Yeah.
While I was overseas, I had this funny aching pain in the right side of my face – my teeth on that side hurt. I didn’t know why. It was bizarre. Mom and Dad said I’d been under a lot of stress; it made sense that I’d been grinding my teeth in my sleep. So I took some painkillers, and I was fine.
After I came home, it happened every few days. The pain would start, I’d take some ibuprofin. It would go away, and I’d be fine. I tried to will myself not to grind my teeth. (I wasn’t even sure I was grinding my teeth, but that was the easiest explanation.) There was a sharp pain on the top right, if I swished liquid through the teeth there… but I decided not to do that. So that solved that problem. If I didn’t take anything when the pain started, I’d be miserable – but if I took something, no problem.
Yesterday morning I had menstrual cramps – badly enough that I needed to take something. I had ibuprofin, I relaxed, I was okay. Sometime in the afternoon, my teeth started to hurt. So I took some more ibuprofin.
Nothing.
The ibuprofin did nothing.
I got a little freaked out. Head pain, that’s one thing. Teeth pain is something else entirely. Teeth pain makes me think about buying guns. And then the kids came home, and the noise was unbearable. Marty and I decided to run some errands, to get out of the house. We ended up forgetting the method of payment for those errands, so we turned around and came home… and by then, I couldn’t make myself drive anymore. I was in too much pain. I resolved to go back into the house and deal with the noise as best I could until the pain went away.
The pain didn’t go away. It didn’t go away in an hour; it didn’t go away in several hours. Angel came home. Marty went to sleep off his head cold. Angel and I watched television. The pain was getting worse. We found me a hydrocodone and I took it. Half hour later: Nothing. Another hydrocodone – it said 1-2 tablets on the bottle. Half hour later: Nothing. Hour and a half later: Nothing.
By the time the hydrocodone had me drowsy enough to go to bed, there had been no change whatsoever in the level of pain I was experiencing. I was loopy and sleepy now – but the pain was just as bad. Maybe even a little worse. I gave up, staggered to bed. Angel had this funny idea that I might fall asleep despite the pain. I’d never done that before – I’d always done away with the pain and then fallen asleep. But it turned out she was right; I did fall asleep.
For about three hours.
And then I woke up.
I had to pee, so I went downstairs to get another roll of toilet paper off the shelf in the laundry room. Halfway down the stairs, I found myself dizzy. In the downstairs hallway, I found myself tilting to one side. By the time I got to the laundry room, I had to lean on the washing machine to steady myself. I couldn’t keep standing up. I had to sit down.
So I sat down on the floor.
And then I laid down on the floor.
And I stayed there, on my back, on the floor of the laundry room, surrounded by questionable piles of laundry, for a good twenty minutes. Or, you know. Something like that. Because who’s keeping track of time, right? I am thinking, Is this really happening to me? Doesn’t this just happen to other people? Should I yell for help? It’s like, crazy early morning. Who’s going to hear me? Maybe they’ll find me, still on the floor of the laundry room, when everyone wakes up?
After a really long time I made myself get up, and seemed to be less dizzy. I took my newly procured roll of toilet paper back upstairs, and used some of it. Then I fell back into bed.
I half-dozed the rest of the night, in pain the whole time, making pitiful noises. It was somewhat pathetic. I got up at 7:55am and started digging through the internet for a dentist that would see me this morning, and I found one. And I went to see him, and he was very friendly and informative and skillful. He gave me penicillin and darvoset prescriptions, which we picked up nearby.
And tomorrow I have a root canal, at 10am.
That is, if I can come up with $1600. Talk about sticker shock.
Dude, it’s a good thing I’m on narcotics right now. If I’m doomed, at least I’m cheerful about it. Yay root canal!
Tagged as: Blog
Global Feed