Now I Do Not Adenoid Forever - The Story of How I Goodbye Adenoid

One important thing that nobody tells you before you have surgery for the first time in your life is that when they gas you out, you burp up some of the gas after you wake up. Also, they don't tell you that the hallway leading to the operating rooms is designed to look like you are not supposed to be there. I guess that's because unless you are the patient or a member of the surgical team, you really aren't supposed to be there. But seriously, it's creepy. The walls and doorways are flat.

The first thing I noticed after waking up, aside from the oxygen mask, my neck and ears being sore and my arms being numb, was that my breathing was instantly better. It didn't feel as though I was straining to breathe before, but that's because I had been breathing like that all my life and it just felt normal to me. Now it feels like I'm diverting the trade winds with each breath. I'm also sleeping a lot better as a consequence - I feel refreshed when I wake up now because instead of snoring like a jumbo jet trying to fly out of a black hole, I get an adequate amount of oxygen.

I feel much better two weeks later than I did for the first few days after the surgery. Adenoidectomy is rarely performed in adults (in the 25 years my surgeon has been practicing, I am the third adult he has done it for), but when it is, it is a very different recovery. It wasn't as bad as, say, breaking an arm - that is, if I remember breaking my arm correctly - but the only thing that helped at all (and even still not a lot) with the pain was morphine and cold water. Other pain medications wouldn't touch it. Talking and swallowing were agonizing. I'm thankfully off it now, but even two weeks later, if I miss a dose of ibuprofen, swallowing gives me the sensation of my soft palate driving a nail into the bottom of my cranium. Knowing all of this, though, I would do it again if I had to go back. I don't miss my adenoids at all.

Yes, this means that a part of my body was cut out and incinerated and I am happy about it.

Also, I started my job this week. It's part time, so I'll likely need a second job. I already have been selected for a phone interview for another job. Hopefully I'll get it and finally have enough money to sustain myself.

And that's it. I'm done. Don't make me write any more.

The Stylish Surprise

So, right out with it - I got this dress, but with red stripes instead of white. I'd say it was worth it! I actually prefer it with the red stripes. I will definitely order another stylish surprise.

I had a dream the night I ordered it that I got a dress with the same colours, but a different style. It was a cotton dress with lace trim on the top and clearly made for someone with a larger bust, but because of the neckline I was still able to wear it without exposing my entire bra. Then this awesome lady from this awesome video told me, "Are you sure that dress fits you? Girl, that dress is way too big on the top." Fortunately, the dress I got fits me perfectly.

In case she ever reads this: Your fortune-telling skills in complete strangers' dreams are not up to par. You should work on that.

My future was rewritten just over a week ago and my surgery has been moved to TOMORROW. I am very happy about this. I am not necessarily excited for the procedure itself, but the results (i.e. breathing better and not snoring) will be awesome.

Also, as of today I have a job stuffing pitas. I start training on Tuesday. Yay for not being piss poor anymore!

This might be my favourite post so far

So much has happened since I last posted. I finally got a KitchenAid mixer as a Christmas gift and have started making my own bread again since I no longer have to knead it by hand anymore. My sleep schedule has become more human-like since I quit the gay bar and had to register in some early classes. Speaking of which, I am registered in eight classes this semester, two of which are full-year. So yes, you guessed it, I won't be doing a lot of posting here until I finish the semester.

On Friday, I missed my Greyhound to Toronto by a minute. I waited too long inside the terminal for the next bus and found myself at the end of a very long line. When I was three places away, the two girls ahead of me who were travelling together were told that there was one seat left. Since I was travelling alone, I got it. Clearly, I was meant to ride this bus. I noticed that the passenger across the aisle from me had a service dog, but like I do with all Greyhound passengers, I paid no more attention to him and crocheted a doily for the rest of the trip.

Apparently I'm an old lady now and I crochet doilies.

The bus normally stops in front of the Royal York Hotel, but had to stop across the street from it due to construction. The guy across from me was blind, and because all the traffic had been rerouted around the construction, was not able to find his own way to Union Station. The driver asked me if I would lead him there. Why wouldn't I? I take the GO train from Union anyway. Turns out he graduated from Music Therapy at Laurier not too long ago. We naturally talked about our professors the whole way there. The overall experience was pretty cool - I've never led a blind person anywhere before - but even better that we had something in common. I'll be looking for his picture on the wall of composites this week.

What else is going on... I now own The Sims 3 (with Pets), I am planning a recital in February with a friend, there will be a Wind Ensemble concert earlier in February, and I'm trying to find a job to start after I finish school. I'm hoping for admin work at a law firm, but I'll still spam my resume all over the GTA and see what happens.

Took me long enough.

This time, I'm writing at a reasonable hour. I stay up late because my job keeps me up at night and I just can't rearrange my sleep schedule a few times a week. Hopefully the new Walmart going in down the street will give me a call so I can change that. I miss being able to wake up in the morning without feeling gross.

