Surgery Update

[spicedogs]

I went to the surgeon today. He was not very pleased. My mouth on the right side is not healing properly. He said that due to the number of scar tissues in there, the blood supply is not able to go through and that part of the graft may not heal. He is not very hopeful, but he said that we can only wait. Sometimes, healing does occur. The worst case scenario will be that the grafted bone may detach and fall out.

He told me that he would not do another graft, as it would be a waste of money and could do me more harm. I had four teeth with bone deterioration. And just one is not doing well. So, all in all, it is not that drastic.

One good thing happened on the way from the surgeon, however. I was driving home and  saw a gaggle of geese hunting for food in the grass. Once again, I braved my fear of birds. I parked the car and went close to them to take their pictures. For those of you who don't know, geese are nasty buggers, and I was facing a gaggle of them. Nonetheless, I was fairly close to them, and they left me alone. Of course, it helped that I was using my 300mm zoom lens.

I took a lot of pictures, but this specimen was just so cooperative:



More pictures can be seen here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/esbaker/sets/72157610154816271/

I did use my Nikon this time.

Comments

[i-read-dead-ppl.livejournal.com]

Oh, what a gorgeous bird! the detail you were able to capture on his wings/back is beautiful. And what an outrageous long black neck! :)

I'm glad you're so into photography - it's fun, isn't it? You had to have been lying down for this one :)

[spicedogs.livejournal.com]

Amazingly enough, I am following my father's advice. All the things that he always encouraged for me to do when I was a teenager, I am doing now: Career in publishing and photography as a hobby. He was also a very good amateur photographer. He concentrated on portraits, and I hated posing. Maybe that was the reason I rejected his encouragements in pursuing photography. He died 21 years ago. If he were alive, he'd get a chuckle out of this.

I was standing up when I took the picture. My lens is 70-300mm. So, I must have been about 3 or 4 feet away from the goose. I don't quite know the actual camera distance you get from a 300mm telephoto lens, but it felt as if I was about 3 or 4 feet away. It was, by far, no longer in my comfort zone. I braved my fear for this one. Hence, since I was willing to conquer my fear and go for the shoot, gives me the feeling that I should pursue this hobby very seriously.