All posts by Becca

My Wisdom Teeth Story

At the end of July, I got three wisdom teeth pulled. I am the world’s #1 wuss, so going into this whole experience I was really nervous. The night before, I looked up all kinds of videos on YouTube and articles online about other people getting their wisdom teeth extracted and the horror stories that came with it.

Wasn’t a very good idea, obviously.

My mom and dad both came with me to the doctor’s office. I was really embarrassed because after the nurse took me back into the rooms, I started crying. Yeah, I was a nervous wreck. I remember laying down in the chair and the doctor coming in and introducing himself to me. He then gave me the shot to put me to sleep and I remember thinking, “This is not going to knock me out!” It took a few minutes, but the next thing I know I was waking up and there were balls of gauze in my mouth and no wisdom teeth.

I don’t remember anything at all about the surgery; I felt nothing – which was amazing. They moved me to a recovery room and had me lay down and try to regain my balance. After a few minutes, they got my parents and had me walk around a little bit to make sure I was okay. They then gave me general instructions about what I could and could not do and told me to come back in a week to get the stitches out of my bottom left gum.

On the ride home, I didn’t feel too bad. I wasn’t loopy or anything from the anesthesia (to my mom’s disappointment) and I was immensely relieved. I had heard all kinds of crazy things that people say when they wake back up. :P Once I got home, the medicine really started to wear off and my mouth started to hurt. So I took my meds, crawled in bed, put an ice pack on my face and fell asleep. At dinner, my mom woke me and made me eat a smoothie, I took more meds, and went back to sleep on the sofa in the living room.

My brother had one of his friends over, so that woke me up later and I was really feeling kind of bad. My stomach hurt, my mouth hurt, just that awful miserable feeling. Like I was going to throw up. So my mom was trying to convince me to eat something else, which I really didn’t want to because I knew I would just hork it back up; but against my better judgement I drank some gatorade. And threw it up.

The pain medicine they had me on made me extremely sick, so the rest of the night I spent just throwing up. After that I decided that I would just take some general, over-the-counter pain pills and that still killed most of the pain but didn’t make me sick.

The first couple of days were really the worst, just because my mouth was achy and I could only eat smoothies and yogurt. I also just had this really bad taste in my mouth that wouldn’t go away because I wasn’t allowed to rinse my mouth. It was a combination of general bad breath, blood, and… something just disgusting. And my cheeks did get really puffy. I told you I’d look like a puffer fish.

The pain was tolerable, which isn’t bad since again, I am the world’s #1 Wuss. I probably wouldn’t have had any at all if I would have stayed on my original medicine. And after the first week, I had minimal pain and could eat more solid food on the right side of my mouth. (I didn’t have the bottom tooth on the right pulled because WOOT! I didn’t have one! So the top right healed fairly quickly and I could eat more solid foods on that side.)

Now, almost three weeks later, I’m doing just fine. No problems really. I have to be careful still with chewing on the left side of my mouth because the bottom left one is still a little touchy, but I’m eating chips and apples and all that good stuff. It was terrible, not being able to eat all my favorite junk food! :P

So my advice to those that are nervous about getting theirs pulled or will have to sometime in the future: don’t sweat it. Yeah, the first couple of days kinda suck, but you just sleep through most of it and the pain meds do wonders. :)

Mission Accomplished

Hello everyone! :) I arrived back from my mission trip to Huntsville, Alabama on Saturday around four but I’ve been a little lazy and haven’t blogged about it until now. Overall, it was a wonderful experience (as they all are) and I made some new friends and experienced personal growth all around.

At the project, there were about 300 students (give or take a few) divided into eighteen crews. Each person is paired with at least one other person from their church and assigned to a crew. Each crew has a crew chief and a crew encourager and is assigned a house to work on over the week.

I was with three other people from my church: a middle school girl and then two youth group leaders. One of the leaders, Joe, was my crew chief. It’s not that we don’t get along, but he’s one of those people that just mess with you and like to push your buttons. -.- So I wasn’t exactly jumping for joy.

It’s also a bit of an ongoing joke in my youth group because no matter what, I always get a painting site. Two years ago, out of around 20 sites there was one painting site, I got it. So this year there were only two painting sites and whaddaya know! I got it! :P But it’s okay, because it’s not about me and what I want to do. So it really didn’t even bother me that much. :3

My crew was alright. I say that because, outside of working and if I were just hanging out with them, I would’ve liked them. They were fun and had unique personalities, but I’ve never – in my six years with World Changers – had such a lazy crew. I mean it was ridiculous.

Our house was a nice house and really did not need work, but we had to paint the trim. Normally we are assigned pretty run-down houses where the work is apparent. Nonetheless, we had a job to do. At the most, we had four people working at one time. Me, my two youth leaders, and the other girl from my church. Of a crew with twelve people, four would be working. You’ve no idea how frustrating that was for me.

I just don’t understand how you sign up for a mission trip where you will be doing construction work, from 7:30 AM to 4 PM every day for a week, out in the hot sun, and don’t work. That just baffles me.There was one point during the week that two girls were like, “Becca! We haven’t talked all week!” And I wanted to say in reply “Maybe because I actually work and you all just sit around!” I held my tongue though. Let me tell you, God was working on my patience.

So what should have taken us a day to complete took us three. So they moved our crew to another site that was working on a roof. I absolutely loved their crew. They were all really hard workers and were cracking me up. I also got to get on the roof for the first time and rip off shingles, put down tar paper, and then put the new shingles on. It was fun. :D

One of our construction supervisors I really bonded with as well. He had a handful of houses that he supervised to make sure that everything was being done correctly and in a timely manner. His name was Ron and he always made fun of my “baby hammer.” It was a cheaper one my mom had bought because we always tend to lose our tools so it was smaller and lighter. At the end of the week he introduced me to his wife and told me that he was really proud of how hard I worked all week despite having a painting job and a lazy crew. He was so sweet. :love:

I also forgot to mention that I had a really creepy crew encourager. She was an older lady that had everyone in the crew call her “Mama.” Uhm, excuse me? I’ve known you for less than a day and you want me to call you Mama? Yeah, no. My mama’s name is Karen and she is not here right now. :| Creeeepy.

Speaking of my mama, she’s having a hysterectomy on Thursday. She’s really nervouse. :/ I’m telling you, my family has just had all kinds of stuff going on, huh! :P My dad had his port put in today for his chemotherapy. It was an outpatient surgery that did not take long and he seems to be doing just fine. He say’s he gets a little dizzy and he’s not allowed to be left alone for 24 hours. His doctors also think that the colostomy bag can be reversed, which is so good to hear!

Tomorrow is the 4th of July, which is exciting for all of you Americans! It’s one of my favorite holidays since my family would always grill and have fireworks and friends over. Though things never stay the same do they? My parent have been going to a different church than me, so they’re doing some shin-dig with them, and I have to work 3-11. Urgh. I just want to shove my face in BBQ and watch fireworks! Dx

Ah well, work will be slow so I can just read. :)