My Life As Marlon Brando Reincarnated

Hi!!!!! Yes, I'm alive. My sincerest apologies, I needed a hot second to myself for a moment. My life has been extremely boring lately and I didn't feel like anything deserved a post. But a bunch of new and exciting things are coming up so I promise that I'm back for good!

In all honesty I mostly fell off the face of the earth because of my wisdom teeth. I recently got them removed. I got extremely anxious before it and like couldn't focus on anything but the prospect how I thought I was going to die from getting my wisdom teeth out. And then after I was so nervous about dry sockets that it absorbed my entire life. But much like Gloria Gaynor, I survived! But not without a story; because when have I ever done anything without being extremely dramatic for absolutely no reason....

To start off with, I was nervous- for no reason at all. I've been going to this surgeon forever and he's amazing! About eight years ago, I had my first oral surgery on some of my permanent teeth so that I wouldn't look like a hillbilly with my over bite. They didn't knock me completely out so I could hear every single thing that was happening in the room. And the day of my first surgery was the day after Tiger Woods' FIRST big scandal and that's all they talked about throughout the entire surgery. And now here I am, eight years later the day after another Tiger Woods' scandal. It seemed like an omen that things were gonna be okay and since I'm a big believer in signs, so I wasn't that nervous anymore.

The day of, both my parents came to the oral surgeon's office with me. At the time, I was confused about this because I don't remember them doing that for either of my siblings but I later found out that they were really anxious about how I was going to react to the drugs. Let it be known that if I'm in a bad mood or in pain, I become a terrible combination of Oscar the Grouch from Sesame Street and any bitter Jessica Lange character. It's an awful combination and it makes me become a very difficult person to handle. Anyway, back to the story- So the anesthesiologist brings me and both my parents back into the room and I'm starting to get set up in the chair when I see my parents faces. My dad looks like he's about to pass out and my mom keeps eyeing the door like she could run out at any moment and I almost laughed at how they were both more nervous about this than me. The anesthesiologist, which I'm convinced is Tim Gunn's younger, shorter brother, asks me a bunch of questions then my parents leave and he asks me a bunch of questions again to get the real answers (which were the same cause I'm a perfect little angel 😈).

He then proceeds to ask me how scared I am of needles (which is A LOT) and hooks me up to a bunch of laughing gas to relax me. Then he sprays this thing on my hand which made me not feel my hand for literally two days but it was amazing cause I didn't feel my IV going into my hand (which was 90% of my anxiety). I hear my doctor come in and him and the nurse are going AT each other about how another nurse is so two-faced and is acting like a middle schooler. I was absolutely living for it but then the drugs knocked me out.

Fake Tim Gunn warned me that I was going to be a little scared when I woke up that I was waking up early but I was completely fine when I woke up. My doctor asked me how I felt and I responded with "I think I should be in Grey's Anatomy after that". Who knows why I said that; maybe it was my drug induced dream or the fact that the doctors were fighting as I passed out, but it was met with a nice laugh from my doctor. I don't really remember how I got into the recovery room, but apparently I walked there. I was laying there for a moment waiting for my parents and I noticed my heartbeat was beating very loudly (my mom later told me that it was the heart rate monitor that I was hearing). As the natural born dancer that I am, I could not control myself from dancing to my heartbeat. The relief in my parents eyes when they saw me jamming out in the recovery room was almost as funny as me thinking I could maintain musicality after surgery. For some reason as soon as I saw my parents, I was compelled to tell them anything and everything on my mind but of course they couldn't understand me cause of all my gauze. (This is the part of the story that I still don't fully believe that I did...) So instead of trying to keep talking to them, I began using sign language to talk to them and spell out things they didn't understand. And they said that I did it so fast and in complete accuracy.... I haven't had a sign language class since SIXTH grade. Honestly props to Mrs. Ritson in 6th grade for teaching me some valuable life lessons. Nyle from America's Next Top Model would be so proud. My parents were just relived that I was a happy camper and wasn't screaming or crying like we all anticipated.

My recovery was pretty okay. Only one side of my face was swollen due to that being the side with the impacted teeth. I only let myself eat applesauce for days and my biggest accomplishment was no tears from me until day three. I pretty much lived in my bed in a little

pillow thrown my mom made for me. She'd bring me medicine and food but would mostly leave me alone (once again, no one wants to be around the Oscar Lange combination). But on the third day, my parents went to church and didn't really see me much until I came downstairs at 9:30 that night. Up until this point, I hadn't been that swollen and almost looked normal. But when I came downstairs, I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror and my entire left cheek was blown up to the point that my eye was almost closed. My cheeks made me look like Marlon Brando from The Godfather- all I was missing was the cat (if you don't know who he is go educate yourself- but I also included a picture to the right). Not only are we both 5'9" but we both had cheeks fit for chipmunks. Now, I love the movie and love the actor but that's not a cute look on a 20 year old girl. I immediately saw the panic in my mom's eyes and as she tried to comfort me, I just sat on the couch in self pity, tears silently pouring down my cheeks because I genuinely believed this was my life now; I'm Marlon Brando reincarnated.

Eventually we found out that it was normal to swell days after surgery and every day since then my cheek has gotten smaller and smaller. My smile is becoming less crooked, my sneezes have become super obnoxious since I'm terrified that I'll blow a stitch and I have developed a habit of grabbing my cheek every time something is funny or I'm about to smile cause if I held my swollen cheek it would restrict my movement. But now I just look like an old woman laughing at a naughty joke on Easter Sunday. Anyway... I hope you all enjoyed my big return to my blog. I also hope that you get an extra bit of enjoyment out of the fact that I wrote this standing in my kitchen because there was a huge spider on the wall by the couch I was writing on in my living room, So I hope that y'all are having a bit of a better night than me 🙃

xx. 💋

Liv