You can usually tell how I am feeling based on my earrings. Since I cut my hair short, I have fallen in love with very girly, dangly earrings. But I can only stand wearing them when my mouth isn't bothering me, because usually if my mouth is hurting, my jaw and ear are hurting, so I resort to my small earrings on those days. But, if I am feeling good, I will break out my dangliest and girliest earrings that I own. I love it. I haven't worn any of them for a few weeks, except to my biopsy (At least I think I wore big girly earrings to my biopsy and if I didn't I sure did intend to and it's the thought that counts, right? I just don't remember which ones I actually wore, but for what it matters in my mind, I'm pretty sure I was wearing dangly girly earrings) - dang it, I felt like crap, but it was one of those times that warranted breaking out all the stops, at least where earrings are concerned. You want a piece of me? You're going to have to go through my hooker bling! And they did - and I doubt they even noticed my earrings...but that's beside the point Anyway, on that note, all my earrings sit in a frisbee on top of my dresser that is piled high with clothes and junk - I know, super girly. So, fell in love with THIS the other day:

And I WANT it...haha. It's so perfect for my earrings...I also want THESE:

but they are a little bit expensive and I just paid for our trip in August so this fun stuff is going to have to wait...*sigh*

So I had the biopsy yesterday and it was aweful. I was doing pretty good yesterday on my pain meds and I had a decent night all things considered. I was up late, even after taking that sleeping pill and several pain pills. Warner went to the store and bought soup and ice cream. I only had about an hour when I got home between when the novacaine wore off and hydrocodone kicked in that I was absolutely miserable and in tears. I'll spare everyone the gory biopsy details but just know that it was gory and painful. Today I took a pain pill at 8:30 this morning after breakfast, and I am still only able to hold my head up for about 10 minutes at a time. And I'm at work- trying my best to work. I've been super dizzy and nauseous all day long and it sucks! I'm supposed to take a pain pill every 3-4 hours and I can't bring myself to do it because I still feel aweful from the one over 6 hours ago. And I ate lunch thinking that would help settle my stomach, but no luck. My mouth is starting to hurt because the pain meds are obviously worn off, I just need to get over the nausea and dizzinessa and shakiness here soon! And I really need to go to the grocery store, but it looks like Warner will be on dinner duty again tonight. I'll be doing good to drive myself home this evening from work. Oh yeah, I have like 2 stitches in my tongue from the biopsy. Maybe I'll post some pictures later on! Time to go lay my head back down!

I'm going to sit down now and finally write about what I've been going through lately. I've been putting it off because I think that if I sit here and write it down, it might actually come true, and that's the last thing I want. I've had this stupid cut / sore on my tongue for the past few months. I never thought much about it because I new I was doing it in my sleep, because I had three rough teeth in the back of my mouth that were chewing away on my tongue at night for some strange reason. Finally I got so sick of not being able to talk normally, or eat normal foods, and since I was about 6 months overdue for a dentist appointment, I went in. I left with some sort of dental paste for my cut and clean teeth and no cavities. Fast foward another month, after Easter. I called my dentist because my cut just was not getting any better. I had a second tooth filed down a little smooth in hopes that would help, but just in case, I had a visit scheduled with an oral surgeon that afternoon.

I went in and I updated the surgeon on my situation, what had been going and for how long. And he poked around on my cut which, is probably about a half inch hole in the side of my tongue by this point (not quite that deep though, just around) and was red, swolen, and surrounded by scar tissue. I was put on steroids for a week because it was so inflamed that he wanted to give it time to heal up a little so we could see what was going on instead of doing a biopsy right away. Which is fine with me, I don't do well with needles, especially in my mouth. I went back for my second visit the following Tuesday and to my relief, the sore had healed up enough that my surgeon did not think that a biopsy would be necessary that day. My steroids were upped and I go back on Monday, the 21st for another visit and possibly for a biopsy.

The steroids work for the most part, but they are wearing me out. I'm always tired and hungry and I always have a nasty taste in my mouth but I can tell when they are starting to wear off- my ear starts to hurt more from my jaw being clenched and my tongue hurts, so I take them for fear of what I'll feel like if I stop. Overall, the sore is getting better on my tongue except for an area toward the back where I have a deep hole and it's really swollen around it, oh, and the scar tissue isn't going away at all. I don't know why everything else is getting better except for this area. I'm really hoping for some sort of miraculous healing to take place between now and Monday because everything I read about tongue biopsies says they hurt like none other. And my concern, if it's not oral cancer, or whatever, what are they going to do for it? It's not getting better on meds, so would they have to do surgery anyway?

I've been eating my weight in mashed / baked potatoes and soup and whatever other soft foods I can come up with. I made a breakfast casserole last night that was fantastic since I was craving cheesy eggs like a pregnant girl (which I assure you, I'm not). I really want a nice crispy shrimp po-boy, but crumbly food gets caught in my sore and makes me want to gouge my eyes out! I'm lactose intolerant, so I can only do so much dairy and cheese, so that limits what I can eat as well. So, any favorite recipes would be great.

In other news, I started out as the office administrator 10 weeks ahead of schedule because the girl who was in the office had her baby 10 weeks early. So, not only am I going through this mouth stuff, I'm having to learn everything about my new job, without being trained. And, on top of all that, Warner's XBox has been broken for the past two weeks and he just got it back today- he pouted like a 5 year old for a few days. Since basically all I can think about right now is food, I've started getting a bunch of recipes together and I ordered an awesome recipe binder on Amazon today. I'm very excited. I'll put pictures on when I get it.

Warner and I are going back to see the house in at the end of May. Warner is also getting LASIK and I'll hopefully do some photography while I'm there.

We are also going to Sequim, WA this August and I'm way excited about it! We're staying at: www.lostmountainlodge.com  yeah, be jealous because it looks AMAZING. More on that later though.

I'm just ready to be done with this so I can look back at it as just another phase in my life. So I can say, yes I did actually make it through, because at some points I'm just so tired and worried and fed up with not feeling well that I could seriously sleep the next 6 months away. So now that I'm sure no one has made it down to the bottom of this post because it's a million pages long...I'm going to get outta here.