By now, some of you may have noticed I haven't been here for almost a week. Some probably don't or won't care (you know who you are!) but I'm going to fill you in anyway. About 40+ yrs ago I had a root canal done and my current dentist seemed to think I should have it "resurfaced" and that this had to be "outsourced" as he didn't do that kind of work. I'm a firm believer that if it "ain't broke - don't fix it" but his easy way around this, because I've gone to him for nearly 29 yrs "if you don't do what I say you can't come back until you do." Most of us know that good dentist's are hard to come by, so I thought about it for a day or two - apparently that was way too long. I got a call from the "new" dentist telling me that I had been scheduled for an appt. on Feb 6th. OK fine, I'll go!
What he does is drill a hole into the current crown and remove 4 titanium wires that were inserted into the root of the tooth - 40 some years ago. They don't come out easy and they're less than an inch long, each! Then he fills the holes with some kind of gummy bear rubber medication and seals it back up. In three weeks I was supposed to go back, have the gummy bear medication removed and some kind of new permanent filler installed. They don't use titanium wires anymore!
90 minutes in the chair. No pain - nothing! Gave me a 600 mg ibuprofen and told me to get the hell out and not come back for 3 weeks. No pain, until Tuesday the 14th. CONSTANT pain and swelling ever since. But he must have felt bad for hurting me because he left town later that week and the earliest I could get in was the 23rd. By that time I had an extra half of a left lip and a cheek that looked like I was storing nuts! Kinda hard to eat like that - let alone try to talk. Montana can probably relate to this.....the dentist put me on a horse sized antibiotic pill every 8 hrs and it took nearly a gallon of water to get it down.
So, my lack of sleep has been indescribable and my lack of food even worse! If you don't have the "old age" symptom of having to pee every 2-3 hours some day you will. Can you imagine how many times I got up at night to do that - after drinking a gallon of water 3 times a day?
I went back today, the end of the "three weeks". Still swollen enough that after he got done laughing, he said he wouldn't do anything and that I need a couple more days on the antibiotic. I go back Wed noon-ish. Then the surprise - if he doesn't finish his business on Wed - he's leaving town until March 10th. I was going to say something but thought it best to wait until he'd done the rest of the work and I was all healed!
Then I'm writing a check and putting a stop payment on it!!!
I will be back to 1T1F..........might be another week or so.
Pappy
