Schedule Change

Wow!  I woke up in the middle of the night with the most horrendous tooth pain that radiated to most of the left side of my face.  Ugh. 

I haven't been taking any pain relievers since Sunday because of the scheduled video taping of the inside of my tummy...  also known more harshly as the ERD scope procedure thing.   My patient instructions specifically said no NSAID pain relievers, such as Motrin, aspirin, blah, blah, blah, so forth, and so on.  And, being a stellar patient (stop laughing), I have been following instructions.  It was fine. No big deal. Maybe a little uncomfortable now and again, but totally bearable.  Until last night.  Actually, until this morning.  I managed to get back to sleep last night.  But then...  morning arrived.  Getting up was a real challenge.  My tooth, my face, hurt. Even my forehead and head were starting to hurt.  It took REAL effort to drag myself out of bed and go to the kitchen for coffee. 

(HA!  Coffee!  That was an entirely OTHER disaster, with an overflowed new coffee carafe and a huge, 12-cup mess to clean up!)

Anyway, the point is, I was in pain.  So....  when I got to work, after being near tears on the way there, I called the dentist, and the person who answered the phone mercifully said "can you be here in 20 minutes?" 

You bet your butt I was there in 20 minutes.    As it turns out, the filling and the tooth had cracked, thus causing the resurgence of pain.  Brandon tilted the chair back, and got out the needle loaded up with Novocaine.  The plan was to numb the area, and try to pull the tooth.  After a couple of shots, my face was getting numb, so he tried to push on the tooth to see if IT was getting numb.  It was not.   So, out came the needle again, and I got a few more shots, and he tried to push on it again.  Again with no success.  While my FACE got really numb, the tooth got a little numb.  Eventually, we thought it was numb enough to give it a try, so....  he tried to give it a tug.  I felt it.  OUCH!  

Long story longer, he stopped, and called an oral surgeon who will use IV sedation and will extract the tooth more painlessly for me tomorrow morning at 8:00.  Now I just have 12 more hours or so to freak out about it. 

Thankfully, I have prescription pain medication to help me get through those 12 hours.