Pain: Pt. 4

LOLCAT Weekly Roundup 10, courtesy of Maggie Jochild's Meta Watershed.

Emergency Root Canal

Tomorrow afternoon I'm having an emergency root canal.

Till after it is done and this pain goes away, I'm pretty much off line.

It's been over ten years since I had an emergency tooth extraction. It was an emergency because the infection had gone too far for a root canal, and the pain was so intense I thought someone was beating me in the face with a pipe.

This is rapidly approaching that level of pain, and that's in the face of MASSIVE loads of penicillin, as well as three different pain medications along with drugs designed to ease how the pain meds work. (My pain doc just approved my increasing my major pain drug to almost double for three days.)

Feels precisely like someone is hitting me in the face with a one-inch pipe. (The scar on my left lower chin.) WHAM.

This is what Lower Manhattanite went through back in April. THE FUCKING PAIN... Pain: Pt. 2

I almost drove my car into a fucking bridge abutment back in the late 90s when I had no health insurance and was out of my goddamn head with the pain. I would have done almost anything, up to and including taking my head off, to just.make.it.stop.

I have dental insurance now; didn't then. I had to wait a day or two for the money to be transfered from Arizona from Mom to pay for the extraction, all the while reminding myself I had four children.

People used to die from dental infections (and poor people sometimes still do.)

Tomorrow. Root canal. (No dying, thank you very much.)

Till then, my pain and I are just lying here, watching old familiar DVD's and doing as little as possible. Sleeping even. If you have a genuinely urgent email I might respond. Most likely I'll get back to you Friday or Saturday. Or Monday. Sometime very much not now. If it is urgent, call me.

All Gods and that which can not be spoken of, bless Dentists, therapists of all types, and people who take care of people who are in pain.