GO COUGARS!!!

I went to my first official football game yesterday and it was a BLAST. The team is so good. Of course we won. Poor Northern Iowa. It was the neatest experience to look around at the screaming fans and think that I am a part of this. I love BYU already. The people are so nice and friendly, and I feel so secure in an environment where most everybody believes the same things I do.

I love you all and miss you, but I am fortunately not too homesick because I have family out here, Breann Baldwin as my next door neighbor, and many good friends. I'm really pretty lucky. :)

God bless!

Melinda

Wisdom Teeth

This past Monday I got my wisdom teeth removed. I have been really nervous about this for a long time, and my anxiety was not helped by the horrible dreams I experienced the night before my surgery. I drempt that I was in Sarah's room on a rickety stretcher, awaiting the arrival of my doctor. A short, blustery japanese woman entered bearing no surgical tools. In my dream I was very upset, because I was told my doctor was a man. The woman then told me that I would have to be awake for the procedure because she didn't know how to anaesthetize. I began shouting and crying passionately "give me the drugs! You are NOT my doctor."

That morning I got up and headed to the car. I was really quiet the whole ride to Landsdowne hospital. Mom kept looking at me anxiously, I think trying to figure out if I was mad at her. It really wasn't her fault. I needed to have this done, I knew that.

The doc and I took a look at my X-Rays. He was young and had a brooklyn accent. Craig Vigilante. Doctor Vigilante? Needless to say, I was still a little apprehensive.

The surgical room was this sterile octagon of menacing-looking instruments and machines. I had to look away for the IV insertion. Sorry, I'm a wimp. I started to feel really heavy, like I was sinking within myself, and then they were done. Whoa.

I don't remember getting home, but I do recall driving by the shell and remarking to mom that gas had gone down to 3.89 a gallon. As my whole face had been numbed, it must have sounded something like "gatfh wennndun." Sweet mommy just smiled and nodded, having no idea what I had just said.

Two hours later I woke up with a big face and a lip that felt like brotwurst. (sp?)

The next few days I lived off of pudding, ice cream, yoghurt, and the occasional jell-o cup. I slept with bags of peas next to my face and endured the taunts of my family as I wrapped a white ice pack around my head and was compared to Jacob Marley.

But I am now fully recovered in body and spirit, though I have gaping holes in my gums and can safely promise that I will not swish with saltwater for a good many years.

Thanks to all who made me soup and cheered me up. :)