Gloom, despair, and agony on me

Gloom, despair and agony on me-e!
Deep dark depression, excessive misery-y!
If it weren't for bad luck I'd have no luck at all!
Gloom, despair and agony on me-e-e!

How many remember the show Hee Haw?

[Side note to FSIL II, Megs, Bird, and FSIL I: No, Ron Howard (Opie, Richie Cunningham) wasn’t in it, but he did direct Angels & Demons and appeared on David Letterman’s Top Ten the other night…but that’s another story.]

Thank goodness for modern medicine and chemistry. Let me explain.

About a month ago, I went in for my semi-annual tooth cleaning. So far, so good. However, they did find one small? cavity. I returned a couple of weeks later to have it filled. My teeth were a little sensitive from the prior cleaning. You know how it is. Everything is fine until they clean away the build-up (scum) from your teeth, then it feels like you have a cavity in every tooth!

The gal is swabbing the pre-deadener before the dentist comes in to give the real deadener — the syringe with the 3” needle. I’m not certain which takes effect first: The pre-deadener or me passing out from the sight of the needle. (I prefer to keep my eyes shut — tight!) As she is doing so on the bottom left side, I mentioned, I thought that the cavity was on the top right?

She must not have been sure, because she starts to probe again on all my other teeth. After consultation with the dentist, they determine that it was written down wrong as tooth 22 when it should have been tooth 2.

As I get the cavity filled, I must not have been able to keep my mouth open wide enough. They place some kind of 2” rubber spacer on my left side for me to bite down on. I feel a little “twinge” on the left side afterwards.

A few days later, the left side of my mouth starts to hurt and I get a pain up the jaw and into my ear. I’m thinking that it might be an ear infection and my sinuses are plugging and causing pain down in my teeth on the left side.

So I make an appointment to see the doctor. He's filled up for the day. They asked if I liked anyone else that is available. I get the nurse practitioner. I tell her that my left ear is hurting. She looks at it and says, It is red inside. She looks at the other ear and says, But this one is worse.

Go figure.

So she writes a prescription for an antibiotic. That was on Friday.

I’m doing okay, until I go to take the pills with a drink of water. BAM! Gloom, despair and agony on me-e!

Pain shoots from my left jaw up to the ear. This wasn’t no earache! I just found the #1 diet remedy. Don’t eat (because it is too painful) and you can’t help but lose weight.

Monday, I contact the dentist office.

[I must make a sidebar note here: This dentist has two German twin sisters that works for him. No, I can’t tell them apart – let alone cut through the accent to understand what they are saying. I think it was 3 years before I realized that there were two of them, because I never saw them together. It was cs that filled me in. No wonder I couldn’t carry on a conversation with them. They must have been tag teaming and trading off as they helped the dentist. I’d have a conversation with one when we started and when we finished, she acted like she didn’t know what we were talking about. It would help if they would wear different colored pajama style uniforms too. Course, I wouldn’t notice because I would have my eyes shut waiting for that 3” needle.]

On with the story.

When I called, I gathered through the accent the time and don’t take any pain killers so that we can run the tests and tell exactly which tooth it is that is bothering you.

I get there to run the tests. She tells me to open wide and then…she takes a metal like pencil instrument and starts tapping on one tooth at a time. Does that hurt?

We get no specific results. On to scientific test #2: The cotton swab soaked in cold water test.

First tooth, nothing, Second, nothing. On and on, until BINGO.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how did that feel?

I’m thinking, German or no German, if I punched you in the face would that let you know, but I reply, 8.

But wait, the next one is a 10.

At this point I’m ready to drill them both, or better yet, get some pliers. (I once saw FSIL II’s favorite actor, Tom Hanks, use a coconut and an ice skate in Cast Away.)

But they sent me home with some Lortab, until I could figure out which one it really was.

That night I got it figured out — by using scientific test #1 method.
Yesterday, I got the damaged fixed. One root canal surgery on the back molar. I’ll save that episode for another time.

Things went well and I’m feeling much better except…they’ve got me so pumped up with antibiotics that I can’t sleep, because I’m sweating the dang infection out of me and I've found out what the #2 diet is: Antibiotics and food.