A Trip to the Oral Surgeon

As I was saying last night, before I was so rudely interrupted by pain-killer sickness . . .

Two-and-a-half weeks ago I went to the dentist for the first time in about seven years. This is not because I am so terrified of the dentist that I avoided going until my mouth was falling apart. Actually it was lack of insurance and the tremendous cost of dentistry that kept me away, but the result was the same.

A few years ago my back left tooth broke. Seriously—a chunk the size of one of my kids' baby teeth broke off. I was pretty stressed out about it at first, but it never hurt, and I mostly didn't think about it after a while.

Then, during my last semester in school, my lower left gum got a black spot ("It's the black spot!") and a big, old boil on it, and my third tooth got kind of wiggly. I was pretty sure this meant an abscess, so I looked it up online—even found pictures that looked just like what I had—and yes, I was right. This wasn't terribly surprising, because that tooth has given me trouble since before I had my braces, and has had three surgeries during it's little life. But I couldn't get it fixed yet.

So I had Bruce give me a blessing and I did a few things I knew from having my jaw surgery way back when, and hoped nothing terrible would happen. After a while the blister popped (while I was brushing my teeth) and a bunch of goo leaked out. This happened every other day for a couple of weeks, until the bubble just went away, my gums looked mostly normal, and the tooth mostly stopped wiggling. Which was good, because I was in the middle of my fashion-show craziness, and didn't have the time or money to deal with it just then.

So the green arrows point to the little wires that held my jaw in place after my jaw surgery (when I was 16). I drew black outlines around the teeth on the left side to make it easier to see where all the happiness was taking place. You can see that the naughty, bad tooth has never had a normal root like the others. The tiny white spot on the bottom of that tooth is where I had two "root canals" done. (Actually the dentist says that tooth never had a root canal—which makes sense since that tooth has no root to speak of. But after my second surgery on it I got a T-shirt that said "I survived root canal surgery!" So it must have been a similar procedure.)

Well now we have some insurance—a "health savings account" actually. So I finally went to the dentist. Yay! I told him that I had a slightly wiggly tooth, he looked at my x-ray and said, "I bet I know which one." Yes, I had an abscess and some infection in there. But before we dealt with that he wanted to put a filling in the broken tooth. So two weeks ago, Wednesday, they shot me up with ten shots of novacaine and not only filled that tooth, but built it up so it doesn't look broken any more. Coming off of the novacaine was miserable. (I've decided that since I never have any drugs stronger than two over-the-counter ibuprofen in my system (and even that's not very often), my body just can't handle anything stronger.)

For two weeks I had a low-level ache in my head and jaw that gradually dwindled as time passed. The dentist looked at that tooth again yesterday, and it turns out the new bit needed to be ground down a little so my bite would work right.

After that was done, I went in to the oral surgeon where I would be put to sleep and have my naughty, bad, abscessed tooth removed and my mouth prepared for an implant. Again, I'm not scared of that kind of thing, but I am scared of getting a needle stuck in me–which was the very first thing they did; they gave me an I.V. to deliver the sleep-inducing drugs. I was a very good girl, and did not cry, or wriggle or anything. They said I'd feel drowsy in about 40 seconds, and I guess they were right because the next thing I remember was my father-in-law helping me into his car. (After he took me home he picked up my prescriptions and brought me some flowers too. :-) )

These are not my flowers because my camera is still missing; but they are like my flowers.

The worst of it all was coming off of the drugs and being on the pain-killers yesterday. Severe dizziness and nausea every time I tried to stand or sit up! That, and being super hungry (which increased the dizziness and nausea). Today my mouth hardly knows anything different happened (except my tongue can feel there's an empty spot that hasn't been there since I was twelve), so I will avoid the pain medicine like the plague that it is. And in a few months I will go back for a crown and my teeth will be better than they have in a while.

Hooray for modern dentistry!

X-Rays Are Cool!

Having your mouth worked on . . . not so much.

And I will have to try this later, because I'm feeling very dizzy and nauseous all of a sudden.

Silly

Do you ever, sometimes, have a perfectly good day—get a lot done, feel pretty happy, enjoy your family—and then, just before bedtime you feel completely let down and have to cry?

