Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Give me some sleep...

So I called the dentist yesterday morning, and when they said that they just couldn't get my new crown any earlier than 3 weeks from last Friday (I'll be in CA then, so I'll have to wait an extra week to get my shiny new porcelain tooth), I started to cry on the phone. Which made me realize just how uncomfortable I've been the last few days. Crying. On the phone. With the reception lady. Aw-kward! She insisted I come in to get checked out. I scrambled to find childcare...and again cried on the phone with my friend. Hi! I'm 4 years old! I cry when I have an ouchie! Pass the Boo-boo bunny please!

The children were bored and restless and aggravating yesterday. Understandably. I dropped them off at my friend's house at 4:45 with apologies streaming. Went to the dentist. He took an x-ray and shook his head and poked at my mouth and shook his head and sighed a lot and looked very grim. He thinks that taking the old crown off pissed my tooth off pretty bad. And the kind of nerve pain that I'm having usually can only be fixed by...removing the nerve (a.k.a. root canal). Um, excuse me? The whole reason I let you pry my crown off was to AVOID a root canal. This tooth has caused me exactly zero problems...ever. And because there was a tiny void at the base of the old crown, we have inflamed and enraged this stupid nerve so we may have to go in and kill the tooth after all. Lovely. I left with a referral and a script for Vicoden. I am to wait until Friday if I want to see if the pain gets better. Lovely.

I ran back to my friend's house, because she had to leave for a Daisy's meeting. I drag our crying kids out of her Fun-house and back into our Not-fun-house. Jeff was waiting for us, dressed for fencing. My eyes are puffy from tiredness and crying and the kids are back doing their chase/tackle/wrestle/cry loop. Jeff asks, "So what should we have for dinner?" because he needs to leave for fencing in a half hour. He's not asking me to make it, just asking what he should make. And I told him I needed to be alone for a little bit. And I went in time-out in my room and listened to the chase/tackle/wrestle/cry loop going on downstairs, and listened to Jeff yell at them and just calmed down a bit. When I re-entered the fray a few minutes later, Jeff offered to stay home from fencing. After just 15 minutes with them. So he did. And we went to bed early.

And that was good, because Michael was up from 11:15-12:15, Lily was up from 12:30-12:45, then Mike was up again from 2:00-3:00, and Andrew jumped in bed with us at 6. I really was wishing for the Vicaden...not for pain, but for the inevitable deep sleep that even children cannot wake you from.

And now I'm so tired, I think that I'll just go ahead and ask for root canals for ALL my teeth. Because that should take at least a day, I'll be given lots of strong pain meds, and then I'll never have to worry about this again, right? Pop crowns off, tattoo them, drill them...you'd never feel a thing. Sounds lovely.

This is just THRILLING, isn't it? And just for perspective...it's a friggin' tooth ache. And yesterday they pulled a man out of the Haiti rubble, alive after 14 days...IN THE RUBBLE. Seriously. I need to get a grip.

2 comments:

Emily said...

This sounds awful. Tooth pain radiates through your head, and the head is, you know, kind of central for the whole body. I'm so sorry, it really sounds like a painful experience and that the process of making it better isn't going to be roses.

And that's the hardest part about being a mom - that when you don't feel well, you just have to figure out a way to make it work - you don't get sick time to recover, just grin and bear it and get through the days. Hang in there and I hope you feel better soon.

CARRIE said...

I am a whiner, as you well know, so let me say that just because someone was pulled out of rubble in Haiti doesn't mean that your pain doesn't hurt. I'm sorry. Wallow in it.