Happy Mother's Day 2013

I haven't been posting much lately, since I've been keeping pretty busy and most of the things I'd like to post about are just a leetle too personal for a blog that's read by family members. I apologize for being away for so long and will hopefully get to update about everything soon!

I hope that all the mommies out there had a wonderful and relaxing Mother's Day. E and I had quite a lovely day, even though he had to work in the evening. To kick Mother's Day off, E and I went to a delicious brunch with his mom and some family friends. We ate at Eveleigh, the new "it" restaurant in the heart of West Hollywood, essentially a jasmine filled oasis in the middle of the city.

Everything was delicious, from the mimosas to the steak and eggs, and although the service was a little bit less than stellar, I'd highly recommend it for the ambiance and food.

To celebrate with my mom, we asked her to pick her favorite restaurant for dinner. E unfortunately couldn't come since he had to work last minute, but my mom chose a delicious Italian restaurant, Spumoni, to get take out from. They're one of our favorite spots and we hit them up on a fairly regular basis for their spaghetti bolognese (insanely delicious OMG) and lobster ravioli.

My sister and I also brought back a dozen delicious mini cupcakes from Yummy Cupcakes to cap off the celebration. By the time we got there, they were nearly sold out and we had to forgo our usual full size cupcakes in favor of the adorable mini ones. Their case had maybe 4 of the large but boring cupcakes and maybe three mini ones. We almost left empty handed until the cashier told us she had two boxes of the minis left behind the counter, so we snapped one of them up.

For a little gift, E and I made some beautiful Shutterfly books with our wedding photos in them for my mom and my mother in law. It's only been two years since we officially tied the knot but we figured it was about time people got some hard copies haha. My grandma received a beautiful potted Gardenia as well as a little brag book of wedding photos to keep with her photo stash in her purse. All in all I'd say it was a wonderful day celebrating some pretty special ladies. E and I were hoping to celebrate Mother's Day on a more personal level this year but it wasn't in our cards. Hopefully next year will be our year!

RIP Devlin

RIP Devlin

March 23rd, 2006 - April 1st, 2013

Early this morning, we had to put down our beloved kitty Devlin. He was only 6 years old and I can't believe that we're losing him so soon. Late Saturday night, Devlin had some sort of neurological episode - a rapidly progressing crypto infection, an autoimmune disease, or a brain tumor growing large enough to compress the vessels in his brain.

 

When Devlin was a kitten, he fell or jumped off my sister's bunk bed and broke both his hips. We weren't sure if anything could be done and my mother pushed hard for him to be put down. Instead, our wonderful vet operated on his hips and he was able to recover as good as new.  He was such a little fighter, we thought we'd have him with us for at least 15 years.  He used to love playing with Pippin, and when we lost Pip, Milou adopted Devlin as her own long lost puppy. She absolutely adored him, would cuddle him and clean him, and play with him all day.

Saturday night, he went from a sweet, spunky little boy to absolutely catatonic. We were devastated and readied ourselves for the worst, rushing him to the emergency vet who kept him overnight. Instead, he pulled through the night and morning and we scheduled him a neuro consult the next afternoon. Again, we were prepared to hear bad news but the vet was optimistic. We took some blood to test for crypto, started him on steroids to reduce the swelling in his brain and crossed our fingers, hoping for some good results to point us in the right direction.

      

While his condition had been comatose but stable to that point, around 10:30pm Sunday night he took a sharp turn for the worse.  He appeared to be herniating is brain stem and we rushed him back to the neuro vet. This time, there was nothing they could do and early Monday morning, we had to say goodbye and help him cross over the Rainbow Bridge. He had so much personality and spunk, our family will forever miss his presence in our lives.

RIP Devlin. We miss you so much.

 

2 Years Married and Marriage Equality

Yesterday E and I celebrated our second year of marriage, on the same day that Gays and Lesbians took their fight for equal rights to the supreme court. I have to say it felt bittersweet to celebrate our happy, nationally recognized union while so many of those dear to me don't have the right to marry the people they love.

E and I were hoping to celebrate with some lovely, much needed massages, but as it turned out there was no availability at the massage center. Instead, we went to a delicious Italian dinner and got some amazing gelato, not a bad replacement if I do say so myself.  We had a lovely time, fairly low key, and it felt just perfect.

