"it's like you're not really here"

weirdest side effect from the septoplasty: i can't smell anything.

supposedly this comes back after about 6 weeks, which brings us to thanksgiving. this year is a much smaller affair than the past couple of years: my extended family is staying in wisconsin and connecticut, my hub's coworkers who have joined us for the past 3 years are moving far away, and well, that's about it. it may very well be just us and my folks. last year we had 22 people. even so, it would be nice to be able to enjoy cooking and fully enjoy the food.

right now, food is reduced to basic sweet/salty/spicy/bitter tastes. we went out for indian food last week, and without the subtleties from the spices all i could taste was veggies-and-heat. there is a small positive to this: i'm really not eating much because it's not thrilling. i'm finding that i'm eating about half the portions i usually would.

sunday was the first day back to work. my coworkers have (for the most part) been pretty sweet, which i should pay more attention to than the things that are making me feel shattered. and then one of my supervisees, when i told her about the lack of smell, said "ooh, that's a weird feeling, it's like you're not really here." and she's right. i feel kind of suspended, not sure if i'm really returning or not.

up and running

well, not my physical self.

i'm finally getting around to setting up my etsy site:

http://gemsandpurls.etsy.com

there, now go drool.

no sleep

so after posting, i lay in bed for a couple of hours, enjoy the thoughts swooshing and swirling around in my head but unable to actually sleep. then i started to worry about becoming addicted to vicodin.

then i went to check my email. i knew my cousin was safe in that bus crash in chippewa falls, but i read an email from my uncle about how distraught the town is, and how vulture-like the media has been. he's speaking in a national morning news program tomorrow. it brought back memories of when kirsten and cori died, and the news cameras swarmed the high school the next day. how i can't stand to see conrail cars to this day. how i really wanted to smack most of the busload of kids who went to the memorial service, who had gone to get out of school and not because they felt a loss. (maybe that's uncharitable, or cynical, but naaah, i don't remember seeing much grieving on that bus.) how guilty i would feel when i ran into their stepmom, especially when i had passed some kind of growing-up milestone like getting into college and kirsten just wasn't there to do the same things. how i've never been able to accept other people telling me that their pot use didn't affect anyone else. how many years it took before kirsten stopped showing up in my dreams.

i tried to sack out on the sofa for a while, trusty lovey cat by my side. (he drives my husband crazy because he usually stomps on our bed indelicately, but tonight he managed to curl up next to me and not move a muscle.) i slept for a while but woke up in pain, took another vicodin, and now here i am. i have a refill of vicodin to pick up tomorrow, and i had thought about maybe toughing it out without it. reality is that the normal painkillers aren't doing anything, though.

my unc's on the news in about... 2 1/2 hours.

edit/add: just saw him. he looked like hell, like he hadn't slept. i didn't realize he was a chaperone on the bus trip. fucking cbs basically asked him to try to assign blame for the crash to the bus driver, and they got his name wrong, too.

vico-DING DING DING

so the septoplasty went okay, one guesses.

i expected to look like andrew wk when it was done. i feel like perhaps he's been bashing me on the nose, but i have nary a bruise and really just look like i have a cold. i went to a knitters meetup this evening, first real outing since tuesday, and nobody greeted me with 'what happened to you?'. i can't smell, which is kind of hard to grasp because my tastebuds are fine. i'm mainly tired, and my face hurts as if someone's been yanking on my schnozz, but not much to complain about compared to what i was warned about. i will say that vicodin is the only thing touching the pain, and now that i'm sleeping more than 4 hours at a time, waking up is really no fun - by the time i'm awake, all the vicodin has worn off.

i'll refrain from telling you about dried blood and gunky mucous.

i have the coming week off, and the hub wants to go somewhere for a small vacation, but i'm not sure i can handle it yet. or, he keeps mentioning daytrips to cities, and i keep googling nearby resort hotels with kids' activities and spas.

the lovely fuzzy feeling of vicodin is luring me to sleep.... today's the first day i've gone without a nap....

nose, job

tomorrow was supposed to be my last day of work for two weeks. i'm having a septoplasty on tuesday to straighten out my devious septum. (if you had a body part that made you sick this frequently, you'd call it devious too.) however, the two days of rain we've had has caused flooding in the library, and we may be closed tomorrow. as it is, we've rescheduled a workshop with an author that was to happen tomorrow.

my boss saw me yesterday after she'd been out on vacation for three weeks. "will you be looking differently when you come back?", she asked. ummm.... septoplasty, really. not rhinoplasty. it took me long enough to come to terms with my nose. (at first ct scan: tech - "did you have a trauma to your nose?" me - "um, no..." stifled back - i'm just jewish, you twerp.)

i have felt really ambivalent about my job lately, even wondering if i'd be returning after the surgery. that question got solved when the new librarian i was training resigned via email three days into the job, because she had been offered a full-time position elsewhere.... so i have the whole interview/score/hire/train fun to look forward to when i get back.

people have told me i'm going to look like my adoring husband has beaten me after this surgery.... great.