And then do you wake up the next morning still feeling out of sorts and wanting to cry? And then you get lost and stuck in road construction for an hour trying to find an address and then make your way back home? And then you have to go to the dentist and get a tooth filled?

I'm not afraid of the dentist or dental procedures; I never have been (unless I was too little to remember). I had so many things done to my mouth in the first twenty to thirty years of my life that it's kind of hard to scare me off now. So I don't think it was the actual visit to the dentist—or the anticipation of it—that's caused this sadness. And, as expected, everything went fine. They gave me a half dozen shots to numb my mouth and later, when I could still feel my chin, they gave me another three (which I felt). The work on my tooth went fine (didn't feel any of that!) and now I'm home—albeit with a totally numb mouth. Standard. Painless.

Nevertheless I feel pretty sad.

I want to be consoled.

For what?

I don't know.

Maybe it's just knowing that no one is going to give me a hug, listen to my experience (mundane as it was) and tell me what a brave girl I am.

Silly.


And (by the way) my camera is still lost. I think it's a hopeless cause. Maybe that's the trouble.

Hair Day

I don't know yet if it's a good hair day, or a bad hair day; I just colored my hair and it's not dry yet. Me dyeing my hair is nothing new; I've colored it a lot. It's had blonde highlights, it's been red, it's been brown. But for several years now it's mostly been red—it would have saved me a lot of trouble if I'd just been born with red hair, because I love it!

I was born a blondie.
(Check out the cool car in the neighbor's driveway!)

This is close to what it looked like until I was probably ten or so. (It's a little reddish-looking because it's an old picture.)

This fabulous picture, apparently taken when I was half-dead first thing in the morning, shows my real hair color by the time I was a teenager. (I bet this was Christmas morning.)

And this is about when I first started coloring my hair—at Wendell's prompting.

Lately I've been thinking that it would save me a lot of trouble if I'd just go back to my own, real hair color—no more dyeing. (Although I am getting a few gray strands, and I'm not ready to go there yet. So I might still keep playing with the color.) Anyway, while I was at the store yesterday with Brandon and Ryan I told them to help me choose a color that was close to my real hair color. Brandon (age 16) says, "I have no idea what your real hair color is." Ryan (age 15) agreed. So I told them to look at the two to three inches of new growth since the last time I colored; that is the real color. My nice teenage boys humored me and we picked "medium rich brown."

And this morning I did it; medium rich brown all over my hair. I even dyed my eyebrows because . . . why not? I just finished showering after doing the whole hair-color process. It looks dark! Which means I may have come fairly close the the truth here. I'll have a pretty good idea when it's dry.

Sadly my camera is still missing! I have this picture in my mind's eye of it being about a foot down, right in the middle of the kitchen trash that went out four weeks ago. Oh man! I really hope not! But this means you'll have to wait and see my "new" hair color in person. So did I have a good hair day or a bad one? We'll see.

Chaos!

I wanted to post pictures with this blog, but I can't because my camera is lost in all the chaos of redecorating. My house already looks like it's been ransacked, so it hasn't helped me much to ransack the house in search of the camera. :-(

But I'll tell you what I'm doing anyway.

First of all I had this wonderful idea that I should paint the railings in my house black instead of white. It was a really good idea, because it looks amazing. Unfortunately I also had the idea that spray-painting them would be cheaper and easier than using a brush. Not only that, but since it would be very difficult to remove the rails, I decided to do it while they were still in place—right smack between my kitchen and living room. I will tell you right now that a person who decides to spray paint anything in the middle of the house is a dork and should probably be shunned. OR maybe they are a dork and should be pitied and helped in any way possible.

Anyway, I draped the living room off with lots of plastic sheeting and began spraying from the kitchen side of the world. And guess what I did? I didn't even think to turn off the fan blowing from the hallway. So one can of paint later I had 90% of one side of the rail painted, and all the paint that dried in the air settled all over my entire kitchen. Clean up took about an hour.

The next day I got marginally smarter—just a little—and bought more plastic and was more careful in my draping, and turned the fan off. Two cans of paint later I still had a lot more to finish. On the third day I did amazing things with that plastic sheeting (I really got to be an expert in draping off the house) and used up another one-and-a-half cans of paint to finish the rails. Finally. Except the next day I found some spots that were missed. Urrrgh!  Was it cheaper? No. $19 for the spray paint and $15 for the plastic; a can of paint would have been about $5, and a sponge brush is only about 50 cents. Was it easier or faster? No! I wouldn't have had to do so much draping, and it probably would have only taken one day if I'd brushed it on. Does it look fantastic? Well, yes. It does.

