Bloody Hell

OK, it's not quite that bad, but you remember that root canal? Oh yeah. Went in Monday, spent 90 minutes in the chair, got what seemed like 90 shots to keep me numb ('cause I react badly to novocaine, as some of you may recall), and had a gallon of liquid sodium spilled in my mouth (ACK!), only to have the doc say, "I can't finish this in one session; you'll have to come back." Right.

So I left, my aching tooth stuffed with cotton and my twisted mouth unable to even sip through a straw. I scheduled the rest of my procedure for Wednesday and put off the appointment for getting a crown until later. Much later.

Wednesday, I only spent an hour in the chair, still got a lot of shots, but at least didn't end up gagging on sodium. The doc jabbed and poked and drilled and finally said, "I can't do this one; I'm sending you to a specialist." Argh.

Once again, numb face, twisted mouth, aching tooth full of cotton-- and no resolution.

Come to think of it, that sounds a lot like our marriage counseling sessions.

Darkest Before the Dawn

This is what it's looking like here, the night before Easter:

Lessons Learned

We're on Spring Break here. Which means that most of us are home most of the time, and that's cool. Mostly. With some actual time and resources (i.e., tax refund that came in) on hand, I finally called the dentist. I finally got sick of this aching hole in my upper jaw and thought maybe I could get it fixed this week. Yeah.

Well, since the cavity had been festering for over 2 years while I had no insurance, it's not going to be a quick fix after all. Turns out that it's abscessing and will need a root canal and a crown now. Not to mention a week or 10 days' worth of nasty antibiotics to keep it from getting worse until they can fix it. Oh joy.

I'm not sure we have that much money after all. I am certain it would have been better to spend the $85 or $100 a couple years ago to get the small filling it would have taken to keep this from happening. So the lesson we take away from this week is, don't hesitate to look something ugly in the face as soon as you know it needs it. Because it will only get uglier if you wait. OK, that's also the lesson for the past 6 months, too.