part of the bigger picture

This might be the last time I bore you with horror stories about my teeth….then again, it might not be.
So I think the gelfoam cloves thingy came out today when I was religiously doing my salt water rinsing. It had to have, because about an hour later I was getting more than uncomfortable. Then an hour after that I was seriously in pain again. So after taking the kids to the doctor (which is a whole other fiasco, and long story short – they have parvovirus, NOT three day measles/german measles/rubella like the doc diagnosed them yesterday), I called the dental office again. By now I know the drill:
“Hi, this is Kim Bitner calling. I was in on Friday to have my wisdom teeth removed, and was back in yesterday because of a dry socket. He put some gelfoam in but it came out, and I’m not sure if I should come in again or not…”
And she says something like, “Well what did you hope was going to happen by calling?”
Uhhhhh…..I hoped I could come get another one put in, that’s what.
She proceeds to tell me that basically I’ll have to just suffer through it, it should run its course in 7-10 days, that the gelfoam doesn’t help with the healing so there’s no point in me coming back in. No point? I wanted to scream. The point would be to relieve some of the pain! I know you can’t believe everything you read online, but everything I’ve read online about dry socket says dentists will usually get you back in every 1 or 2 days to redo it until it’s healed. So what I said a few posts back about the nicest staff in my dentist’s office? I partially take it back. They’re all nice, except for this lady. (Lord, please give me grace to love my enemies.)
So I had a meltdown on the phone with Clay, and by the time he got home from work it was starting to feel a little better. He thought maybe we should call Dr. N directly since he gave us his number, but I didn’t want to be a pain…so I figured if it doesn’t get better by tomorrow, I’d call the office again. Clay said he’d been praying for me since we talked on the phone, and had asked our pastor to pray for me as well.
You know….I’m really not one to jump around and yell, “I’ve been healed!” when I start to show improvement. I’ve seen too many not believable ‘healings’ to jump to quick conclusions. But…I’m starting to think I’ve been healed. Whether it is temporary or permanent, thank you Jesus for the past few hours I’ve had without pain.

I was back to see Dr. N today, thanks to the crazy pain on the left side of my mouth, and was told I had a dry socket. He put some gelfoam thing in that has oil of cloves in it, so I’m constantly tasting cloves but who the heck cares – it feels SO much better! He was also laughing about how funny I was with the nitrous oxide…I totally forgot this until today, but when I woke up at one point I pulled the gas thing off my nose and exclaimed, “What’s going on here?!” I think that’s when I went on about the good long dream.
Makes me glad I don’t do drugs regularly… I’d hate to think there were a bunch of people out there laughing at my (unknown to me) stupidity.

I’m sitting here with my feet up (literally), and figured now’s a good time to update the ole blog. Most days, if I’m sitting down with my computer I feel like I should be doing something else. Today though, I know I should just be taking things easy. Why?

On Friday I did something I thought I’d never have to endure…I had my wisdom teeth removed. I’m sure we’ve all heard our share of horror stories about how awful an experience it is, not only in the dentist’s chair, but in the healing as well. Obviously it’s something I never hoped I’d have to do, and really never thought I’d need to do. My wisdom teeth never really bothered me, save for the few days a year when they’d move a little and I’d be a little uncomfortable. But nothing major. I used to have a great dentist, but he retired about 2 years ago, and the people who took over his office seemed less than trustworthy. I felt like they were just going to try to make me get unnecessary procedures done, so I stopped going. I was passively looking for a new dentist, but nothing urgent. Earlier this year though, I knew I needed to get Markus to see a dentist for the first time, so the search was on again. A friend of mine recommended her dentist, who is a friend of theirs. So off Markus, Clay, and I went. People, you could not find a nicer dentist, nicer staff, or nicer dental office. I know I know, everyone thinks their dentist is great, but come on. Really. You’ve got nothing on me.