Once that was all finished, I cut the pieces for the kitchen floor (a full day's work) and put them in. It looks all right—too bad I can't show you a picture. :-(

Then I was ready to start on the kitchen counters. But before I could do that I had to fix some leaks under the sink and in the faucet. It turns out that I'm no good at plumbing; everything I touched broke. So I called my brother Gregory and he fixed the faucet and the shut-off valve that I broke. Unfortunately the next day there was still some leaking, but Greg was at work so I called my father-in-law and he fixed it. Yay! Now I could get to work on the counters.

Day One: The first thing I did was remove the kitchen sink. (Since there's no photo, you will have to imagine a big hole where the sink should be.) This gave me major deja vu, even though I've never removed a sink before. Next I finished sanding and washing the counters, and finally I could put down the black primer.

Day Two: Today was painting day! I sponged and painted on my counter colors and, I have to say, it looked pretty darn good.

Day Three:  Top coat. Twice. And I am done with the Giani products.

Now I had to decide whether to use marine spar varnish over the whole thing. I'd read a few countertop finishing sites and blogs that said this was a good idea. Marine spar is supposed to be fairly heat-proof and, obviously, waterproof, and very tough. After discussing with Bruce, I decided to do it. Now the one blog that really persuaded me to use the marine spar said that the varnish was thick, "like honey," and needed 24 hours of cure time between coats. What it didn't say was that it has a yellowish tint, but I'm OK with the color; instead of whites I have golds. Not exactly what I had in mind, but it still looks good.

It also didn't say that it's impossible to put the varnish on without leaving brush strokes behind. That's not so OK. I did my absolute best to not leave brush strokes, but . . .

After four days of curing (and an entire week with no kitchen sink), yesterday I still had to put on another coat of spar varnish, and I was feeling pretty irritated about the brush strokes. So I got online and started looking up tips on marine spar. And guess what? All the woodworking people (not the cute little moms who paint their counters) say that you need to thin the varnish by 15% with mineral oil if you want to brush it on smoothly. And also that, once cured, it's nearly impossible to sand out the brush strokes—and yes, they need to be sanded out. Well, that would have been nice to know. I sanded and sanded and sanded and got nowhere. So, in irritation, I slapped on a much-too-thick final coat. This means it's going to take longer to cure. Arrrgh! 

Well, besides having no kitchen sink, and not being able to use the dishwasher (and washing dishes in the bathtub for a week—rednecks!), everything that I normally keep on the counters is on the kitchen table. So are the rice-cooker, the electric frying pan and the crockpot—my current cooking devices because the stove is also pulled out of place and sort of out of commission while this project is in force. The dirty dishes are piling up on the table too, hidden amongst everything else. I can't really put anything back on the counters until they are completely cured, and who really knows when that will be? My big plan is to bring a card table into the kitchen and put all the extra stuff on that so we can use the kitchen table again. I'm thinking this will last one or two months, just to be safe. But I will go ahead and re-install the sink, probably tomorrow, because it's getting kind of ridiculous. (By the way, removing the sink was probably the easiest, quickest part of this entire project. I anticipate that replacing it will be equally simple. I hope.)

Oh, and did I say that the ceiling fan/light has been removed? I was taking down the fan blades so I could clean them and Bruce thought that would be a good time to hang the fan correctly. It's been loose since we moved in, and every time the kids run the fan I'm pretty sure it will fall down on someone, chop off their head, and smash their brains in all at the same time. So fixing it is a pretty good idea. Unfortunately, Bruce couldn't finish that project before he had to go out of town this week, so here I am with only a half-lit kitchen and the light fixture/fan sitting on the living room floor. (I'm not a plumber; not an electrician.)

On top of all that, my peaches are ripe and falling all over the ground. Seriously, we've probably lost more than 200 peaches. So this week I've been picking peaches and then going to Melanie's house to do my canning.

So, yeah. We are in utter. complete. chaos. And my camera's lost.