The Uninvited Mouth Guest

WARNING: This might be a fairly long post but hopefully worth the read..

Since I didn’t write anything during vacation I wanted to fill you guys in on some interesting stories of what went down in Cali! Vacation is never dull! After the fun beach day with my fam we decided that the perfect end to the day is dinner at one of my favorite west coast restaurants..Claim Jumper! If you haven’t been there you are seriously deprived and if you have you know what I mean :)

Since my family ..err my dad..is always looking for the best deal and claim jumper has an amazing happy hour we decided to take advantage of it and eat in the bar. It was just my mom, dad, sis and me. On a side note..since I no longer live in bako or even cali while being married it is always a funny feeling to have vacations and dinners with the original Thomas clan (my family) without the hubs. I almost feel like I have been transported back to the unmarried years yet not. Anyways sorry for the random side note :) Back to the story..

We were having so much fun enjoying amazing food and fabulous conversations..and since I was only one not drinking I had fun messing with my fellow family members! I always get the same thing when I go there and it is always so yummy :) Claim Jumper has an amazing salad bar and since I love salad and love getting to choose what I put on my salad and love getting to eat as much as I want and love cornbread croutons (which they have unlimited) I don’t even have to look at the menu ;)

I always have so much fun eating with my family because we love food and sharing it with each other. As we were getting towards the end of our meal and I was enjoying every bite..I bit down and suddenly started to feel a lot of pressure on the lower left side of my mouth. Right in the middle of our “what amazing dessert do we want to try” debate I got up and bolted to the bathroom leaving my family very confused.

Once I entered the bathroom I immediately looked in the mirror and was greeted by what looked liked something the writers of Grey’s Anatomy would makeup as to provide more drama and entrap us viewers into this medical mystery for the next hour. but no it was real and on my tongue! Seriously people, I now had an extra tongue forming on the side of my real tongue the size of a nickel and turning a deep burgundy color right in front of my eyes! I ran back to my family and was immediately transformed into a 5 year old little girl pouting my lips and crying “mommy help me” while trying to show her this new addition to my mouth. Luckily my mom stayed very clam. However, the other two slightly tipsy members of my family started freaking out a little louder than necessary!

The rest of the dinner was spent going back and forth to the bathroom to check what I had now determined was a very large blood blister on the side of my tongue. It didn’t hurt that bad, it was more uncomfortable, and the food was still calling my name so I attempted to eat dessert which in turn caused me to pop the blister..oops! I immediately thought..oh well at least it is done with now. Boy was I mistaken! Since the blister had popped it now turned into an open sore.

That night I cleaned it with hydrogen peroxide and hoped that it would be gone in the morning. Unfortunately that was not the case. I woke up to a throbbing tongue (and oh can a tongue throb) which hurt worse every time I tried to eat or speak or move my mouth..humm..not good! The first few days after that it hurt a lot but I could still eat some and I was starting to learn the art of pointing and grunting in a effort to communicate to the family. The Hubs had arrived too (he could only take a week off of work) and was trying to help as much as he could. By Friday however, I felt like I wanted to die (or at least have someone cut off my tongue)! I got some of that oral gel stuff but it only worked for about 20 minutes before it would wear off and I would be in more pain than before. To make it worse the pain had now moved to my ear and throat on that side too. Luckily my wonderful doctor brother-in-law meet up with us on Friday and I suckered him into asked him kindly to take a look at it. He suggested that I get it checked out so on saturday, our last day at the beach, the hubs and I headed to urgent care.

As we arrived I was secretly hoping that the doctor would be like “oh I can totally help you with that and get it taken care of right away”..a girl can dream right?! Too bad that wasn’t the case. After waiting for like an hour we headed back to see the doctor. The place was actually really nice and fairly quick for a urgent care so I couldn’t complain much. The doctor checked my tongue as I tried to explain to him what happened and why I was there (did I mention that it was extremely painful to talk)! My hopes were dashed when all he said was “well it should clear up in a week but here is some antibiotics and use numbing gel to help with the pain”…well thanks doc I was already doing that! After leaving urgent care it was just my luck to find one of the best frozen yogurt places, one of the only foods I could eat, on the last day we were at the beach (which didn’t stop me from visiting it twice within a few hours)!

With my antibiotics and frozen yogurt in hand I was determined to beat this thing and get the use of my mouth back! My family had become fairly used to my pointing and grunting but I didn’t realize how hard it would be to go back to my hometown and see people I haven’t talked to for months, all without full use of my mouth..not fun and very frustrating!! I was really nervous and upset as we headed over the ridge back to the valley..how was I going to handle this???

since this is such a long and exciting story I am going to pause right here and continue on the next post..