Oral Surgery ... Again

During my last visit to Dr. Ching we discussed what to do about the deep hole (~9 mm) near my lower back tooth on the left side where my wisdom tooth was extracted decades ago; it had not improved since my last visit to Dr. Ching and was too deep for good oral health. Today Dr. Ching opened up my gumline and found that my wisdom tooth, which was growing horizontally & pushed against that last tooth, had caused a defect in that tooth which was why the pocket had never closed up nicely. He did a major deep cleaning below the gum line and grafted cadaver bone in the gap; it took 1 & 1/2 hours. Now we wait for my bone cells to grow in to the cadaver bone matrix and close up the gap. I hope this works; the thought of getting my gums cut open every so often for a deep cleaning does not appeal to me.

Not a great view from the dental chair, but my eyes are closed most of the time anyway.

Red arrow points to defect. (Photo by hygienist)

I got off to a good start today with my morning walk; I was on the move at 6 minutes before sunrise. I saw Steph as she was starting her lap on the circle; she said she did not walk on the weekend because she was busy with Lauren's birthday celebration, so she "had to walk" today. I saw Ona by the park and mentioned that I had seen her jogging up by Maunalani on the weekend; she said she runs her route every Saturday! More power to her! I saw Ona later as she was on her way back down Lurline, she said she had also seen Steph. I checked the hāpuʻu, it was nice & moist; I hoped it would stay that way through the afternoon since the new watering regime wouldn't start until then. I saw LaVie & Ken walking by as I was doing my cool down stretches.

Six minutes before sunrise on Maunalani.

Eighteen minutes after sunrise on Sierra.

The crust was still on Dad's fried egg sandwich, he had not touched a thing. Immediately after I removed the crust he ate 1/4 of his sandwich. A short while later he finished the other 1/4 then fell asleep. RN Fred said he had sent a note to the kitchen yesterday about removing the crust; he was more annoyed than I was that the crust was still on the sandwich this morning. I saw RD Alyssa just before lunch & asked her to remind the kitchen to remove the crust and also changed Dad's dinner egg salad sandwich to a tuna sandwich so he has a different type of food presented at each meal.

It was very cloudy during my mid-morning walk; I thought it might drizzle but it didn't. I saw a young couple with a baby walking around the circle. It looks like the woman might have had an injury to the lower portion of her right leg; on the steeper downhill parts she planted her toe first rather than her heel. Later I saw LaVie by the park; this time she had Kila & Tazzie with her. The hāpuʻu was less damp than during the morning walk and one side was slightly drier than the other; I was anxious to see what it would be like later in the day.


Dr. Ching's office called while I was doing my mid-morning cool down stretches; they needed to move my appointment up to 2:30. So I skipped the afternoon walk, but I did stop by long enough to check how moist the hāpuʻu was; it was drier than it was at my mid-morning walk. I think the cloudier weather helped to keep it more moist than if it had been sunny. I went up again after my oral surgery to check since the new watering regime would have started at around 3:30; the hāpuʻu was now at a good moisture level. I now want to see how it does on a sunny day.

The dark color on the trunk of the hāpuʻu is because it is soaked with water.

During my mid-morning cool down stretches I saw a Manu-o-Kū again! It was going back out to fish. Though I can see more from the 3rd floor landing than the 2nd floor landing there is still a large mango tree at the end of the upper lot driveway that blocks a a portion of my view; I saw the Manu-o-Kū emerge from behind that tree before heading down over Lurline. (There are no large trees behind the mango tree, it was coming down from the upper part of the hill but I did not see it until it was on its path over Lurline.)

I ran in to Mrs. Iseri on the way back in; she said she had something for Kai. It was more Pocky sticks! She gave me 2 boxes; I think I will mail them to him.

I also ran in to Miss Kasahara; she is a friend of Mom's from Liholiho. She is here at Maunalani for rehab; she's on the 3rd floor. She didn't immediately recognize me but I could tell she knew that she must know me from somewhere. When I mentioned Mom she seemed to put it all together; I will drop in on her every so often.

Lunch today was Seafood pasta primavera, Succotash, Garlic bread, Tossed salad, Peach cream cake, and French onion soup. My tray was missing the garlic bread, someone in the kitchen is helping me reduce my carb intake! 😐 But it was also missing the tossed salad. 😢 Dad ate all of his 1/2 peanut butter & jelly sandwich and 1 bite of the cake; he drank only half of his Breeze supplement.


I was going to have my normal salad dinner with some leftover pork chop from dinner the other night. But I was told to only do soft foods for the 1st couple of days. So I had spaghetti with meat sauce instead. I'm still hungry. Several years ago I had oral surgery on my lower jaw, I was told to eat soft foods for about a week; it was tough. I felt hungry all the time. I also slept a lot due to the pain; there's less pain this time since it is only one tooth that was worked on, not a quarter of my mouth. (I had 2 surgeries a year apart.) I will still be doing one 650 mg acetaminophen every 8 hours for the next 4 days to keep the pain and swelling down; that's what I did when I had 1/4 of my mouth worked on.

DT sent out an "all roommates" text this morning, he found his Head & Shoulders shampoo bottle in the shower, the top had broken off when it fell some time last night. He was concerned that one of the cats might have ingested some medicated shampoo. But no one threw up or had any problems today so I think they avoided it.

Hauʻoli lā Hānau to Maria & Ratna!