December 4, 2007

Normal is Coming, I Can Feel It!

Posted in food, friends, transgender at 9:43 pm by Michael

Today after we got back from “the big walk” – 2 miles – (not much given that a week and a half ago I would run 6 miles 4+ times a week), we hung out for a while, watched a little TV, and kept watching Samwich for any signs of pukitude.

The other thing I started doing was actually starting to work – real work! A couple days ago typing was *hard*. I type every day – probably 10+ hours a day – so when this is hard, this is saying something. Now, I could actually engage on real work problems! Very happy! I even have my first meeting at work next Friday (yes, at Microsoft, in Redmond, in my office). I don’t plan on doing more than one meeting, but I’m sure I’ll say hi to a few folks. (I have a lousy history of actually staying out for the whole period of time I plan to stay out – checking mail, coming in, etc. I love my work, and find it super hard to stay away.)

But, feeling like I was mentally on top of it enough to actually work was an amazing relief. When I was 16 and had my other crazy health problems, and had a couple of big surgeries (its all in the bio), for a while after that, I had a hard time spelling some words. Its so odd to explain, but this always freaked me out that I somehow lost something. Now, I feel like I’m back w/o any losses – this feels great!

Tonight we went to dinner with one of the other girls who’s staying upstairs recovering at a local place – Joey and Eddie’s Pescheria. ( http://www.pescheria-sf.com/ ) It’s an Italian seafood place – really enjoyed it. I had gnocchi in a white sauce with chilies, capers and salmon – gnocci were clearly made fresh and local, and were pan fried and fantastic. I could only eat half. Anh had pappardelle with manilla clams – thought it was good. We also had a side of kale that Anh really liked.

I found out that I can’t eat bread still – not the insides, not the crust – it’s just too hard to chew and swallow without creating uncomfortable nasal suction. (Don’t ask).

Samwich got — nothing. We did not want to have another spew incident. We gave him his bottle, but that little dude needs to earn eating out privileges again! Barfing at the table is super bad form. When the food came, he clearly wanted some. He starts basically making gasping noises, and rotating his wrists indicating a strong need for food. Even though he speaks zero words, he’s a master of communication. He then started calling his dolphin friends with this high pitched noise he makes. When he does that I say to him “Your dolphin friends cannot save you now!”. I thought this was inventive and original, Anh thought it was a Simpsons quote which I cannot locate through the magic of the interwebs. The tubes may be blocked.

As the pain as subsided on my face (I think I’m now done with pain meds – the headaches are occasional and manageable. Other pain is now gone!), I have noticed a few little numb-ish spots. My lower lip in the middle feels a little numb (This may be the cause of a little drooling problem that I may have. I said to Anh as we were walking today “I feel like I’m drooling sometimes.” Anh: “I know.” I love the honesty!) My chin is feeling a little numb-ish too. We’ll see. It doesn’t feel like it won’t come back.

Anyway – the big thing for tonight, its 9:30pm, and I feel great. Only one nap today, for less than an hour, and I had a *lousy* night’s sleep last night. After everything we did today, that seems like a huge improvement.

So tomorrow – the real day for nasal packing removal – I’ll be happy to be able to talk normally again. Will shoot a full set of pics and post as soon as we get back (11am PT or so)

I called United reservations to insure that we were all set for Friday given the complexity of our trip down here, and it was, um, a little frustrating. Can’t blame the reservation agent at all – I’m hard to understand, I can’t talk very loud, and it hurts.

So, if I haven’t called, and you were wondering why a) Its hard to talk on the phone for me now because of the nose thing b) you probably wouldn’t have understood me anyway!

Tomorrow is my older sister Sheila’s 50th birthday – happy birthday!