Chewing on the right

Well, I had surgery yesterday.

You know, they kind where they cut out gum tissue from the roof of you mouth, and then graft it onto the front of you lower teeth.

What, you haven't done that? Weird, I figured everyone has at least once...

Yep, I had the first of two gum grafts performed yesterday. Because of the way my mouth is structured, I never really had any true gum tissue in the front of my lower front 8 or so teeth. The tissue that was there was more of the flexible, semi-transperant tissue that covers the inside of your cheeks. Great for being flexible and stretching, but not so great for providing support for teeth. Because of this, the semi-gum tissue has been slowly receding and wearing away (since it wasn't really up for the job in the first place), leaving more and more of those teeth exposed.

Left untreated, eventually the roots would be completely exposed, and without any gum support, they could fall out. Not cool. At this point, they aren't loose, but were getting to the point where the dentist and periodontist were getting more concerned about it. So, yesterday we did the left side. The periodontist cut out tissue from the roof of my mouth (on the left side) and sutured it onto the front of my lower teeth where I was missing gum tissue. After a couple of months we'll do the right side too.

Have I grossed you out yet?

The actual surgery wasn't too bad, since they loaded me up with novocain. The worst parts:

1. Injecting the novocain. Not really that painful, but a lot of needle pokes and prods considering that they had to inject it into the roof of my mouth, the gums near my lower left and front teeth, and parts of my cheek.

2. Feeling like I something was blocking my airway. When the effects of the novocain reach the front of your throat (because it was injected in the roof of my mouth), it feels like you need to clear your throat, like something is there, but it won't go away. Creepy bad feeling that you just have to get used to, all the while feeling like you're about to choke.

3. Antiseptic solution applied to lower gums where the grafts were placed had a horrible taste the lingered and reached the back of my throat, such that I had to consciously try not to gag. This was the worst part. It didn't just taste bad, it really made me want to gag, and it was like that for about 5-10 minutes straight.

4. Stitches. Lots of them. Upper where they extracted the gum tissue from behind my teeth and lower where they grafted it. Not painful, just a weird feeling when you see the doctor sewing in your mouth. He just kept going, and going, and going...

5. Being awake for the whole thing, but not being able to see what was going on. No, I wasn't creeped out by what they were doing, rather, I wanted to watch. I'm the kind of person that likes to watch them stick the needle in while giving blood, and I wanted to see them working in my mouth. Every once in awhile, when his head angle was just right, I could see my mouth in the reflection on periodontist's glasses. The image was so smal though, that it didn't provide a great viewing experience.

You can't really see much of what they did, since everything is covered with a silly-putty-like dressing to prevent infection. There are basically three big globs of putty: one of the roof of my mouth, one of the front of my lower left and front teeth, and one on the back of my lower left and front teeth.

I have the stitches taken out in 2 weeks, but I'll have to eat on one side of my mouth for an entire month. I'm not even supposed to chew with my front teeth, since the left half of them were involved also. No food restrictions though, which is why I was willing to do this before Christmas. Penicillin to prevent infection and Vicodin (extra strength!) for pain.

Oh, and if you thought I was a slow eater before, wait until you see me now! ;-)

DotD: Wireless Lexmark inkjet printer and wireless 802.11g Buffalo router bundle - $20 - That's right, no USB cable needed for the printer. It's wireless except for the power cable (you can also use USB if you want). Buying the bundle together allows you to use a $50 rebate that drops the total price of both to just $20. Pretty cool! Only catch is that you have to use in-store pickup from Circuit City. They are not available for shipping.

First impressions are often wrong

Okay, so it has been awhile between posts. You can look at this two ways, depending on if you are a glass half full or a glass half empty kind of person. You could look at this as me being lazy, or you could look at this as, "Wow, you sure are posting a lot more than you did last year before you had a blog." I prefer that approach.

I'm also going to blame Facebook. I started blogging to communicate with y'all, but almost all of you are on Facebook too, so I don't always think to visit both. So yes, this also means I've been bad about reading other people's blogs too. However, there seems to be a strange linking between me posting irregularly and everyone else doing the same. The whole blogosphere has almost ground to a halt. I guess I am more powerful than I realized...

