Posted on May 21, 2011 - by Ashley Jackson

The State of My Third Molars

It’s  been a little over a week since I had my wisdom teeth out (hence the lack of posting–I’ve been busy freaking out/being stoned on percocet/catching up with work). My jaw still aches off and on–it’s been hurting a bit this morning, no doubt helped by my lunch of fries and a chicken sandwich from Chick-Fil-A–but the pain was never as bad as I thought it was going to be. In fact, while I can’t say that I’d like to repeat the experience, I’d be a lot calmer about it the second time around.

Fortunately, I have no more wisdom teeth left to remove. Ha ha!

The worst part was when the local started wearing off in the car on the way home, hours before it was supposed to, and really, that was upsetting more because I knew it was going to hurt a lot worse if I didn’t get some pain meds than because of the actual pain. I ended up taking an extra day off work, and I’ve been sitting at my desk with my jaw cradled in an ice pack, but really, it hasn’t been that bad. I attribute much of my pretty awesome recovery to the skills of the oral surgeon–Blue Cross Blue Shield Federal Basic provided ONE option for an oral surgeon in Raleigh, and I’m glad that option was Dr. Gaines. ‘Cause if I have to have someone dinking around in my mouth with a knife, I want it to be the chief of oral and maxillofacial surgery at Rex Hospital. Also, my mom stayed with me for a few days and kept track of all my medications and made me eat and took my dog out.  That helped a lot, too.

Of course, part of my speedy recovery is due to my bad-ass self. Who was talking on the way home from her surgery? That’s right, me. (Wait, that wasn’t a good idea?)

—

I had an appointment about my blood pressure on May 2 and had the follow-up this past Tuesday. Being able to sleep + being on metoprolol was tanking my blood pressure (and by tanking I mean it was 100s/70s–this is tanking in comparison to what it used to be), and I was getting lightheaded a lot. So after an appointment with my PA, I went down to a half-dose of the BP meds, and now my blood pressure is around 117/76. (Of course, it wasn’t at my follow-up appointment, thanks to all the ibuprofen I’m taking for my jaw.) My pulse is still averaging 107 no matter what I’m on, which is disappointing. I’m also a little sad to be on BP meds in my mid-20s–I know it might just be the way it is, but it’s still a little disheartening. I’ve decided to spend the summer focusing on seriously improving my diet in the hopes that by doing so, I can drop some (more) weight and maybe that will bring my blood pressure down even more. There’s no doubt that I eat a lot better now than I used to, and I’ll even venture that I eat better than most Americans (this past week’s soft-fast-food binge aside), but there’s still a lot of room for improvement.

I’m now going to lay on my bed with my netbook and an ice pack.

And no, I’m not posting post-surgery pictures of my huge swollen face online.

Posted on May 2, 2011 - by Ashley Jackson

May 2, 2011

I think Mark Twain’s quote pretty much captures what I felt  when I woke up this morning to the news that nearly 10 years after the September 11 attacks, Osama Bin Laden was finally dead: “I’ve never wished a man dead, but I’ve read some obituaries with great pleasure.” Bin Laden’s death won’t bring anyone who died on September 11 back, and America will never again be as innocent as it was at 8AM on 9/11/01. It won’t end the war, or stop bad people from doing bad things, and it might even provoke another attack. But it helps, I think, to know that even if it’s a long time coming, sometimes people get what they deserve.

All that is necessary for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing.

—

This is a day I’ll remember not just for its political significance, but because I sent in the last payment on my car this morning. Yep, that’s right–Clementine is all mine as soon as the payment goes through. My only debt now is in the form of five student loans, totaling about $11,000. The interest rates are so low that I’m probably not going to pay them off too early–I want to focus on building some savings and a Roth IRA.

—

Breakfast was a peach Chobani yogurt. I bought four Chobanis from Food Lion weeks ago because I was out of Liberte and didn’t want to go to Whole Foods. But then I didn’t eat the Chobani, and it ended up sitting in my fridge getting closer and closer to its expiration date. Which was over the weekend. So I put them in the front of my fridge and am forcing myself to eat them before I start eating the stash of Liberte yogurts I have in there. One more to go!

Lunch was a vegetarian version of last night’s taco salad.

It, er, shifted a little in the container, but once I put the crackers on, you can’t tell. Right? It was very tasty; I might have to do this again. Salad was definitely a nice change of pace from straight fruits and veggies.

But then I skipped all the afternoon snacks I’d brought in favor of eating 750 calories’ worth of peanut M&Ms from a big bag someone gave me as a thank you gift. It would’ve been rude not to eat the M&Ms, y’all.

I did control myself somewhat. I mean, I didn’t eat the whole thing.

Also, I came home from work, changed clothes, hitched up the dog, and went for a half hour walk. Then I had dinner, in the form of leftover teriyaki vegetables (with a tiny bit of beef) and a bowl of grapes.