Two/eleven years in and E and I are so ready to take our family to new places. We're itching to expand, to buy some property, add a new fur baby, add a tiny human etc.  I'm looking forward to spending the rest of my life being married to E, as all couples should have the right to do, and I hope that this next year will bring with it big changes for equality and for our little family. 

12 Day Update: Gum Graft

After poking around my blog I realized it had been far too long since I'd posted a TMI update photo of my gum graft. Thus, in the interest of documenting the healing process, I present to you more zombie/Frankenstein gums:

Raaaaaawwwwwwrrrrr!

As you can see, the palate tissue (light pink) is kind of a funny shape but seems to have remained successfully attached to my gums. It's completely invisible unless I pull my lip down so I think we can call it a success. My periodontist has offered to use microdermabrasion to sand down the graft in the future, but I can't imagine that would be particularly pleasant so I think I'm gonna pass. I don't think it's included in the original price either so it would probably be expensive.

My next appointment is on the 18th so I have a bit more time before I can call it healed. The donor site on the roof of my mouth is improving, I can't feel the edges anymore and the area feels smooth, but it's still a little tender and sore. It looks about the same even though it feels much better. Chewing anything on that side of my mouth is usually a bad idea but I've been okay to eat crunchy stuff as long as I'm careful.

Interestingly, I haven't received my bill yet. Don't worry, I had no doubt that they would NEVER forget to bill me lol. I know they submitted the report to my (old) dental insurance company but I haven't received any information on what they're willing to pay and what my portion will be. I've got my fingers crossed that it's not too much but I wouldn't be surprised if it was at least the price of a new macbook air. That sucks in all sorts of different ways because E actually needs a new laptop since his broke and I would much rather spend the money on that. Bleh.

I'm Insured!

When I woke up this morning I had an email from Kaiser waiting for me in my inbox.

The verdict?

I'm insured!

Apparently it is possible for a young, healthy individual with no pre-existing conditions to fork over a crapton of money each month for health care coverage. Honestly I can't believe how expensive it is, I'm going to be paying over four grand a year for the privilege of continuing to never go to the doctor lol.

My choices were the $25 co-payment plan or the $30/$1500 deductible plan. Both Kaiser, since there was no way I could afford the higher deductible plans offered by Anthem or Blue Shield. Those plans have $5000-$15000 deductibles which makes the insurance pretty much useless.

With Kaiser, there's about $100 difference per month between the plans. But, if we want to have a baby in the future it seems to pay to go with the $25 co-payment plan. With the $25 co-payment plan, a pregnancy and delivery is about $500. With the $30/$1500 deductible plan the same pregnancy and delivery would be about $2500. We're only talking about maybe an $800 difference when you factor in the higher monthly cost, but E felt it was worth it for the time being.

Either way, I'm really glad that I was deemed an acceptable candidate and offered insurance. There are so many people in the US who can't get insurance either due to a pre-existing condition or inability to pay the insane premiums. I'm so thankful that E and I are in a position where we can afford(ish) to pay for decent coverage. This way if I'm ever in an accident or we do decide to add some tiny humans to our family, we won't go completely broke paying for medical bills.

5 Day Update: Gum Graft

Today was the 5th day of healing from my exciting gum graft, and I got to have an impromptu visit with my periodontist!

Two days ago I was chugging along, dealing with the annoyance of the non-dissolvable stitches ripping the crap out of my lip when...

Whoops! There goes a chunk of tissue.

Huh. Was that a piece of the graft?

It looks like a piece of the graft...

Crap.

I promptly emailed my doc the following zombie photo:

Behold! The zombie gums. Grrrrrrr...nrrrrgg....raaaawwwrrrr!

I'll pause here for a moment to say yes, my doctor gave me not only his personal email, but also his cell number. He said to call/email/text/carrier pigeon him anytime I had a question and he meant it. How awesome is that? He even complimented me on my iphone-gum-o-graph skillz. He's awesome.

