Sun., Jan. 24, 1999

Another day spent online. :-) I am trying to get my pages done. I went to bed early again.

Mon., Jan. 25, 1999

I just kind of hung out all day. I went bowling but didn't do all that well. :-( I am out of practice. Next week is another week. :-) F., my friend who had GB surgery six days before my surgery, was there. We compared experiences. :-) I hope she is able to return to the team soon. :-) I fell asleep after 11 PM.

Tues., Jan. 26, 1999

I got up at 7:30 AM and worked on pages. Emily, Laura's daughter, had her lip revision today. It went well. Laura pulled a good one on me tonight. LOL LOL She had me all freaked out about Em's revision. LOL LOL I went to bed later than usual. I was helping Nancy get the ring code for my webring on her page.

Wed., Jan. 27, 1999

I woke up at 8:45 AM. I worked a bit on pages. I've decided once I get the pages all updated that I am not doing any major renovations for quite sometime. I was messing around with the clock on my pc.. I discovered why the time was off on my email!! I was set for mountain time instead of central time. LOL It has been like that since my crash last February. LOL I went to bed at 11 PM and fell asleep by 11:40 PM.

Thurs., Jan. 28, 1999

I woke up at 8:30 AM today. I didn't do much but work on pages a bit. I think that I am kind of getting burnt out on pagebuilding. I finally got this journal caught up. :-)

February 1999

Mon., Feb. 1, 1999

I called Brenda today to confirm meeting with PS. She laughed because I was the second person to call about an appt. for tomorrow.

Tues., Feb. 2, 1999

I got to show off my page today. :-) I showed Brenda and she was like WOW. Too bad Deloris was sick. Most of my Arhinia and Other Craniofacial Anomalies page will be part of the sie that I am doing for my PS.

I found out some interesting news... First of all, PS' wife is pregnant. They are expecting their third child in August. Just remind me not to schedule my touchup until after the baby is born. LOL When I got home, I told my mom and she already knew!!! She found out the day of my surgery. LOL She thought I knew. LOL

Some more interesting news... I found out for sure that I was the first person in the Kansas City to have craniofacial reconstructive surgery. It is interesting that the PS who created the program I am part of now established the first craniofacial program in the early 1980s at another hospital here in Kansas City. The program I am part of is the largest cleft/craniofacial program in the Kansas City area. There are three in the area.

Sun., Feb. 21, 1999

I watched two interesting programs on The Discovery Channel this evening. One was on the show "Nature of Things" and the titled of the program was called "Restoring Faces: The Plastic Surgery Miracle." The program featured several children and adults with craniofacial anomalies. There were interviews with several plastic surgeons who specialize in craniofacial surgery. It was a good show overall but it should have looked at the history of craniofacial surgery. I did disagree with the psychiatrists of one of the craniofacial teams tho.

The other show I watched was called "Skin Deep." It was about the parents of a little boy with Down Syndrome who decided to put him thru reconstructive surgery. The show bothered me soo much that I had to build a page about it.

March 1999

Wed., March 10, 1999

It has been a long time since I added a journal entry. My nose seems to be healing from the January surgery. My latest fear is a possible hardware problem on the inside of my chin. I have had a bump down inside since the end of January. I am thinking it is a wire but will ask PS for sure when I go in for follow-up appointment on March 23rd. I hope it isn't a wire.

April 1999

Sat., April 3, 1999

I went to see my PS on Tues., March 23, 1999. Everything is looking great!. :-) The bump in the inside of my mouth near my chin is nothing.. just bone. My PS still wishes he could have done more but there would be too much to lose if he did. I am happy with things as they are. :-) I don't go back to see him for six months. :-)

Epilogue

Sun., April 9, 2000

I didn't go back for my six-month follow-up. I've decided that I don't want anymore reconstructive surgery done. I am happy with the way things are.