Anyway, about the teeth. I only had 3 wisdom teeth, and none of them had actually come all the way through. I was told they never would, and as time went on they’d get more difficult to keep clean. He could almost guarantee that at some point they’d give me trouble, and it would be better to get them out now than later. The younger you are, they easier you heal. On top of that, the sedation they use cannot be given to someone who’s pregnant, so chalk up another reason to get it over and done with now. (Okay, I’m not going to get into that right now, except to say that we’re probably not done having kids.)

So Friday was the day. I had to take a drug the night before, some kind of anti-anxiety thing, and then they gave me something else when I got there to make me more relaxed and tired, and once that started kicking in, they got me in the chair with some nitrous oxide. I wasn’t sure about the whole idea of it, but I am so thankful for it now. As it started working, I remember laying there and I just started giggling. I wondered if the dental hygienist would notice (her back was turned to me) so I tried to stop, and I just giggled more…and then I must have fallen asleep. I woke up and Dr. N asked me how I was feeling. “I just had a big long dream!” He laughed, told me to try to have another one, and then I guess I fell asleep again. I woke up every now and then and would notice him working, sometimes he’d have to wake me to tell me to open wide, and I remember him pulling one tooth, and I remember seeing the needle and thread as he stitched me up… gross, right? But it didn’t seem gross, it was just like, “Oh, he’s stitching me. That’s nice.”

When everything was done, they took me down to my waiting chauffeur (Clay, of course), and home we went. It’s been a few days of very regular pain pill popping, ice packs, pureed soup, ice cream, yogurt, salt water rinsing, lots of rest, a few moments of tears when the pain was too intense, and a bit of a panic attack last night when I took my eyes off the one who holds me in his hands. I am so thankful for my husband, who reminded me that Jesus is in control and is worthy of my complete trust, and who took such good care of me and let me rest while he looked after the little ones.

So that’s my story for the last few days, not really in a nutshell. If anyone actually read all this, thanks. You’re sweet for humoring me :) And you know what? My wonderful children have been playing (nicely!) upstairs the entire time I’ve been writing this. Thanks, Jesus.

Clean kitchens. We see them on TV, we see them in magazines, we see them we see them online, and in home decor books. Perfect kitchens. Everything in its place. No clutter. Everyone must keep their home looking like this…after all, they wouldn’t lie to us, would they? And if you have a kitchen that looks nothing like the picture perfect ones you see, there must be something wrong with you, and why can’t you just keep tidy?! Well, I have a confession to make. It may come as a shock to you, but my kitchen doesn’t usually look like this. In fact, it rarely looks like this. I cleaned it for the express purpose of taking this photo. Most of the time my kitchen somewhere between the extreme of the photo above, and the photo below:
I’m convinced you can’t keep your kitchen immaculately clean and still cook in it. This Martha Stewart ideal that we have in our minds of being able to cook, garden, craft, and entertain in a spotless home is false. Martha Stewart is not only a woman, she is a corporation. She doesn’t do all that on her own. Or how about Real Simple magazine? Anytime I flip through it I want to throw out 3/4 of my stuff so I can have a home that looks like one in its pages. Every one of those photos is professionally staged – people don’t live like that. They just don’t.
It dawned on me a little while ago that every time I clean my kitchen, it’s so I have room to make a mess again. It never stays clean. And that’s fine. Really! Now that I finally understand that it’s not realistic to keep my kitchen spotless all the time, I don’t mind a little mess so much. A little mess shows that people live here. It shows that food is prepared here, and bodies are nourished here. I’ll take a messy kitchen and the smell of homemade lasagne baking in the oven, over a clean kitchen and the convenience of frozen food any day. I’m thankful for a God who provides, and a husband who works hard, so that I can be at home to make a mess with real food in my kitchen.

Apparently that series of posts on cloth diapering took a lot out of me! Sorry for not showing my face on this blog for a while. Life gets busy. So, until I am geared up with energy to tackle some more posts about how I’m different, I thought I would just share some photos from the last while that I like, but didn’t make it to my 365 project blog.
(Okay I just finished making this collage in Photoshop. I thought it would be a few quick clicks and then I’d be off to bed….and it took me about an hour and a half. I hope you enjoy all my hard work :) NOW I’m off to bed)