Maranda Russell's Blog, page 59

Poetry: Waffle House at 3am

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Waffle House at 3am

By: Maranda Russell

Waffle House

at 3 am

is not the place

to make a scene.

It doesn’t matter

if your heart

is broken,

if your brother

just ran off

with your boyfriend,

or if you want

to punch

that smarmy cook

right

in the left

testicle.

Stringy hashbrowns

cover a multitude

of sins,

vanilla coke

softly bubbles

over salty wounds,

and once in a while,

raisin toast

can be sweeter

than revenge.

Another Post Surgery Update: If It Can Go Wrong, It Will

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Hello everyone! I don’t want to bore you all with the continuing mini-drama of my wisdom tooth surgery aftermath, but I know many of you genuinely want to know how I’m doing, so I decided to do another update, this time I’ll just bullet-list what has been going on the past few days:

Wednesday I went to the dentist in the morning, where he did indeed diagnose me with dry socket. He cleaned out the area and then put a clove oil soaked material in there. It didn’t hurt much when he did that, but the incredibly strong taste of the cloves made me horribly nauseated the rest of the day and made everything taste disgusting. It was so strong, my husband could smell the cloves across the room when I had my mouth shut!
The clove stuff did eliminate most of the pain for a couple days, but this morning (Friday), that awful deep, throbbing ache has returned off and on. I do have more clove oil I bought, but the scent alone of it makes me so sick, I honestly don’t want to use it. Right now I am trying to get by taking the maximum amount of Ibuprofen and Tylenol, while occasionally using Ambesol to numb the area.
I do still have opioids left, and it is extremely tempting to use them, but I took them so much the first few days after the surgery that my bowels have become clogged pipes

Poetry: Church Abuse

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Church Abuse

By: Maranda Russell

The lace unravels.

The smaller holes

become bigger tears

as the candle wax

hardens on the soft,

satin cloth.

Prayers,

and pleas

and petitions

abound,

but the altar

lies irrevocably

ruined.

My Drawing Won Honorable Mention!

I received notice today that my drawing “A Soft Place to Land” won honorable mention in the Disability Legal Rights Center Art Contest, run in conjunction with the Art of Autism website. Here is the drawing that placed:

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I enjoy entering contests like these and am always honored when I actually win or place in any way. Receiving this news today was a welcome happy moment in a week that has been pretty hard overall.

Medication Nausea and Dry Sockets – Wisdom Teeth Removal Update

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Image from Pixabay

I was pretty lucky the first couple days after my wisdom teeth surgery, so I was hoping for smooth sailing all the way…but I am running into some issues now. For one thing, the combination of antibiotics, pain killers, and NSAIDS started causing a good amount of nausea the last couple days. I often feel like throwing up, although I have been able to refrain from actually vomiting so far. I have suffered from emetophobia (fear of throwing up) almost my entire life, so I fight tooth and nail against it, but sometimes it can’t be stopped.

I am also starting to highly suspect that the tooth they took out on the left side of my jaw might be developing dry socket. There isn’t a blood clot in sight on that side and all you can really see is a big empty space with what looks like a little bit of bone sticking through at the bottom. I am trying to follow all the directions for recovery, including using a special mouthwash and doing warm salt water rinses, but the salt water is definitely making the nausea worse.

So, to sum it all up….I’m feeling pretty miserable today. My jaw is still sore, my ears are now aching as well, and it almost feels like it is getting harder to eat rather than easier. I’m trying to not let it get me down, but I am a little bummed that complications seem to be arising. I know if I wait it out, even the dry socket should resolve itself within 7-10 days, but that sounds like a long time right now.

New Original Art Drawings!

I’m still recuperating from my wisdom teeth surgery, but thought I would share a few recent drawings. I hope you like them:

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You can find these artworks and others for sale at my Ebay store.

 

Wisdom Teeth Surgery Aftermath…

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Well, I got my wisdom teeth out yesterday and am actually feeling much better than expected. Sure, I am sore and it hurts to eat and brush, or open my mouth very wide, but honestly, this pain is NOTHING compared to the agony I often experience due to fibromyalgia, plantar fasciitis, and back/neck issues. I have been really tired, but I assume that is partly due to the aftereffects of the sedation.

After coming home yesterday, I spent the rest of the evening lying in bed, either napping, watching YouTube, tv, or reading. It was actually kind of an enjoyable, relaxing night. I didn’t quite look my best, but who does after surgery?:

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Luckily, I don’t remember any of the procedure at all. I remember the nurse asking me to move up the table before I got too groggy, and then that is the last thing I remember. I never even started feeling groggy, I was just OUT lol.

When I came to, I didn’t have any weird thoughts, conversations, or anything like that. I instantly knew where I was and what was going on. The first thing I asked (by text because I couldn’t speak with all the gauze in my mouth) was if they had broken my jaw during the surgery, which luckily, they didn’t have to do. I didn’t have any trouble getting up and walking out to the car, and only had a couple minutes of nausea on the way home, but nothing major. No throwing up or anything bad like that. I did take my opioid medication twice yesterday, but have been able to go without it so far today.

