Wednesday, May 8, 2002. Entry #146

I'm in pain again.

I sat in the dentist's chair for two hours yesterday, as he finished up my root canal.

In a way this one wasn't so bad. The two parts I hate most - getting freezing needles and the drilling - were blissfully short this time around.

I mentioned last month how much it normally takes to freeze my mouth, but this time only one injection was needed, and my jaw was frozen solid by the time he finished. It froze so fast, in fact, that Dr. Ed was worried he had struck a nerve in my jaw.

(This actually happened to me when I was 23 or so. The needle struck a nerve in my jaw and I lost all feeling in my tongue. This is called paresthesia, and is a risk with any kind of dental work. My dentist at the time, Dr. Jerk, told me that it might take six months to get better, or it might never. Luckily, it was the former.)

As for the dreaded drilling, only a small amount was required to get rid of the temporary filling from last month. The rest was filing and poking - painless by comparison! I got a little jumpy when he did pull out the drill at one point, but it was a special one for smoothing the inside of the tooth, and I couldn't hear or feel it in action.

I nearly fell asleep in the chair a bunch of times. I know I caught myself snoring once or twice.

On the other hand, sitting motionless in an uncomfortable chair for two hours is never good. I guess my mouth must be small, because I always need a 'bite block' to make sure there's enough room for him to maneuver, and it always leaves my jaw aching for a couple days.

Plus it hurts. Nowhere near as last month, but it still hurts. Anytime you have someone doing work on your teeth, your nerves are going to bitch at you about it later. Damn, damn, damn. I'm becoming a total wuss when it comes to teeth pain. A little twinge and I'm all mopey.

Oh, and the roots of my molar are 25 millimeters long, rather than 24 as previously reported. I have freaky long teeth.

Some halfway good news about this though. Although we're getting screwed regarding Lisa's health coverage (they're refusing to cover prescriptions, because of the amount of asthma medication she takes, and no eye care either, because I need corrective lenses) they are paying dental, and it just started coming through. So if I'm lucky, I won't have to pay all of the hundreds of dollars I will need to fix my bad English teeth. We both can get our teeth cleaned and cavities filled.

Whew.

On Angel: Well, little Connor is all growed up and hates his Daddy. Bah. Big fat hairy deal. While we're happy we don't have to see our favorite creature of the dark schlepping around a toddler while fighting the forces of evil, we still wish there had been a better way to handle all this. Like feeding the kid to something with lots of teeth.

I love the fact that my spell check has the word 'schlepping' in it. Heh.

One Year Ago: The hiatus continues. I thought about posting today, I think.

Mom Rating: 4.5 out of 5. Mom's happy about most of this. Except that fact that her genes probably added to my problems.

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Take me home, big fella