MONDAY...............

So, today was Monday. I really didn't have that much on the ole Palma Sutra (Palm Pilot), but it really consumed my day. I was VERY tired on Sunday night, probably from the full weekend and staying up too late, so I hit the rack. My sweet hubby called at 11:20 PM, so I'm totally not sure what I said to him, but it was nice to hear his voice. Rolled back over and crashed. Sometime in the middle of the night our dog, Daisy, jumped on the bed. I was slightly awake, but just long enough to notice that she laid down. She doesn't normally sleep on the bed, but I was too tired to kick her off. I had no idea what time it was at this point. I do know that Patches, my cat, who likes to sleep under the covers clawed my thigh when Daisy jumped on the bed, which is probably what woke me up in the first place. Anyway, the alarm went off at 5:45 AM and Daisy jumped down ready to go outside.................


...........I stagger out of bed to walk to the kitchen to turn the alarm off only to discover a very large spot on my carpet! WHAT???? Daisy is a great dog! She never barks or scratches on the door to go out, she just will follow you and sit and stare at you, like she is trying to send you mental messages, "I have to pee!" And she has the bladder the size of Texas, so as you could imagine, there was a LARGE wet spot on the carpet. I wanted to wake up early to have a little quiet time before waking the kids and take a shower, because I had a dental appointment 30 minutes away (more about that later). So, it takes me 45 minutes to clean the carpet up. A high point to this was that the kids and I got Glenn for Christmas SHAMWOW! Have you seen the commercials on TV? The highly absorbent towels?! Well, they really work!


Cleaning the carpet really made us run late. I get the kids going and tell them that I have to go take a shower before you leave, because I have to be ready to go after they head out for school. Then, they ask, "can you and Daisy walk us to school?" How do you say no. "Of course we can." Now, let me explain the weather on this glorious Monday morning. FOG and drizzle. Why even do your hair? We finally get out the door, but I think that the kids probably were tardy. Daisy and I head back home to rush, rush, rush to eat breakfast, feed Daisy, brush and floss, breathe...., and get going to the dentist. Not just a dentist, and endodontist.


You ask, "what is an endodontist?" A dentist that works on the INSIDE of the tooth. That should give you an idea of what my glorious Monday morning was like. It was chilly and I drove through the very thick fog to Temple, which is about 25 miles away. It seemed like every road that I needed to be on was under construction! I finally found the place, wasn't too difficult. Walk in and the place was an ice box! So, it is already cold outside, then walk into that. I fill out the multiples "new patient" forms and cover up with my jacket! One of the office clerks came out and turned on the space heater! She said, "wow it is cold out here." I won't tell you what my mental response was.

I forgot to say why I was seeing an endodontist. I had a root canal done about 13 years ago. I was having some pain and some cold/hot sensation around that tooth, so I went to the dentist. She recommended an endodontist, because her clinic didn't do root canals. And she wasn't sure if it was the old root canal or possibly a new one. Fine. Moving along.....my appointment time was at 9:00 AM. I look at my watch many times. Tell, me, why make an appointment, if you are not going to be seen on time? To me that says that the doc believes that my time isn't as important as his. Which is always a turn off. So at 9:50 AM I get called back to the even more freezing room. I keep my coat to cover up with and they bring me a blanket! Are you kidding!? FINALLY, the doc comes in at 10:10. I am not in the mood for small talk; I am getting to the point pretty fast. He is cutting into my day!

So the endodontist does a couple of tests on some teeth that might be giving me the problem. This includes tapping on them with a metal instrument and applying the coldest of cold substance via cotton swab. The minute he said "cold stuff", I knew it was going to hurt.....and it did. So, after x-rays, tests and discussion, the conclusion was that there was a pocket of infection at the base of the root in the tooth that I had a root canal done. You are probably asking the same question that I did, "how do you fix that, if the tooth is sealed?" Do you really want to know?

First let me say how unnatural it is to have someone's hands in your mouth with metal drilling instruments. They gave me the very lovely protective glasses to wear, then the dentist applies some numbing gel. What is the purpose of this stuff? It doesn't numb?! Then the needle for the complete face numbing medicine. He does two area on the outside of the tooth, then says, as he begins to inject the roof of my mouth, "this is going to sting a little bit. Take a deep breath." Do you remember the last time that I heard those words? I do!!!! Just before I got the hot lava shot in my foot! A little sting nothin'! So, a needle in the roof of your mouth sucks. I will say that the shot in my foot was much more painful. Now the doc leaves while the numbing medicine makes the left side of my face sag to where my chest used to be!

After a few minutes the technician came in and needed to isolate the tooth. She held up this blue rubber thing with a metal clamp in the middle. "Have you ever seen a dam?" At this point I didn't want to talk to anyone and I don't care what the dam is. So, this metal clamp wraps around the tooth the the dentist is going to work on and the rubber material is attached to a metal frame of some sort that keeps my mouth open. The rubber material is to keep debris from choking me! So, because the rubber dam is covering my very open mouth, there is no way for the tech to suction; I do my best not to choke on my own spit. I'm sure that I had drool running down my chin, but I couldn't feel it!

Then the fun starts! What the dentist has to do is drill through the crown into the root canal, pull out the material that was stuffed in there, then cram some kind of medicine to get rid of the bacteria and put on a temporary filling. As the drilling began, I just closed my eyes, because, really, what do I need see? The light, stuff flying out of my mouth, the drill, NO! I just tried to find my Happy Place.........Happy Place...........I couldn't my Happy Place!!!! I just kept my eyes closed. It seemed to take forever to drill. Really, the tooth isn't that big! He finally got through the tooth and began pulling out the "stuff". My jaw was hurting, my lips were chapped and my neck was hurting. The whole process took about an hour and $275 later.

He gave me two weeks worth of antibiotics and some Vicodin. I told him, "I would just take some Motrin or Tylenol." He said, "just take the prescription, just in case." I filled them. The left side of my face stayed numb for a very long time! When I began to get feeling back, that tooth started to hurt. When I knew we were home for the night, I took a Vicodin. I had never had Vicodin before. WOW! I only thought I was drooling when I was at the endodontist; when that hit me, everything just stopped. I had the best sleep EVER.

I have to go back in two weeks to re-stuff the canal and seal up the hole in my every expensive crown. What a Monday.