There was some post-op bleeding, but nothing too bad, although I did have to wash my pillow after following asleep and drooling blood all over it yesterday. One of my stitches already came loose, which has been annoying me, but I’m trying really hard to not pick at it. Overall, I’m so glad it is all over and very grateful that the recovery hasn’t been as bad as I feared so far!

In Case I am MIA Soon

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Hi everyone! I wanted to write a short post just to say that I might be MIA this weekend (and maybe longer, who knows?) because I am having wisdom teeth surgery tomorrow. The teeth are impacted and oddly placed, so unfortunately, it isn’t expected to be a simple tooth-pulling operation (which definitely shows in how much I have to pay for it lol). Thank goodness they put you out for it!

I’m sure I will be fine, but as those of you with chronic illness/pain know, nothing is ever easy when you have autoimmune issues and inflammatory conditions that crop up every time your body is put under any kind of stress. I am hoping it won’t lead to a major flareup of my fibromyalgia or CFS, but I am preparing for the worst just in case.

I hope you guys will keep me in your thoughts and prayers (if you do that kind of thing). I could definitely use some positive energy sent my way!

My Mother Helped a Guy to Stalk Me

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Lately I’ve been dealing with a lot of resentment and anger towards my mother. To explain why, let me share a specific incident that kind of illustrates why I am upset.

When I was 14/15, my mother worked with a guy named Danny who met me and developed a huge crush on me. He was in his late teens or early twenties, but was definitely an adult already. I DID NOT share his romantic interest and made that plain. I had absolutely no interest in dating him or getting to know him better. He bought me an expensive bracelet as a gift, which I immediately returned to him to make it clear I wasn’t interested.

Even with my mother knowing how I felt and that I was stressed out by the attention, she actually egged him on in spite of how I felt or what I wanted. She even gave him our home address and told him when I would be home. So, he ended up coming to my house while I was there alone and banged on the door and called my name for what felt like forever. He yelled about how he knew I was home because my mom had told him so. I never answered the door or responded to his calls. In fact, I hid in the closet because I was scared at the aggressiveness he was displaying.

I felt like I was being stalked, and worst of all, my own mother was encouraging it. This is just one small incident that portrays an issue with boundaries and respecting my privacy that was even more disturbing in other ways which perhaps I will share someday if and when I am ready to do so. I know it might sound odd, but I almost have a feeling like my mother WANTED to whore me out for some reason. I can’t even describe what that did to me psychologically.

Hypersensitivity to Criticism

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Recently my therapist and I have been talking about and working on my hypersensitivity to criticism. I have always had some hypersensitivity to any kind of criticism or rebuke. As a kid, I was the one you could make cry by looking at me wrong or even gently scolding me. I still tear up over things like that, even though I wish I didn’t.

This inability to deal constructively with any kind of feeling of failure has haunted me throughout my adult life, especially in the work world. I think this fear of not living up to expectations is partly why I struggle with immense anxiety around any kind of authority figure (bosses, teachers, doctors, police, etc.) Many times this anxiety is so strong that I am almost struck dumb (probably a type of selective mutism), such as when I have had to go for job reviews or any other kind of personal evaluation.

I have noticed though that my hypersensitivity to criticism focuses mainly on 5 areas. If I am criticized on something outside of these 5 topics, I am likely to be able to shake it off better or not let it bother me in the first place. Here are the subjects I am referring to:

My art or writing. I am extremely sensitive to any criticism about my art and writing. However, I think this one is fairly normal for creative types. We all put a bit of our heart and soul into the things we create, in a sense they are our “babies” and we gave birth to them. This does create problems for me when it comes to having the confidence to share my art and writing publicly, especially in person.
My looks and weight. I have always felt that I was rather plain or average-looking, so I have a bit of an achilles heel here. I was bullied quite a bit in middle school when I gained some weight after my dad died, and although I lost the weight a couple years later, those mean words about being “fat” have stuck with me. I have always relied on my intelligence, not my looks, to get me anywhere. I am proud of that fact, but sometimes I wish I felt more confident about the way I look.
Any accusation of laziness or incompetence. I think the laziness thing bothers me because my mom would accuse me of that all the time. “Lazy”, “good for nothing”, “useless”…words like that stick with you. As for the incompetence, it doesn’t even have to be someone else that says something. If I feel even slightly incompetent (at anything) within myself it is enough to send me into a meltdown, probably a result of my perfectionism.
Any perceived insult to my intelligence. As I said before, I have always relied on my intelligence to get through life, so if that is questioned or doubted, I feel worthless.
Any insinuation implying that I am childish/immature or a crybaby. I have a lot of “childlike” qualities, as do many with Aspergers syndrome, and those can be endearing, but when people turn it into a bad thing and accuse me of childishness or immaturity, I feel misunderstood and hurt. I am extremely sensitive in some ways, but I hate the term “crybaby”.

So, what do you guys think? Do you share any of these insecurities? Are you also hypersensitive to criticism in these areas or others?