Learning to Mouth

Ok. RE-Learning to mouth.

A week 1/2 since having the 15 nubs I used to call teeth removed,

I am slowly re-learning many things.

Denture care, for one. So far this has really only been a matter of telling my Awesome Dentist when the plates bother me and he grinds them smooth for me. Gently brushing them, along with my healing gums. simple enough.

Speech. Oh folks, this is different in such a huge way. There is nothing holding my lip up anymore. without the dentures in, there are no S's, weird ,spitty TH's.

The residents are having much fun with this.

With the dentures every S whistles. If I try to actually whistle- the bottom plate pops out. pushing the bottom plate back down pushes the top plate.

Its a regular tongue aerobics program in my mouth!

Eating. . . seven and a half days. a WEEK without solid food. Many milkshakes, protein drinks, yogurts. When I returned to Awesome Dentist, he asked how I felt.

I told him I could happily eat his foot. HUNGRY, Doc, I'm stark raving mad famished.

He did my checkup, confirmed my gums are healing very quickly, re-fitted the plates, and told me to try to eat "mushy solids" .

What an interesting oxymoron.

When I got home I made a mashed potato.
When I attempted to eat it, I ended up laughing hysterically at myself !
Seems the biggest trick was, not to wear it.
I kept missing my mouth.

Did I mention I was VERY happy there was no one home to witness

the warden in this odd scene ? :

Warden at the table, puts a small amount of mashed potato on the spoon, and has to turn the spoon upside down to wipe the potatoes onto her tongue.

Thinking she has the spoon past the dentures, she turns the spoon, and the mashed potato falls into her lap. . .

Repeat until Warden is laughing, because the idea of finding a big BIB, and trying again with a mirror is the funniest thing ever.

The above scene was done with dentures. It didn't go much better when I took them out, because I was terrified of getting food into the healing gums.

Not one to give up on nutrition of some kind , I made dinner.
Elbow noodles boiled to death, corn, and ground pork- served with brown gravy sauce.

I managed to figure it out. . . but had to remove the bottom plate, every time I lifted my tongue to catch the spoon, it would pop up, and knock the spoon.

Also, at this point I learned again, that if I can't swallow it whole, it should not be in my mouth.

The Magic Bullet comes into play here, and chops my dinner into billions of tiny little morsels.
Now, I can swipe the spoon on my tongue and smoosh it all on the top of my mouth.

I GOT TO EAT !
(and later, I ate the whole noodles out of the pan scraps.)

What a chore !

The gums will have to completely heal , and the plates re-fitted again before I can truly "chew".
That , I'm sure will be just as interesting.

In case you are wondering, Yes, I can say I still like the Dentist,

who, has been dubbed Awsome Dentist ,

becasuse he and his staff made my comfort THE priority.

I was not just another rotten tooth with a money bag cavity.

Stay tuned !

Oh Giranah. Dog, you sure have timing.

oooh. dog is close to being orphaned.

If you've followed our adventures w Mz.chew-it-all, you know the solution we found was- OUTSIDE.
when no one is home, she goes OUT.

In TN, she had plenty of sticks and toys to crunch on while tied out.

Here in CO, she has a fenced in yard to run around in, she can chase the bunnies that are dumb enough to sneak under the fence (yet fast enough to get out on the other side) and of course, her toys. She also has neighbor dogs to bark at and run along the fenceline with.

So, when I walk the kids to the school bus in the morning, she goes in the yard.
Most days I'll walk her with us.

Yesterday, I did not.

I did not PLAN to anyway.

Why? well, because in anticipation of my dental surgery, I was prescribed valium, to stop the panic attacks Ikept having on tuesday. So I woke up a bit dopey and out of 'norms'.

Now, as we go to the bus stop, we have to walk past the front of the house, which includes a portion of the fenced yard, where Lyla can see us, and jump on the fence and whine and howl her dislike at being left home .

We knew this day would come.

On wednesday, when I planned NOT to take her bc I felt drunk, as we walked by the yard, she jumped it. she jumped the fence. its easily an almost 5 ft fence.

Problem : she jumped it the wrong way, into the neighbors yard, where the two dogs who live there want to eat her. Thank heavens those two were not IN thier yard at this time.

