Advent and Makers December and Freya and ouch

It’s December, and soon we will face the shortest day of the year. I’m not religious, but I do have a soft spot for a midwinter celebration. The lack of light and warmth may be nice if you have a chance to cocoon, but if you are supposed to work it can be tough that you both leave and return home in the dark. The Dutch have multiple celebrations in December: first Sinterklaas (December 5), then Christmas (December 25) and Oud & Nieuw (December 31/January 1). That’ll get you through the winter fine!

Nowadays, many indie dyers offer some form of an advent calendar. Of course, advent is a Christian thing, but the calendars don’t have to be. This year is the first time that I ordered one. It’s from Schaap & Draak, and it’s quite a limited edition: only 8 have been made. I received the box in November already, but kept it safe until December 1st when I was allowed to open it. Last Sunday it was finally time!

Also on Sunday was the kickoff of the Makers December challenge on Instagram. This challenge is organised by @pukvossen and @maramaakt. They have a list of prompts for every day in December, and the idea is that you post a picture inspired by that day’s prompt every day. I love this kind of challenge, especially combined with making things (which I already do every day).

In other news, I visited the vet again with Freya to check if her meds are working. They are (good!) and her blood platelet count which was much too low last time was back to normal too (good!), but… her kidney values were not good. She has stage 2 kidney failure. The vet had already warned me during the previous visit that hyperthyroidism and kidney failure can mask each other in cats, and now we know. Both conditions are serious and have to be treated, so we have to find a balance. For now, Freya will get less thyroid medication to see if her kidney values improve again. Hopefully, the thyroid values will not become too high (they were a bit on the low side now). Additionally, I will put her on a special diet for her kidneys. In a few weeks we will check everything again. Freya is doing fine, and with the decreased thyroid medication she is becoming more active again. I think she is feeling better for now.

I also had a medical appointment last Monday, with a dental surgeon. When I made the appointment, I asked if they would be pulling teeth immediately, and they said that they didn’t know yet, they first had to investigate what had to be done and make a plan. So I went to the hospital not knowing what to expect exactly.

I arrived at the hospital early, only to discover that I went to the wrong location (my hospital has three locations and I went to the one closest to my home). Oh no! I went inside anyway and fortunately someone in the other hospital had canceled their appointment one hour later, so I could still come.

They took their time to make sure that all the information was there. I even got a scan (MRI kind) of my jaws so that they could see where my nerves were. Two of my wisdom teeth (in my upper jaw) were already fully grown and they were sideways. The right one in my lower jaw was growing back to front and slightly up, and was peeking out. The left one was also growing back to front, but was still completely inside.

The surgeon said that my nerves in my lower jaw were very close to the roots of the teeth. Especially the one on the left was actually touching the root of the tooth, so it would be quite risky to take it out. Fortunately, that tooth would probably not cause problems anyway because it was growing inside the jaw, so it could stay. On the right, the tooth had to be taken out, but the surgeon didn’t want to move the root because of the close nerve. So he decided that that one had to be decapitated.

Then he said “I could take all three out right now”. I was a bit worried that that would make it hard to eat later on, but I was also tempted to do it because then I could get it over with. The surgeon told me that for chewing it would be fine, because the ones in my upper jaw were easy to pull. So I agreed and he went ahead and gave me six shots to anesthesise each tooth. They kicked in fast, and while my lips, chin, and tongue went numb, his friendly assistant kept me company and chatted with me. I was frankly quite scared of the procedure and was trembling, but it helped a lot that the surgeon and his assistant were so nice.

Then it was time to take the teeth out. He started with the hard one. I didn’t feel any pain, but all that drilling and pulling was still loud and annoying. But he managed to properly decapitate the tooth, put in some stitches, and went ahead and pulled the other two out. Those were a piece of cake, I think it only took him a minute for both. They gave me some time to recover in the chair (I tend to become quite lightheaded when getting up) and then I went home with an ice pack.

Recovery is going okay, and I even worked Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning. But I am feeling ill somehow. I think that such a procedure is quite taxing on the system. I’m taking pain killers (diclofenac and paracetamol) to keep the pain at bay. During the day it’s no problem, but at night I wake up around 4 because they are starting to wane off. Today it hurt more than yesterday and Monday, probably because this was the first time that all the pain killers were gone. But I manage to cope quite well, and I eat liquid food to make sure that I don’t put too much pressure on my jaws. I made a large pan of homemade vegetable soup and today I even ate a bit of cheese.

I’m quite foggy because of the pain/pain killers, so I don’t do much during the day. I did manage to spin a bit yesterday, and I also took out my origami paper and folded a bit. Hopefully the wounds will heal soon, because I’m really looking forward to eating some proper food again! No Sinterklaas with pepernoten for me this year.

Oh and I ordered a mannequin for sewing! On Black Friday… I wanted one for a while, and took advantage of the sale. Another reason to get better soon!