Yet another update: Teeth

Ok so I should update on my teeth since I left you all hanging and several people have either called or emailed!

On Tuesday I went back to my dentist to say FIX THIS TOOTH!! That and give me more drugs. On Friday they'd given me 16 Vicodin pills that were supposed to get me until I could get to an endodontist on Weds. Yeah..NOT happening! So I told them I couldn't find an endodontist who would take my insurance AND everyone was still closed from the Christmas holiday. By this time I was in excruciating pain and although the Vicodin wasn't doing much, it was at least taking the very edge off. By evening there were times the pain was bringing me right to my knees, feeling like someone was jabbing a hot poker through my teeth, and every single tooth on that side of my face hurt.

Weds morning I woke up with that side of my face swollen twice it's size, my eye nearly closed, and my nasal septum pushed way over to one side. I was actually contemplating taking a picture of myself in this grotesque state just for the sake of a blog-worthy picture, but decided that would be...well..bad.

As soon as office hours rolled around I called the University of Minnesota Dental Dept of Endodontics and Oral Surgery. They told me I could come in at 1:00. I arrived and sat in an exam room trying not to cry for a good 30 minutes before someone finally came in. This guy told me all he could do is pull the tooth because they're not endodontists. What??? The clinic I walked into said, "Endodontics" on the sign! Turns out that's who I'd called, but the receptionist scheduled me with a dentist. UGH! Anyway, he walked me upstairs to another clinic.

When I arrived there this dentist comes out and says, "Lets rock and roll!" I mumbled through my swelling if I should be worried because "Rocking and Rolling" was not really in my plan at the moment, but a morphine drip sounded great.

Before we even really started talking about the history, he gave me one quick shot of anesthetic to take the edge off the pain. (the decision to do this might have had something to do with the tears constantly flowing down my face.) Finally it was time to get to work. The biggest problem was there was so much swelling in my face there wasn't really any room to introduce more fluid in the form of anesthetic. Eventually it took a nerve block and enough anesthetic to knock down a horse before they could even touch the tooth without it causing more tears to fall. The dentist was incredibly nice and caring, and told me several times we were just going to take our time getting me good and numb. You see, I've had a root canal on the same tooth on the other side of my face without any anesthetic. That was the last time I was in a dentist's chair....15 years ago!

Yesterday I was feeling much better. I still woke up with my whole face and eye swollen, but it wasn't quite as bad as the day before, and not nearly as painful. Today I'm still in a tiny bit of pain (totally manageable with Ibuprofin) with a little bit of swelling, but feeling semi human. Looking back I realized I've been sick for two weeks. During this time my tooth was dying AND I had strep. It's been a long couple of weeks! The week before my tooth went bad was spent in a state of Jet lag, so I've basically been down since Asher and I arrived home. It's time to get this show on the road!

So, back to the real world now. They kids' Christmas vacation has been a lot of mom laying around not being very useful. Well, that an Angela spent much of the week sick as well. Hopefully this weekend I can make up for it a bit by doing some fun stuff with them before they go back to school next week!

Oh, and just so you know, I was able to keep the tooth AND the brand new crown that I had put on in Serbia.