So, he says everything looks normal and healthy (reeeaaallly??) but I should come in for him to check it out anyway. He fits me in that same afternoon and after circling for parking and paying $2 dollars in quarters for an hour at a meter, I'm finally in his office. Parking is definitely the one big downside of this particular office, if you can't find a spot in the 2 hours free shopping lot you're stuck with a 1 hour meter.

Now I'm sitting in his chair and I explain about the creepy chunk of tissue I spit out. He looks at the graft and says yep, that's normal. Apparently, the outer layer of the graft is supposed to come off but he didn't mention it before since it usually comes off in such tiny pieces that most people don't notice it. He was also set up to take my stitches out, but since they're not quite ready it looks like I have to wait until Friday. He did at least trim up the ends that were poking and cutting my lip which should help since they were really driving me nuts. You can actually see the cuts they made in my poor lip in the above zombie photo. Owie.

His assistant was also nice enough to make me two new palate protectors (at no cost!) which I really appreciate. They seem to get pretty gross quickly and it's great to be able to dump the old one. What's weird is that she kept mentioning that the palate protector can be used as a bleaching tray. I wasn't sure if their usual Beverly Hills clientele are naturally obsessed with bleaching and whitening their teeth, or if my teeth are looking gross and yellow enough for her to say something O_O

Gum-Numb Style (TMI)

As part of my quest to get all my medical things in order before I lose my insurance, I had the wonderful experience of gum grafting surgery yesterday morning. In general, the procedure is really common; things like genetics, braces and brushing too hard can cause your gums to recede in places, exposing the root which doesn't feel great. In my case, it seems to be a bad spin on the genetic wheel. Thanks to my sperm donor, I have had low gums in front of one of my bottom front teeth and the only way to correct it was surgery.
 

Swollen frowny face, with my good buddy, a towel wrapped ice pack. Even my nose is swollen from the palate injections :(

They numb you up, take a little piece of tissue from the roof of your mouth and sew it into place where your gum is low. The whole procedure only takes about an hour and is generally minor. In fact, the whole thing really shouldn't have been a big deal except that I happen to have inherited more unfortunately genetics, this time from my mother's side. From her side, I got both an inherited allergy to all opiate drugs and a charming resistance to Novocain!

What should have been a short, painless procedure ended up being nearly twice as long; as soon as the Novocain took effect it began wearing off and I had to get more charming injections. I also apparently have extra nerves in my mouth, which, you guessed it, required even more injections haha. My periodontist ended up giving me enough Novocain to numb a small horse, ugh. Since I've never had a cavity or dental procedure before, neither of us knew what to expect but it certainly wasn't this. For the aftermath, instead of the Vicodin that they normally prescribe, I'm taking Advil and Tylenol which I have to be very happy with since it's all I can really take. Plus, my allergic reaction to Vicodin is so so very much worse than the procedure was, I'd undergo a hundred gum grafts before taking even half a pill.

Now, I have to wait for the graft to take and for the donor site to heal. In the meantime, my mouth looks like a Frankenstein zombie creation. Gum tissue is nice and pink but your palate (the donor tissue) is actually pretty pale. Eventually the graft should blend in better and pink up once a blood supply is established. Though it'll never blend in perfectly, I don't expect many people to be looking way inside my mouth anyway.

RAWR!

Happy 3rd Birthday Roxie!

Happy Birthday to the cutest little pony in the world! 

This February Miss Roxie turned 3 and had the most fabulous My Little Pony party anyone could have dreamed up. Each party guest got to make a beautiful pony tail out of ribbon and a t-shirt with felt pony eyes. We also each got a lovely pair of sparkly wings to complete our pony look. E and I absolutely love our pony shirts, in fact we liked them so much that I came home and stitched the eyes on.

Tearing into her first present!

New leggings!

Look mom, a pony castle!

Could the birthday girl be any cuter?

Oooo a bubble maker!

Getting bunny ears, with a belly full of rainbow cake.

In addition to the awesome shirt/tail/wing ensemble, Roxie's Auntie W decorated the whole apartment with rainbows and pomanders, including a rainbow photobooth with props. We had pizza, pasta, cupcakes and a beautiful rainbow cake from one of Roxie's other faux aunties. 

I could not have imagined a more perfect pony party for such a special little girl, and E and I are so happy to be part of her life as she grows up.