I came out at about 1700 calories consumed for the day, even with the M&M massacre. Also, I’m shocked those grapes I ate are still good; I bought them at Aldi forever ago.

To the shower to wash off all the sunscreen and sweat!

Posted on May 1, 2011 - by Ashley Jackson

May Day!

It’s the first day of May! Kind of hard to get excited when that means I’m less than a week and a half out from having my wisdom teeth removed. I’m trying my best to distract myself…

…with things like one of my favorite meals ever.

I had this Tuesday evening with my last potato and my last onion. It was delicious.

But not as delicious as the taste of victory on Wednesday…

Our team was in a four-way tie for first place, so we could have walked out empty-handed, but instead, we nailed the tiebreaker question and were victorious at trivia.

Also, we won some brownies.

Friday was my day off, which means I spent part of it running errands. I had to go to Target to get a screwdriver, and then to Discount Pet Supply in Cary to buy Heath some food.

Since this is not the first time he’s run completely out, I bought two bags. Then I went to Whole Foods and was very sad because the Liberte yogurt was on sale for 99 cents, but there were only two apple crumbles left. Sigh.

I consoled myself with some pasta salad from the deli.

This was good; now I want to make my own, except mine won’t have olives in it.

That afternoon, I made six servings of my pasta-less lasagna for the freezer. They stacked so nicely!

As the afternoon drew to a close, I headed to Neomonde, a Lebanese restaurant/grocery/bakery, to meet a friend for dinner. While I waited for her to arrive, I wandered around looking at the food.

And then I spent some time scoping out what I wanted to eat. Which really wasn’t hard, because I knew I wanted chicken shwarma and grape leaves.  (I found grape leaves in cans in the store! I could take them home and eat them!)

After my friend arrived, we ordered and headed out to the patio to eat. I got half a chicken shwarma on a pita…

And a little plate of grape leaves.

Mmmm.

Then we headed to the dollar-and-a-half theater, where we met up with some other folks to watch The King’s Speech. It was good, but I cringed a lot.

For lunch on Saturday, I had a little something I pulled out of the freezer…

Chicken, black beans, and peach salsa, with a dollop of Daisy sour cream (oh, their annoying theme song…). I resisted salting it since I had an appointment on Wednesday about my blood pressure, and it was fine without salt. Who needs seasoning when you have salsa?

I spent a couple of hours on my patio, fixing my self-watering containers and rearranging things so that my new, enormous deck chair would fit.

For dinner, I made the enormous bag of veggie teriyaki that I bought at Aldi. I’d already used some of the veggies to go with another meal last week, and I’ve got enough leftovers from Saturday night to have this again for dinner Monday and Tuesday.

I cut two thin minute steaks into small bits and threw them in–I wanted to get the taste of the meat in there, but still have the focus on the veggies.

After dinner, I walked over to the grocery, and came back with a reusable bag’s worth of items.

The yogurt is partially to mix with the strawberries, apples, and grapes for a snack and partially to make chicken tandoori, which I’m going to pair with the yellow rice. That meal needs vegetables, but since I won’t be eating it until at least Thursday, that’s okay.

I bought calorie-free honey dijon dressing, but as you’ll see a couple of pictures down, I got by without it for two salads.

I also bought peach cobbler Breakstone’s cottage cheese, even though I have tons of cottage cheese and peach singles, and some Sierra Mist Natural in 100-calorie cans. I scoured the ginger ale section for something that didn’t have artificial sweetener in it, but no dice. I bought these to drink in the afternoons when I’m craving sugar. (I wanted to buy peanut butter M&Ms instead.)

For Sunday’s lunch, I had some fruits, veggies, smoked salmon, and hummus. Yes, it’s the return of the hummus; I’ve tired of pimento cheese for the moment.

Mid-afternoon I snacked on a “crispy rice treat” (hmph) and some trail mix.

Then Heath and I took a walk that was about 3.5 miles, much of it on an unpaved trail that we found. I’m going to bring my camera next time, because this trail was awesome–parts of it looked impassable from a distance, and at one point these big slabs of rock led right down into the creek like steps. I let Heath walk down them and into the water and he walked right off the rocks and into the creek, then flipped out and started running in circles in the water. He was a good sport, leaping over rocks and clamoring over tree roots like a dog twice his size.

A little while after we got back, I whipped up dinner and tomorrow’s lunch.

This…is a salad. It’s under there, really. I threw together some romaine lettuce, cheddar cheese, and tomatoes, then added some beef mixed with taco seasoning and topped it with crunched up saltines and sour cream. It was excellent–the only thing it needed was some onion, but I was out. I wouldn’t even trade the saltines for tortilla chips; I like crackers on my salads. For tomorrow’s lunch, I packed the same thing, except I mixed together taco seasoning and kidney beans and used that for the protein instead of seasoned ground beef. I hope it turns out just as delicious!

But now I’ve used 2/3 of my bag of lettuce and haven’t even cracked the salad dressing open. This is why it’s handy to be located next to a grocery store.