another bite of elephant

Yesterday was my appointment with the Penn Medicine dentist, "Dr. E". (Go ahead, you try saying Dr. Elizabeth Evtimovska.)

A Chopper Hopper. One piece of vintage I DON'T want.

I inherited many wonderful things from my Mom ~ alas, her soft teeth gene came bundled with them. Those of you who know me well, know the dental delights I have gone through with my teeth over the years. Implants, bridges, bone grafts ~ from cadavers!, flippers, sinus lifts; many surgeries & procedures to make the smile that I have today. Kudos to my awesome dentist, Dr. Ann McHale, & her staff of Anns (and one Linda) who worry and fret over my teeth just as much & maybe more than I do. Thus, I was nervous to the point of tears about this appointment. Excellent Worrier that I am, I just knew I was going to be scheduled to have all my teeth pulled.

Dr. E took one of those cool panoramic x-rays that shows the whole mouth, poked around in my mouth, took one more x-ray of another war horse of a molar of mine and said... I was good to go. I melted in the chair ~ as if all my bones had suddenly disappeared ~ at this news. And, yes, I cried yet again while pitifully grasping the Doctor's hand and thanking her. I would have bowed & scraped to her if my bones had not just left my body.

And yet another swallow of elephant...
I drove myself to & fro my appointment. It wasn't horrible. Under an hour going in and a tad over an hour coming home. O may it continue!

Check out these hand-made cards Stacie Olsen made for me ~ how delightful! Hand-embossed, all kinds of embellishments; they are lovely. If you don't receive one, it's not because I have deemed you Unworthy, it's because I used 'em up already.

Hand-made & lovely designs. Would it be redundant of me to say "Thank You", Stacie?

These are definitely TNTTO (Too Nice To Throw Out) after receiving. I only hope I have worthy words of thanks to write in them!




And here's a completely unrelated picture of a guy on a TV show called "Abandoned" who looks exactly like my brother Bill:

This is what my brother looks like.

Dang, that's a big diamond.

Here's how my neck is looking these days.

My voice still has that "strangulation" quality. I am unsuccessful at yelling at Phil, our 16 year old, to pick up socks, come for dinner, etc... Craig has started saying "What?" while at the same time walking away from me:) (Actually, he only did it once but I thought it was funny & blog-worthy.)

I am an avid listener of the hour long radio show called "This American Life". I download it onto my iPhone and listen as I fall asleep at night. Last week, the show titled "What Doesn't Kill You" was featured & the first story resonated with me.

"In July, Tig was diagnosed with cancer. A week later she went on stage on Los Angeles and did a now-legendary set about her string of misfortunes. This is an excerpt of the full performance, which is available for download at Louis CK's web site. (13 minutes)"

To me, the first story was laugh-out-loud funny.

Thank you for caring about me & for all your prayers ~ it's working :~)