So, what's new...

Of course, my mind goes right to the balcony garden, but I can't help myself. I love it and I'll hate the winter even more this year.

The tea plant seeds have yet to arrive. They must be stuck in customs. Until they finally do, I'll keep checking every the mail box day. I want to plant them, dammit!

I thought I'd only be growing food, but on Thursday I caved and bought some flower seeds to bring in the bees. I planted dwarf varieties of marigolds and sunflowers. Today, three of the sunflowers poked their little heads out of the soil - so much for seven days to germinate! Sunflowers are my favourite flower and it will break my heart to have to thin them in a few weeks, but I suppose that's better than letting the roots get tangled.

The chamomile is starting to flower like crazy. I'm going to have so much tea by the time the summer is over. I'll have to buy a small window screen to dry the flowers on. Since I cut strawberry runner, the mother plant has blossomed like crazy, and even the baby has two buds of its own. I counted 24 strawberries - fruits, blossoms or buds - in total so far. I can't wait to eat them.

I had to thin the lettuce a week ago from three plants to two, so I put the whole plant I tore out on a sandwich. It will be a while before I can eat any more of it, but it was satisfying. I still have yet to figure out how to make a decent loaf of bread, but I'll get there. Eventually. The recipe I keep using and modifying calls for a tablespoon of yeast for one loaf, which I think is way too much. Once I figure it all out, I'm going to make a sourdough starter and start using that instead.

Aside from food and plants, I've been asked to substitute with the Cambridge Symphony Orchestra for their concert on Friday. It's opera excerpts and it just so happens to include one of my favourite scenes in all opera - the Te Deum from Tosca.

Cornell MacNeil (RIP) was the best Scarpia ever. You can't even look at him - that's how you know he did it right.

Seriously, I'm excited. This makes up for that horrible production of Tosca that I saw in Rome with my high school. Never again will I regret being sober at an opera quite so much as I did when it was finally over. They say that if a theatre is about to fail financially, putting on Tosca will save it - not that one. I went to look it up later only to find that it shut down and now houses one of those "Occupy" movements that seem to have gone out of style now.

How bad was it? Well, the singers were good, and the set was decently decorated, but even the condensed version of Tosca was too ambitious for this theatre, which was better suited to the more economical genre of opera seria (a type of Baroque opera that was popular when the theatre was built). By that, I mean the theatre was too small. The pit could not comfortably fit a full-sized orchestra inside it, so they just used a bunch of keyboards. Just imagine how hilarious a timpani roll sounds on a keyboard! It was enough to ruin it.

The moral of the story: when you go to see an opera, call the theatre before you buy the tickets to make sure they are using a real orchestra. Not that you should have to...

One of these days I'll get around to taking pictures of the balcony garden. In the mean time, have a wonderful day, everyone!

The next day...

Is it just me or has Toronto been a trainwreck in the last few days? I'm glad I haven't been there for either of them. As a side note, I had a dream I lived in an apartment that was attached to the Eaton Center the other night.

As I type, some homemade ginger muffins are in the oven. They smell divine and I can't wait to eat one.

Anyway, I picked up my free box of John Frieda Precision Foam Hair Colour in medium golden blonde at Shoppers. It that was the lightest blonde they had. It turned out to be a coppery colour in the end, but I actually like it. My hair is really thick and strong and always takes longer to colour than it says on the box, which may be the reason it turned out darker than I expected. The box said 20 minutes, but I had it in for almost an hour. I probably could have kept it in longer, but I was worried about overprocessing it.

No exciting updates today on the garden front, but if I feel like it and have time before work, I might just post some pictures of it. I'm pretty proud of it so far.

There is a walking path near my apartment that I like to take whenever I can, and I did on the way home from picking up the box. It is covered by trees and has a lot of wild rhubarb. When it matures I'll pick some and make a pie. There are lots of trilliums, but the flowers were already wilted when I discovered them - kind of abates the barely existing temptation of being all badass and picking one.

Anyone curious about how I came across my free samples that I mentioned yesterday, I found them with the help of a site called Munchkin Sandwich. Click on your country in the sidebar and knock yourself out. I expect this to be a means of cutting down on my living expenses, which is important when you're a dirt poor university student like myself.

My muffin was delicious, by the way. Who needs coherency when you have a good muffin?

Anyway, it is quite late and I really need to try to go to bed earlier than, say, an hour and a half from now - not so easy to do when you sometimes work this late. But since that will be delayed by the fact that I now have a cat on my lap, I might as well write a bit more before heading off. My apologies if it is dreadfully boring, but nothing exciting has really happened in my life recently.

I'm in the midst of finding a second/replacement job. My only complaints about my current job are that I don't get enough hours and the late nights are really doing me in. There will be a new Walmart going in at a nearby plaza in the next few weeks, and I'm hopeful that I will get in there.

And now that the cat is finished with laying down on my lap, I can get to bed. Goodnight, world! Catch you later.