Sorry I've been gone

Hey ya'll.  Sorry I've been missing here for so long.  So many things happened that I just got out of the habit of writing here.  But I'll catch you up on what's been happening.

On January 30th I went in for some Oral surgery.  Sounds like fun huh?  What they did was to chisel some bone out of my chin and graft it into my upper jaw.  This was done to build up that area so they can implant some posts to put a new bridge in place.  What a pain!  Literally.  So, I was down with that for about a week.  At one point I thought I was feeling better and we decided to go to one of the Mardi Gras parades.  I guess it was a little too much excitement for me.  Later that night, my mouth suddenly filled with blood.  I couldn't get it to stop bleeding.  Cindy called the emergency number for the dental clinic and we ended up back at the clinic at about midnight (this was a Saturday night) getting something injected up in there that would stop the bleeding.  Not a fun night.

After healing up a bit from the oral surgery, it was time for the real fun.  Hernia surgery.  A couple of years ago I noticed I had a bit of a hernia.  So, I talked with the flight surgeon about it and he said that it wasn't that big of a deal, and if I didn't want surgery, it could wait.  So, I waited.  This last January when I went in for my annual flight physical, I talked with the doc about it and he checked it out and said I should have it taken care of.  This doc is in our Ward and he told Cindy that Sunday that it was the biggest hernia he'd ever seen.  The Dr. I went to downtown agreed.

So, on the 19th of February, I was in the hospital for that surgery.  That was a big one and I was stuck at home for three weeks recovering.  I don't know if ya'll have ever had surgery in the stomach area, but it's very painful and a long slow recovery.  It was done as day surgery, so when I woke up Cindy brought me right home.  I was put in a chair by the TV and spent the rest of the day there.  That night, when it was time for bed, it took Cindy a long time to walk me up the 17 stairs and into the bedroom.  Then she had to lift my legs into bed, and help me all night every time I had to roll over or go to the bathroom.  Not too much fun.  It was a long 3 weeks.

I've almost completely recovered from the hernia surgery now.  I started back to the gym last week.  Just running on the treadmill, nothing more than that.  But things are coming along there.  However, a couple of weeks ago, I was in for my annual dental checkup and they discovered that the bone graft in my upper jaw was loose.  So, the next day (a week ago Friday) I was in the chair again and this time they numbed me up, pulled the bone out and cleaned it up, then screwed it into my upper jaw and then stitched it closed.  I went in today and they removed the stitches.  Things are looking good.

So, that's all that's been happening with me over the last couple of months.  As you can see, it hasn't been exciting or fun.  Lots of pain and lots of boredom.  I should be complete with everything by August and that will be very exciting for me.