Pain is Temporary... and Repeating

[Editor: This was written on Wednesday and apparently not posted, so I am posting it again tonight.]

I was planning on writing about some of the good stuff in this entry, but then some more "stuff" happened. So I am going to talk about that stuff, and my tooth, again.

You'd think that a temporary crown would stay on for the three or four weeks until the permanent is ready, not just fall off after four days while eating dinner. And then come off again four or five days later while eating lunch. You'd think that, but you'd be wrong.

So this week, while eating lunch, the crown came off again. I had just taken a bite of a piece of boneless chicken breast and found myself biting into what seemed to be a piece of chicken bone. I proceeded to spit the pieces into a napkin and took a drink of ice water to clear my mouth. that's when the pain really started.

I mentioned last time that the uncovered tooth is extremely sensitive right? Well, it still is.

As soon as I could I called the dentist. I was in pain and already pissed off, a great combination... Their response was "We can get you in tomorrow afternoon." This didn't help me calm down.

After much talking, and surprisingly little swearing, I got them to fit me in that day, about 2 hours after the crown had come off. This time they said they used a stronger cement and that it should stay on now. I didn't go off about how it should have stayed on in the first place.

What I did ask was if I should make an appointment for next week already. Even though they chuckled I don't think they thought it was funny.

[Follow up: As of tonight (Sunday) it is still attached and holding.]

Pain is Temporary

In my last post I said "the vast majority" of the goings-on over the past couple of weeks have been good. But that still leaves a few things that weren't so good. And if you keep reading you are going to hear about one of them...

Last Friday night I broke a tooth, one of my molars to be precise, and while it wasn't very painful most of the time if I was careful, it was a bad break and had to be dealt with. They managed to get me into the dentists chair early Monday morning and they started work on it. Because of how bad a break it was (about 1/4 of the exposed tooth was gone) there wasn't much they could do except start work on putting a crown on it.

Lots of impressions, and much drilling and grinding later they had finished all the prep work and put a temporary crown on the tooth while we wait for the permanent crown to be ready. And we all know how pleasant it is to be a dentist's chair and have them drilling and grinding away on your teeth.

We also know what the word temporary means.

In this case temporary didn't even live up to the few weeks it was supposed to stay on. It came off last night while I was eating dinner, exposing the raw tooth and the "dental tubules" which act as open pathways to the nerve. Needless to say, IT HURT! And I had to deal with it being like that all night.

To the dentist's credit, when I called them this morning they got me right in and got the temporary crown reattached. Good thing they got me in that quick, too. Until the crown was back in place I couldn't eat or drink anything because it was too sensitive. I couldn't brush my teeth either because I couldn't even have water in my mouth without intense pain.

Hopefully this time the temporary will last until they put the permanent crown in place.

...

I'll try to talk about something pleasant next time.

I'm still here

So much for my plan to make sure I posted at least once a week, preferably more. I have had a lot going on since my last post, and the vast majority of it has been good. I'll fill in you in soon. For now I mainly want to like people know I was still around and I'm sorry I have been lax in posting.

Hopefully you will understand why once I get going again. In the meantime I will try, as I said above, to make sure I post at least once a week, preferably more often. I guess it would depend on whether you get lots of short posts or fewer posts, but each of which will have much more to say.

How about it, which would you prefer? I promise to read* all comments and suggestions.

* and quite possibly ignore

My "Happy Canada Day" post which doesn't actually mention Canada

Well, it is official, I have a bit of sleep apnea. It isn't too bad, but I still need to sit and talk with my doctor about what we can do about it. I'll let you know how that goes. I just hope that they don't want me to go through another night wired up. I'm pretty sure that someone other than me would end the night in a lot of discomfort.

If the techs put all the short cables on so there barely reach around me, let alone to the control box, I might end up punching someone in the chest.

But on to better things... I have been travelling a lot lately.

On June 11th I went to the southern edge of the state for a Powwow. (Not really that far, but I am only starting.)

The following weekend (June 18th) I went up to Maine for my friend Laurie's birthday party. I'll leave it up to her if she wants to say anything about it (or which birthday it was) in the comments. I will say that it was a very good time and it was good to see people I don't get to see often enough. It was especially good to see Laurie having a good time.

A lot of the evening and into the night was taken up with people just sitting around talking and having a good time hanging out. Although we did take a break from talking to watch the fire spinner playing with her poi. It certainly didn't hurt that she is a very cute girl.

Last weekend (June 25th) I went to New York (state, not city, Binghamton to be specific) and had a wonderful time. When talk of the trip first started (back at Rites of Spring, see earlier posts here and here) it was brought up as a chance to see Sol Dog but it soon became much more than that. And by the time the trip actually happened I was going to see someone specific and the two of us were going to go see the band together.

The only thing which could have made the weekend better is if my brother, Smulch, could have made it to the show as well. (He doesn't have a website or I'd link it.) Unfortunately thing seemed to conspire to keep that from happening.

And now this weekend I am travelling again, back to New York. If I can get in touch with Smulch in time I will be heading to see him on Saturday and then to Binghamton for the rest of the weekend. If I can't reach Smulch in time I will just head right to Binghamton.

I know I will see Smulch in August, but it would be nice to see him sooner if things work out.

I do miss you, brother.

...

A couple more quick things before I close this post out:

At least one of my readers should get a kick out of this... Somehow I am currently the number one result for "Ricardipus" on Google Check it yourself.

I found this out through StatCounter, which you may have noticed in my sidebar. It isn't a bad utility, but if anyone can suggest others I'd like to hear about them. I know I'd like to have the stats, but I have not settled on a particular service yet.

Last and almost certainly least, once I have the time I will be playing around with the site design through CSS. I almost have the template finished so that the layout will be completely controlled through CSS. It won't be the CSS Zen Garden but then again, what is really? So expect the look of the site to change drastically sometime in the foreseeable future.

Peace.
Your weary, but happy, traveller.

P.S. Is it any wonder my truck is in the shop? It least the rental is covered by my extended warranty along with (most of) the parts and labour.