Dental Surgery, RedBox Frenzy, and Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies?

I've always had a natural ability to nurture....or at least that's what my mother has always told me. I loved dolls as a child and even today I am still drawn to babies and young children. However, I may have underestimated my own abilities as a caregiver when I took Frederick to Utah Surgical Arts last Wednesday to get his wisdom teeth taken out. We arrived around one thirty and after a quick consultation, the dental assistant's took him back to be sedated. Yes, I said sedated. I must say I'm still slightly bitter about my own mother neglecting to take me to an oral surgeon for this procedure. Nevertheless, I was left in the waiting room to....well, wait. It took about an hour and a half. I figured "wow, not too long" and "if it was that fast, he'll be just fine". Upon entering recovery, I was faced with a new idea. I was greeted by a loopy redhead in a "fake" wheelchair who was flaunting a mouth full of gauze. He grinned and waved wildly as I walked in. I laughed as I took a seat next to him. Then, Brenna, the surgical assistant, came in to give us recovery instructions. Between Fred telling the heart monitor to "be quiet so he could handle this" and his constant outbursts of "Strawberry Fields Forever", I was surprised I obtained the needed information as well as I did. Then I watched as Brenna gave him two cans of Treetop apple juice through a syringe. I've never seen anyone quite so thirsty. Next we were going to attempt to get him to the car. He insisted that he "try this himself" and as he bounded from the chair to the door, Brenna and I found ourselves trying to contain him. Once in the car, he went into an in depth explanation of how airbags work and numerous requests for warm pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. The drive home took a little time, but he entertained himself by playing every single Beatles song on my iPod....twice. We stopped by the pharmacy to drop off some prescriptions and then headed back to my apartment. It took about fifteen minutes to convince him that the elevator wasn't broken and to get on board. Once we got him inside, he had to tell Marissa, my roommate, about his traumatic surgery. I must say we both found his attempt rather humorous (he was so tired). Then I laid him down on the couch and about twenty minutes into Hercules, he was out cold. Shortly afterward, I went and bought us a couple of strawberry shakes from McDonald's along with about six DVDs from RedBox to keep him occupied. When I got home, he was up and hungry so I gave him his shake and I started eating the other. I left the room to get him some water and when I came back, both cups were empty and he was asleep. The rest of the night went on like that....he'd wake up, eat Jell-O or caramel pudding, and zonk back out. The day after the surgery, he did acquire a most mysterious case of hiccups. This happened every time he got out of bed and because he was so exhausted, it got rather frustrating to attempt to sleep when every five seconds he had to hiccup. I must say that taking care of someone after anesthesia was more challenging than I'd ever imagined. I did manage to take some rather great pictures of him throughout the recovery process (day of the surgery, percocet adventures, etc.), ones that I'm sure he'll kill me for, but I had to share the humor with all of you.

Kodak's Friendly Impact

I guess it's all part of this big scheme of growing up. You misplace things and then in a moment of frantic hesitation you go on some cleaning binge. It is then that you locate important documents like your first ticket or a copy of a birth certificate and in my case....even some old photographs. Some of them I had forgotten about completely. Others I wish I had never lost and had been missing them every second since I had. Is it some sort of reminder? A peculiar sign perhaps? I'm not sure exactly. Then again, what can you be sure about at eighteen and a half years old? Needless to say, I'm just happy these pictures were located. I ran down to Wal-Mart's copy center at eight o'clock at night just to ensure that I had duplicates on hand from now on. I'm glad I had the opportunity to be reminded of my crazy yet worthy past.