Four Teeth Less Wise

If there's one thing I get extremely nostalgic for, it's the combination of soup and jelly.

Back in the early days of my eating disorder, Soup & Jelly was my go to. It used to be a hodgepodge of various different vegetables, cooked down and blended into a rather unappetizing sludge. Cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, onions. It evolved from me grabbing random vegetables, and ended with those five. Plus a jelly cup for dessert.

At the moment, it's potato & leek soup. Even with a small amount of cream, it's still safe and comforting, and has become a daily ritual. Followed, of course, with sugar free jelly. Lemon, lime, pineapple, orange mango, or my all time favourite, raspberry. It's all wonderful, at a meager 7 calories a serve.

Here I am, four teeth less wise. When I had my wisdom teeth out in January, I thought that it was going to be a couple of weeks on soft foods. When I was recovering in hospital the next day, they said it would be six weeks. I don't know what I expected, really, and I should've probably asked prior to the actual procedure.

Despite the duration being longer than expected, I was fully prepared for the liquid diet. But I was not prepared for the mindfuck that it triggered. The mental obstacle course. To be thrown back in time to the era of Soup & Jelly. There's something about that combination that holds a special place in my heart. It triggered something that I wasn't expecting.

Now, it's been almost three months since the surgery. Initially, I was planning on doing a few days on a full liquid diet, then starting on soft foods. Three days became five, five days became seven... I tried for a while to do soft foods like scrambled egg or mashed potato (things that didn't really require chewing, but more 'squishing'), but found it more mentally taxing than expected.

Although I'm trying to keep solids in for a couple of meals a week, it doesn't feel good when I do. I've fallen back into the safety of liquids. Even when the calories don't differ much to normal, there's something about a full liquid diet that gives me comfort. It feels safer. I've also found that I have less 'food noise', which is wonderful. It's just less stressful.

My dietitian has been asking me to figure out exactly why I've stayed stuck on liquids. And I still don't think I have a proper answer. I don't know how to explain it, beyond that it feels Safe.


The procedure itself went well. Recovery was rough for the first few weeks. The swelling was insane, not to mention the bruises all the way down my neck. The teeth hadn't been causing issues (yet), which is why I was so apprehensive about the pain. It was more preventative, to get them out before they inevitably started causing issues. So, the aftermath was always going to be worse than it had been prior.

I couldn't stay away from my cigarettes. Within ten minutes of getting home, I sheepishly said to my support worker "...I think I might try a smoke". Very minimally to start with, with short, gentle, unsatisfying puffs. I probably barely even got any smoke into my lungs for the first week or so. I did get patches for the first week, which helped to some degree. In the past, I've either used gum or inhalers to top up the patches, as the strongest patches are only equivalent to about half of what I smoke a day, and I couldn't use either this time.

When I woke up with nightmares in the hospital, it was the absolute worst, as I alwaysalwaysalways have a smoke immediately when I wake up with nightmares. Instead, I had to make do with two lukewarm black coffees at 3am.

The surgeon let me keep the two teeth that he managed to get out without shattering them, which I'm chuffed about. I'll spare you the photos. I still have all of my baby teeth, so it's kinda nice to update the collection. Maybe I'll turn them into earrings some day.

I even had my 6-monthly check up with the regular dentist a few weeks ago. After a decade with no dental care, I'm determined to stay on top of it. I book the next one as I check out, and I put a few dollars into savings each week to try to stay on top of it.


Apart from that, there's few other life updates. I met with a new Occupational Therapist, who is wonderful. I'm still waiting to hear back about my NDIS appeal to restore my regular supports, with no idea when I might expect news.

With the aforementioned nightmares, my psych and I have been talking about maybe trying EMDR therapy. At this point, I'm willing to try anything, except actually talking about the trauma. She even asked if I've ever thought about psychedelic treatment, but I'm very apprehensive about it for various reasons. I've been on a medication to help with the nightmares for over a year now, but thus far it only tanks my blood pressure. My GP has given me the go-ahead to gradually increase the dose, as long as I keep monitoring my blood pressure. The nightmares can be incapacitating, and has messed with my sleep for far too long. When I wake up with nightmares, I immediately get up, move around, do anything I can to keep myself from falling back asleep until it feels 'safe' again. And I'm getting too old to function on so little sleep.

Miss Misty gave me a hell of a scare a few weeks ago. One morning, I woke up and she was extremely lethargic, barely responsive, and just not herself. It's hard to explain, but one of those things that when you know, you know. And I really thought 'this is it'. After an emergency consult with her vet and a day in hospital to run some tests, they found that thankfully it was just an infection. I was so grateful to be able to bring her home. She's doing better now, after a course of antibiotics and some rest. But it was one of the most emotionally draining days I've had in a long time. I really thought that it was going to be goodbye, that she wouldn't be coming home. And I know she's 13. She's an old girl. But I'm not ready to say goodbye, and it terrifies me knowing that one day I'll have to, sooner rather than later.

