and what a friday it’s been. another freezing cold day, but this one was filled with all kinds of excitement…way way way too much excitement…
we took dad to the doctor yesterday and they told him that he’d be having surgery on both wrists. TODAY. he had to be there at 8 a.m. kevin and i volunteered to take him. yesterday was a horrible day to be outside, by the way, it had snowed a lot and the snow was blowing and drifting and many streets weren’t clear and it was just plain bad. it all took a long time, but at least we got through it.
meanwhile…i’ve been having some on again off again pain in the tooth that i got a crown on in october. but the night before last the pain woke me up, so i decided to call the dentist. they prescribed me some antibiotics and some kind of tylenol/codeine pills plus an appointment in february for a potential root canal. which didn’t sound fun.
so i got all the drugs and took one of the tylenol/codeine pills at 3:40 yesterday afternoon because the pain was lingering. not horrible, but annoying. i had two back-to-back massages scheduled, starting at 4. they were late, and at four i decided to take a second pill because it said right there on the label that you could take one or two.
i started the first massage at about 4:15, and by 4:30 i was QUITE SURE I WAS GOING TO PASS OUT ON MY CLIENT.
this had never happened before. i was dizzy, i was starting to feel nauseous – DON’T THROW UP ON YOUR CLIENTS! is something i’m sure they must have taught us in massage school. and i kept feeling like i was going to black out. i kept saying to myself “get a grip, grace, hold it together – you can do it! just this massage and then one more! YOU CAN DO IT!”
well, i couldn’t. i didn’t throw up on her, nor did i pass out. i think i did a pretty good job but i can’t really remember it, to be honest with you. but then at the end i told my client that i wasn’t going to be able to give her husband a massage because i might pass out on him.
so they left and i laid around on the couch and felt like i had major OD’d and didn’t understand why. i’ve taken lots and lots of codeine cough medicine…but then again, i always take that when going to sleep, not right before giving a massage. maybe this stuff was stronger…and at least the tooth had stopped hurting…
but then, after about an hour, the tooth started hurting. REALLY BAD. REALLY, REALLY BAD. OH MY GOD IT HURT SO MUCH THAT I DON’T THINK I’VE EVER HAD THAT MUCH PAIN.
if this kind of tooth trauma has ever happened to you, you know what i mean. if it hasn’t, I HOPE IT NEVER HAPPENS TO YOU.
plus, why did it hurt WORSE after taking CODEINE???
very frustrating. it would hurt then subside a little bit and i’d pray that it WOULDN’T COME BACK, but it did…so i finally took Motrin. i think i took two, but i might have taken four, because i couldn’t remember if i’d just taken two.
i talked to amy who said CALL THE DENTIST AND GET AN EMERGENCY ROOT CANAL. she has had THREE of them, and she said it’s not the root canal that’s so bad, it’s the HORRIBLE PAIN beforehand. she hoped i’d be able to sleep, because once, in college, it was so bad that she didn’t sleep all night.
I NEED MY SLEEP.
i took four motrin every four hours, and did manage to sleep most of the night. i got up in the morning and didn’t feel horrible, but then i took ONE TINY SIP OF HOT TEA.
big mistake.
BIG BIG MISTAKE.
it started hurting again and then the pain was UNBELIEVABLY BAD. i called the dentist but their office didn’t open till nine and we had to go out in the cold and take dad to the hospital.
we registered him and then took him to x-ray and as we sat there waiting the dentist called and said that no entodontists were working today. WHY NOT??? but she did find a dentist who did some root canals, and he could fit me in…but i had to be there IN TWENTY MINUTES.
kevin gave me the car keys, i said good-bye to dad, and off i rushed into the cold.
have i mentioned that i hate driving in snow? i hurried as much as i could despite the fact that it terrifies me todrive over 10 mph in the snow.
i got there and they checked me in and pretty quick i was sitting in the dentist’s chair and they gave me the HUGE syringe full of novocaine.
ahhhh…the pain immediately went away. at this point i’d started whimpering quietly to myself, so i can’t tell you how good it felt, even though the giant needle felt pretty bad.
i waited a while, and then the dentist came in and started drilling. drilling and DRILLING and i’d been afraid that maybe he hadn’t given me enough novocaine and a couple of times OH MY GOD THAT’S DEFINITELY A NERVE and i flinched and squirmed and it wasn’t such a fun time.
he drilled and it was loud, but then he used some other kind of HUGE drill, something that made a horrible GRINDING CHOMPING sound, what the hell was he doing? like i said, though, it wasn’t bad except for those few times where OH MY GOD THE PAIN!
i kept trying to take deep breaths, and i decided that you have to have some kind of sadistic streak to want to be a dentist. a sadistic-masochistic kind of thing. sadistic, because you KNOW you’re going to hurt people. i mean, it just can’t be avoided. plus masochistic, because you KNOW people don’ t want to see you. i mean, wouldn’t that suck, having a job where you knew people were DREADING seeing you?
my regular dentist seems to be such a nice guy, too…but somewhere deep inside him is a big SADIST MASOCHIST.
finally it was done. whew. they said it would hurt a little today, but the pain would be better tomorrow.
kevin and i went home and i waited for the novocaine to wear off to see what kind of pain i’d be dealing with. amy kept updating me with dad’s operation – it went much quicker than they said it would, and things were good.
and then the novocaine wore off and it didn’t hurt at all! what a nice surprise. it still doesn’t hurt, but i’m prepared. i’m not exactly sure what i’m prepared to take for it, but dad does have a big bottle of darvocet that he hasn’t been using for his wrist pain, plus kevin has a lot of vicodin left over from his knee surgery…
it seemed to take forever for them to let dad go home. his oxygen level was low, but then finally amy texted me to say they were going home.
whew. all’s well that ends well.
except…the dentist called, and i have a BIG FRACTURE in my root and either i’m going to have the rest of the root canal or they might have to PULL THE TOOTH. i have to go for a second opinion next week.
damn. i’m trying not to think about the whole tooth situation for right now.
oh, and…randy’s brother rick is ELVIS HIMSELVIS and today is elvis’s 75th birthday and ricky is doing a big show downtown tonight and we already got our tickets and mom is dying to GO SOMEWHERE, besides the hospital.
so instead of resting by the fire, off we’re going to go pretty soon, to hear many many many elvis songs.
a very full day. hopefully tomorrow will be more mellow, with no trips to any dentists or hospitals or elvis shows.
oh, and by the way – RACCOON UPDATE:
he definitely ate the vegetable pot pie one night, but he just hasn’t been around so much. maybe somebody around here has been serving him meat pot pie, or something he likes better? the crazy grackles were doing their damndest to peck away at the very frozen pot pie, but they had no luck.
that’s all for today.
friday grace.