Enough appetizers, let's get to the main course.

I've had two things happen recently that have driven home the point that first impressions are often wrong. I'm not sure why this is. Is God trying to tell me something here? Am I judging others and closing myself off to them without realizing it? I'm not sure what to make of this quite yet, but I'll fill you in on the two events keep working on the meaning myself. It just seems way to coincidental to be a coincidence, if you know what I mean. ;-)

1. I needed some new razor blades for shaving, so I stopped by the appropriate aisle at Target or Walmart, I don't remember which. I first noticed that they had the same kind of razor I used on sale, which was the (insert commercial here) Gillette Fusion, with 5 precision blades, a trimming blade on the back, and a comfort strip which has some sort of soothing stuff in it that slowly releases. At the sale price, I figured I might as well get a new razor since it came with a new blade too. While looking over those razors, I saw next to it the Gillette Fusion Power Phantom, which is exactly the same razor, but it takes a battery and vibrates to (insert commercial here) provide a new level of comfort and the closest shave you've ever experienced.

Now, I do use one of those cheap Oral B electric toothbrushes, and I really like it. When I first saw the advertisements for the manual razor that vibrates, I thought it was a joke. And standing there in the store, I could not imagine who would buy such a thing. It was obviously just a play off the popularity of the battery-powered toothbrushes that have become so commonplace. And the battery powered razor was not even on sale, although they were only a dollar or so more expensive than the normal razor's regular price. 

You can probably guess where this is going. Yep, I bought the battery powered razor out of sheer curiosity, and so I could mock it later in all of my conversations. I even imagined blogging about it later, telling all of you how silly of a concept it is.

Except, I love it. You can not image my disbelief at actually trying it and not just liking it, but finding out that it is actually the best shave I've ever had. Not that I'm a shaving expert or anything, but I've experienced plenty of years of shaving each morning to know a good experience from a bad one. I used a manual razor for a couple years, then switched to an electric razor for a few years, and then switched back to a manual razor. This is, without a doubt in my mind, the best razor I've ever used. I'm not going to try to explain how a razor that vibrates could be so much better than the exact same razor that doesn't vibrate, but it is. Maybe it just distracts you or something, but there is so much less discomfort with this razor that I am still amazed each time I use it.

Yes, this is going to be a long blog. ;-)

2. Ms. Fiance and I decided to go see a movie the other day, and I was really disappointed to find out that "I am legend" was not out yet (Friday!). Ms. Fiance really wanted to see August Rush, which is a movie about a little boy who is a musical prodigy and thinks he can find his long-lost parents through his music. Sounded like a yawn-fest to me, and I had absolutely no interest in seeing it. But, being the loving fiance that I am, I told her we could watch it since there really wasn't anything else I wanted to see anyway (until Friday!).

Again, I was blown away. That movie has so many emotional highs and those WOW moments, that I totally got caught up in it. I don't know how many times I felt my eyes tear up, not from sadness, but from seeing the boy learn to play music and how powerful it was for him. 

I am not one to cry at movies. I just don't. At best I sometimes get that tingly feeling when something really builds up to an emotional high that clicks with me, like at the end of Shawshank Redemption when he finally escapes, or in Rudy when he gets to play in the game. I had that tingly feeling throughout August Rush, and while I wouldn't say that I actually cried, my eyes were definitely moist at least 3 or 4 times throughout the movie. It was just really good, and a great story. If you haven't seen it yet, go and watch it!

So there you have it, two times recently when my first impression of something was completely off base. I would have silently, or even not so silently, ridiculed both of these things, but they turned out to be really good. Just something for us all to keep in mind I guess.

DotD: Today you get two, big surprise.

Gillette Fusion Power Phantom - $10.99 - The only difference that I could tell between the Phantom and the regular Gillette Fusion Power razor is that the Phantom is black. They were both the same price, so I went with the Phantom. I just bought mine in the store, but I couldn't find it on a quick search of Target or Walmart's website, so that's why there's an Amazon link. 

August Rush - $7 or $8 in theaters - Go see this movie. After one viewing, it instantly moved near the top of my all-time favorite list. Both Ms. Fiance and I thought it was great, and can't stop telling people about it.