My potato & leek soup.  I've constantly had it around since the surgery.
Each batch varies slightly - the ingredients might differ +/- 10%, sometimes it's a bit thicker,
 sometimes it's a bit thinner, depending on how I'm feeling when I make it.

I won't bore you with the precise weights of everything. This is the recipe I use, with a few tweaks.

It's made with approximately 1kg of potato and x 2-3 leeks (350g, give or take),

 including 15g of butter and 100ml of light cream.

It makes about 10 cups of soup at roughly 110 cal per cup.

Cream soups have always been a bit of a fear. Cream in general, really.

100ml of this cream is 188 calories, so it adds about 19 calories per cup,

 which seems reasonable at the moment.

Obligatory cat photos, featuring Misty being a cuddly sook

(and Sephi!)



xxBella

The Days are Long, But the Years are Short

  The New Year has rolled over, and I find myself feeling uncertain about what 2024 will hold.

  Next week, I have a brief hospital trip for the long-postponed removal of my impacted wisdom teeth. Because I'm a lonely loner, I get a little overnight vacation at the hospital, because I don't have anyone to stay with me to supervise for 24 hours after coming out of the anesthesia.

  I know that it would have to be done at some point, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't tempted to put it off further, until they started causing serious problems. I'm a little apprehensive about the general anesthesia, and the pain afterwards. But my biggest concern is that I'm incredibly mentally uncomfortable with the concept of having four gaping holes in my mouth. Even thinking about it sends chills down my spine.

  I'm stocked up on all forms of liquids for post-surgery, from clear to full. I've got sugar-free jelly in five different flavours, plenty of skim milk for iced lattes, 45-cal hot chocolate sachets, my favourite vanilla yoghurt, sugar-free Zooper Doopers (I think most of the world calls them 'freeze pops'), and I'm sure there's some ice cream lurking in the freezer. I've plenty of broth cubes - both chicken and beef - as well as some potato & leek soup. It's been a few years since I've done more than 48hrs on liquids alone, but I'm going to try to make the most of it by seeing it as a little break, obligatory, from the constant thoughts of food.

  I've also organized pre-prepared scrambled egg mix, and low-carb mashed potatoes, for when I'm able to get back to soft foods. But at the moment, the mere idea of having four giant wounds in my mouth, stitches, blood clots... I might be working myself up to think it's worse than it really is (and if you guys have done this before, I'd love to hear from you, as I've not found much specifically about EDs and dental surgery online), but I'm not sure how much liquid I'll even want to put in my mouth.

  In the last few days, I'm also becoming increasingly nervous about the possibility of dry socket. As it stands, I've been smoking cigarettes for over half of my life. These days, around 40 a day. The first 24 hours will be easier, because I'll be in the hospital, but it's going to be hard to resist once I get home. I'm planning to grab some nicotine patches, plus some mouth spray if the surgeon says it's okay. When I've used them in the past - mostly during sections when I wasn't allowed to step outside of the hospital room - I've always used a combo of patches and inhalers, but any suction is a no-go. Even then, they've barely touched the sides.

  I've scrounged around online, reading about other people's experiences of smoking after dental surgery. I think I will actually follow the instructions for the first couple of days, because reading about others' experiences with dry socket has definitely put me off. But oh man, it's going to be rough.

  I know that the general consensus from society as a whole is 'what a great opportunity to quit!'. But frankly, if being diagnosed with COPD in my early 20s didn't push me to quit, and neither did watching my mum go through lung cancer, I don't know if it'll ever happen for me. Over the years, I've overcome addiction to weed, synthetics, and as I try to knuckle down on giving up the booze, I lean especially hard on my cigarettes. I'm only human, and surely, I should be permitted one vice.

* * *

  In other news - just before everyone went on break for Christmas, I got my new NDIS plan. Apparently my (now-former) Occupational Therapist refused to write a report for my review, and no one seems to know why. Without it, there's 'insufficient evidence', and my funding has been decimated. My support worker, S, who I usually see four times a week, has been cut to twice a week. My fortnightly psychologist appointments? They're now once every three months.

  There's a whole appeal process going on, as well as finding a new OT. But in the meantime, I'm terrified at the prospect of losing such a large amount of support. Aside from the practical issues, it would be very isolation, to say the least.

  I'll still have my dietitian and GP every two weeks, sure. But adding on my GP retiring at some point in the next year, it feels like 2024 might be the year that my support worker crumbles.

* * *

  I hope everyone is having a wonderful start to the New Year. As for the holidays, the less said about that, the better. I got through. You think I'd be used to it, being my third year spending Christmas alone, but it doesn't seem to get any easier.

Sitting in the backyard with a good coffee,

 a new book, and Marty the Emotional 

Support Demon (it's short for Martholemew)

  It's only taken me two years to get around to buying a copy of The Opposite of Butterfly Hunting. I'm about half way through, and so far, I'm mostly enjoying it. It's a nice break from cycling through the same old ED memoirs that I seem to re-read at least once a year.

xxBella