Not really.  But we did have tornado warnings here today.  The sirens went off and everything.  Exciting!

I went home for an early lunch to try to beat the expected (thunderstorm level) bad weather, and so that I could do little things like close windows and bring in a few forgotten items from the back deck before they had a chance to blow away.  The wind was already picking up a bit by then – streetlights dancing around, mini-dust-devils of dead leaves everywhere, and a flock of uprooted campaign signs migrating down the street.

By the time I got back to work, the PA system was already blaring and we were all being instructed to “go to our safe areas” (conference rooms without windows, interior offices, bathrooms, and floor kitchenettes) and “shelter in place until further notice” and that if we decided to leave the building, we would do so “at our own personal risk”.

This is the most tornado-prone place I have ever lived, which I suppose isn’t saying much since we are barely on the fringes of Tornado Alley.

I can remember a few instances when I was little, when the sky turned funny colors and my brothers and parents and I would go in the basement and play with flashlights for a while.

And there was that time in grad school when a tornado went by really close, touching down briefly between Ann Arbor and Saline.  I was in the library on campus at the time, and of course all of the students rushed into the library’s totally glassed-in atrium to gawk at the extreme weather instead of sensibly retreating into the safety of the stacks.  Good times.

Any way.  I “sheltered in place” outside the kitchenette on my floor for 30 or 40 minutes or so, and then got bored and went to “shelter at my desk” where at least I could get work done.  And eventually the rain slowed down and the wind slowed down and the PA system came back on to tell us that we were all safe and could stop “sheltering in place”, by which time almost everyone had already abandoned the whole “shelter in place” concept anyway.

Fun times.

I am sure that the cats were pretty much freaked out the whole time, especially Merlin, who is afraid of storms.

Oh, and so far the implant and surgical site look good.  I have another follow-up appointment next week.  Fingers crossed!

Is how I look.  And feel.  Actually, I feel more then just a “little” puffy.  Parts of my face are actually numb because of the swelling putting pressure on various nerves.  Which is a whole hell of a lot of fun.  (Not.)

The surgeon/doctor was actually pretty horrified by how swollen I was when I went in for a quick checkup yesterday, especially given (his words) “how easy and straightforward the procedure was”.

I am sure that my propensity for swelling up at the drop of a surgical scalpel is somehow related to my propensity for bruising easily and impressively.  Right now I have a rather large bruise from fencing on my right bicep that is over 2 weeks old, and is just now starting to get to the yellowish-greenish healing stage.  (That bruise earned me some tut-tuts from the nurses on Monday as they were prepping my for the surgery.  Since I had to roll up my sleeves above my elbows for the various IV lines and such, there was no way of missing it.)

So in addition to the rest of the medications, I also now have a steroid prescription that is supposed to reduce the swelling.  And I can honestly say that it seems to be working… I feel less puffy and numb today then I did yesterday.  Hopefully by Monday when I have to go back to the office (thank god for jobs that will give me some sick days for surgery and recovery, and then let me work from home in my bathrobe for the next couple of days) I will be back to looking and feeling more-or-less normal.

I have my next post-surgery checkup on Monday, and will get the full deal with X-rays and everything.  Fingers crossed that the swelling has gone away and that everything looks good.

I had oral surgery (again) on Monday.

There is a lot that I could say about that, but which I probably won’t because I am on painkillers and still feeling pretty woozy.  (Percoset this time, which seems to work better for me then Vicodan, and has the added bonus of not making me feel frighteningly light-headed and nauseous.)

I will say that after 7 months and 3 surgeries, the fact that I am still essentially at square one in the process is pretty disheartening.

Hopefully the implant will take this time.

At least I had a good “last supper” before the surgery – John and I went to see RED (which was hilarious) and then got take-out from City Barbeque. I ordered the full rack platter (with corn pudding and hush puppies for the side dishes) despite the fact that historically, the half-rack platter is pretty much the extreme limit of what I can eat.  I wanted to have the opportunity to eat as much (and as much protein) as I could before a week or so of a liquid diet.  Predictably, I only ate about half of the rack and half of the hush puppies, though I finished off all of the corn pudding because I love the way that City Barbeque does corn pudding.

John had the leftovers for lunch the next day while I was doped up and sleeping off the general anesthesia on the couch while “watching” DVDs of the first (and only) season of “The Middleman”.

Right now I am just sitting at home taking painkillers and trying not to touch my face and not accomplishing much of anything at all, which makes me feel bad (because I can’t stand NOT “getting stuff done”) until I remember that the point of taking sick days off after surgery is to rest up and get better.

Anyway, I go back to work (albeit from home) tomorrow when I am down to only a dose or two of painkillers per day and will be able to (hopefully) focus on work again.