Previously Unreported

Birthday Festivities

I didn't bother reporting on my birthday evening because, quite frankly, it wasn't worth mentioning. Our plan was to go to the Brown Derby for dinner and then go see Fantasmic. In fact, I made a 4:40 reservation just so we'd be out in enough time to wait in line at the stadium. Dinner was pretty underwhelming. Our appetizers and our desserts were delicious (mmm... grapefruit cake..) but our entrees weren't spectacular, and certainly weren't worth $25 each! I'm not so much complaining. But we used a 50% off coupon and dinner was still $60. This was my second underwhelming experience there - I doubt I'll go back.

As for Fantasmic, it was pretty chilly out. It was drizzling on and off and the wind was blowing pretty hard. The idea of camping out on a metal bench freezing our butts off for an hour before the show just didn't thrill either of us. So instead we went home, piled a bunch of blankets on the living room floor and camped out and watched crappy movies on TV.

The Never-Ending Cavity

For this story, we'll have to rewind about two months. After my root canal at the specialist in downtown Orlando, I had to wait over a month for an appointment with my dentist to do the crown (mostly because they took two weeks off for the holidays). On January 22, he was going to do my crown (upper-right) and fill two little cavities in #18 and #19 (lower left). In the weeks preceding that appointment, one of those bottom teeth had become a little sensitive. So rather than fill both, he "cleaned out" #19 and we were going to see if it got better or worse before deciding whether or not it needed a root canal.

My next appointment was February 5, when it was decided he'd do a root canal. That was the time when he said "come back next week" and I couldn't get another appointment until the 26th. Of course, some time between the two appointments, the tooth really started to hurt. That's when I learned he'd done half of the root canal and would be finishing it on the 26th. So when I showed up at 8 am (grr) on the 26th I was ready for this tooth to never hurt again.

Yes, I know that it sometimes takes a few days to recover from a root canal. I was prepared to take ibuprofen non-stop for another two or three days. What I wasn't prepared for was the absolute agony my mouth would be in. I wasn't able to sleep on my left side, because I would wake up with white-hot pain covering the left side of my face. I was taking 600mg of ibuprofen every 4 hours (the package says not to take more than 1200 in 24 hours, if that gives you any indication). So Thursday I called and they prescribed me some pain killers (since the vicodin didn't do anything but make me high, they gave me darvocet) and yet another round of amoxicillin.

By yesterday morning, I could tell I was a little bit better. I still couldn't chew on the left side, but I wasn't in constant pain that the painkillers weren't touching. Still, I had Scott call the dentist and they were nice enough to fit me in at the end of the day. So they x-rayed the tooth again (and told me what a beautiful job he did). He actually filed the tooth down a little bit so that I can bite without banging it into my top teeth (by the way, this hurt A LOT - he didn't want to numb my whole jaw for 15 seconds of work). He listened to me when I said the first two pain pills didn't make the pain stop - that they just made me high - so he gave me a third prescription. And it seems that if the antibiotics don't knock out what he assumes is the infection that he thought he got out during the second half of the root canal in the next few days, apparently the next course of action is to pull the darn tooth and just put in a bridge. Yikes!

It does feel better. I'm guessing that it is infected and that the amoxicillin is doing its job. Amazingly enough, it seems that my vacation is paramount here. Both the dentist and the hygienist kept referencing it and saying we need to get it all taken care of so I'm not in pain. Funny, I was desperately in need of a root canal on the top in December for that cruise. I was just starting to think that I was doomed to carry ibuprofen with me everywhere for the rest of my life!

I just find the entire process ironic - there I was in January with two little cavities. Here I am in March with one cavity that hasn't even been touched yet, another that's still in trauma, and enough prescription pain killers to go into a black market side business. Scott, on the other hand, goes in to the dentist and comes out with a potentially catastrophic diagnosis on one of his teeth. Three appointments later, he's completely fixed.

But I know that expression that God doesn't give us more than we can handle. Apparently I can - and will - handle a lot. I would just prefer to not handle it in my mouth!