As I left off last time I was due for a root canal. Monday was the scheduled appointment, and believe you me, I was early. My blood pressure was a little high as I went into the office. They thought I was nervous about being there. On the contrary, I was thrilled to be there to fix my tooth, but you'd think they'd factor in all the ibuprofen I was taking and the pain. Now, had I known how the procedure would go, I might have been more anxious. Once they numbed me up I was doing ok, until they put a rubber patch over my tooth and mouth and stuck a big rubber stopper in my mouth to bite on. That arrangement makes it pretty hard to swallow, which really did make me anxious. It's probably a good thing that they didn't monitor my blood pressure during the root canal.
I've been quite lucky all my life, the oral surgeon says it's because some of my teeth have 3 roots instead of two....like the one that needed the root canal. As he went into the nerve of each root, it was clear that the novocaine didn't help much in the root. I nearly came off the chair 3 times as he worked. Fortunately, after that, the rest was comparatively easy.
When I got home afterwards, I quickly discovered that not only does novocaine wear off too fast, but that ibuprofen doesn't work very fast. I wandered around the house holding an icepack to my jaw, moaning to myself and Laura, desperately waiting for the ibuprofen to kick in. Laura and her dog, Orion, were both freaking out and Laura had to go to work before I was doing better.
Doing better only meant that the tooth didn't hurt much anymore. In the process, it seems I picked up shigellosis from my granddaughter, Tamra. This is a kid's disease, but it has high fever, vomiting and diahrrea as it's symptoms, which kept up for over 24 hours. Monday and Tuesday I was recovering from the root canal, Wednesday I went to San Antonio for training till Friday. I lost 6 pounds and still do not have much appetite. Tamra's mother informed me that shigellosis will stay around for 4-6 weeks if you don't get major antibiotics. I had ampicillin for my abcessed tooth, but don't think it was strong enough to clear up the shigellosis.
Friday and Saturday we dealt with Laura and Niels' wedding and reception, which all went well. Tomorrow I'll call the doctor to see if I need another round of antibiotics.
Let's see. My tooth is fixed. The pain is gone. My daughter got married. I lost 6 lbs and don't want to eat a lot now.
I know there's a down side in here somewhere.....
Twist
