Day 10 kicked off with a family trip out with the mother and my aunt. I was seeing the orthodontist at 9am; they both had to go to the warfarin clinic. The mother came to my waiting room (007) after she'd finished spraying blood at the warfarin nurse.
All the orthodontic nurses and the orthodontist were amazed at my progress, I've known them for eight years now, so they are like family. They all came over to chat while I was waiting. Apparently it's pretty unusual to even be talking decently at this stage. And to have such little swelling.
I must be pretty good at healing.
When I had my fingers chopped up, I was told that I'd be left with two nailess, mangled fingers for life. But they look perfectly normal.
The orthodontist was very happy with how the operation went, which is good. She did have some very bad news for me however: Elastics.
These will strike fear into the heart of anyone who has ever had to use them. I've had a three-year break from them, so I'm a bit gutted that I'm having to go through the at least four-times-daily ritual of replacing them and taking them off to eat. What's more, instead of just simply hooking them onto my braces, I need to attempt to make a parallelogram on each side of my mouth. Or failing that, a trapezium will do.
There was a funny moment when the consultant asked if I was taking it easy. I said that I was going back to work (virtually) after the appointment. She wasn't happy. Contrary to what the junior MaxFax surgeon said on Wednesday, and what the Registrar said at my pre-op (laughed quite condescendingly when the mother asked how I will get a sick note for more than two weeks), the orthodontist said I need six weeks of bed-rest and daytime TV to recover. Lots of relaxation.
It's a fair point. I have had major surgery. But the main problem is that I am bipolar. I don't do relaxation.
This is how I have been relaxing while I have been on the box:
- Writing this blog
- Watching the news
- iPlayering a documentary about Henry VII's rise to power and his reign
- Reading every news item on the internet
- Playing on Brilliant
- iPlayering Horizon documentaries
- Poking my nose into the latest LSE scandals
- Studying for CIMA
- Playing chess
- Watching cat videos
- Proving by induction the formulae for the sums of the first k natural numbers, their squares, and their cubes
- Proving de Moivre's formula
- Writing an algorithm in Java/pseudocode for how a line of platooned driverless lorries could slow down to allow cars to leave the motorway at an exit that is within an variable-speed limit section of motorway1
I guessed going back to work virtually would probably be more relaxing than the above.
The orthodontist was also a bit concerned that if I went back to the office, I might trip and fall. I chuckled at this: My company takes safety VERY seriously. If your priority is to not trip and fall, I'd recommend that my office would be the best place for you to be.
James is probably much more likely to cause me to fall.
Speaking of which, it was James' birthday. Well, it's the day we celebrate his birthday.
This is the story of James:
James walked in the house on 31st July 2000. He was a stray. The lad over the road had seen him in the street and decided to call him James. We have no idea why. Then James moved in with us and refused to leave.
The name James suits him quite well actually. He is a tuxedo cat, and his tail is bent like the number seven. So he's a bit like James Bond.
The vet said in summer 2000 that he was "last Spring's litter". Which makes him 17.
Compare and contrast these photos James and I, separated by more than 15 years.
The mother has an orchid that she has been slowly killing. I have hayfever. I am not allowed to sneeze for another two to three weeks. I sneezed. The orchid had to go.
The menu for Day 9 was chopped banana for breakfast, and tomato soup for lunch. To celebrate St Patrick's day, we spag bol for tea, then jelly and ice cream. Our spaghetti bolognese recipe includes potatoes for some reason2.
Day 11 consisted of me going to work in the bedroom.
Breakfast was a sliced banana. I'm sure you don't need a photo of that.
I was planning on having chicken soup with bread for lunch, but then I realised I would need to removed the elastics. It's taking me about half an hour to make the parallelograms each time I put the elastics back in, so I settled for a Nurishment drink.
For tea, it was my signature student salmon dish.
There would normally be a heavy sprinkling of black pepper, but given the orchid incident I wouldn't want to risk my top jaw shooting off or my mouth and nasal sinuses merging into one single cavity.
1. Those who know me IRL will know that I absolutely HATE algorithms in Java. I did this to win an argument with my brother about the feasibility of driverless vehicle technology.
2. Technically, it isn't "our" recipe. It was invented by a lady who goes by the name of Alice in Wonderland.
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