So I tell the kids to go on to the bus so I can get superbunny out of this guys yard.
Which was easy enough. amazingly she actually came to me the first time I called her. With no leash, now the mission is to catch up to the kids.

dog wants to drag me, which is why I planned NOT to take her!

Somehow I made it back to the house after seeing the bus off, and dog went to bed. and stayed there.

Now the catch with this particular dog, is now she's learned a new 'trick'.
she can scale the fence.
which means : she'll jump it to get to us, she'll jump it to get to the rabbits and prarie dogs, and anything else that moves.

This is not good, especially considering I have to leave her for the next 4 1/2 hours to get my teeth pulled.

So I find the old tether line, and attach her to the bottom of the porch stairs. Moved her water bowl and toys. cool. nice n cozy.

When I get home, I discover the dog has EATEN her way up the stairs. she has managed to mark and chew on almost every damn banister slat on the way up. splintered bits of wood are everywhere.

YOU ARE A DEAD DOG WALKING.

(keep in mind this is NOT our house, we are staying with a friend, who does indeed own a VERY nice house, a many many dolla house. )

As long as we were home, dog didn't jump the fence again.

A pal stayed the night to help me out with the kids n chores while I was recovering.
so, today, thursday, we planned to drive the kids to the bus on the way out to my checkup appointment.

obviously tying her to the porch is NOT a repeat option. so MAYBE, becasue we aren't walking, she won't do her new trick again.

As we load the kids into the car, The dog is now barking and whining from the neighbors yard.

I am NOT pleased.

Pal takes kids to bus, while I round up my hopping-giraffe-pirana-dog.

What the hell to do with her NOW?

I tied her up in the basement. I hated it. I took her bed, a bucket of water and her toy, and tied her to one of the supports ( God help me she can't possibly chew thru it !)

When I returned she was there. she had not chewed anything, but had herself wrapped around the pole so many times she could barely move. knucklehead.

So now we're back to, we have to repair the porch she ate, can't leave her inside, can't leave her outside, tying her in the basement is somewhat cruel, and totally defeats the purpose of having a big dog to 'protect' the house.

I'm at the point I want to shishkabob her.

Dental Blue Lipstick.. Part II

for part one click here

As much fun as we had during preparation for "E-Day" (extraction day) wednesday was the day.

I spent most of tuesday in panic , and complete nervous shutdowns. My dear dear dentist sent in an RX for that. mother's lil blue. yes. i felt better, and slept.

Wednesday I arrived, was whisked into a chair, and instantly put into 'relax' mode.
Beside the lil blue pill , I was given 3 more relaxation tablets. ( to CHEW no less. ?!)

I was given "blinder sunglasses" , a headset, and an ipod. (we'll get back to that)

I responded by giving the nurse the tube of blue lipstick for my dear dentist.
The nurse had a good laugh, we speculated if he would REALLY wear it or not.
It was placed on his workstand, just to see what would be.

I was"plugged in" behind the ears by electrical zappers - oooh so cool. I barely felt it, but this adds to the relaxation methods. Queen dental chicken was doin just fine.

The Ipod played calm classical music, and the sunglasses were totally blacked out. ( which was good, I did NOT want to see this at ALL) I could still hear what was going on around me, and answer the dentist, as he asked me a gabillion times how I was doing.

I will say, that having had many teeth extracted before (up to 5 at a time) , in the oddest way, having these 15 removed was almost pleasant.

Especially when it took him almost 45 minutes to get a little bit of root out- it was hiding and twisting away from him, and even as HE got frustrated and began to joke about it, I was cool as ever.

3 hours later, 15 teeth (plus one damn stubborn root) extracted and the bones filed down- my dentures were placed. :D

lookin good mama.

This morning I returned, so the dentist could remove the dentures, check on the sockets and sutures.

He said all was well, everything was coming along nicely. Did a little trimming on the plates, gave me my "how to" lessons.
As we were finishing up I noticed he'd worn his mask almost the entire time. I asked him if he was getting sick, maybe a cold, bc he always takes it off after doing examinations- today he kept it over his mouth.

He pulled the mask down below his chin, and color me silly. .. . .

He was wearing the blue lipstick.

Yep. I still like him.