Toothiness: part 1 over and done with

The offending tooth is now out of my mouth and in a little manilla envelope that is currently on the washer. This all happened on Friday. I went in kind of scared and came out a little shock-y, that despite the extreme kindness shown by the dentist and her assistants. (Oh, and I followed the advice of KAH to observe my breathing without trying to control it. I wore my super noise-cancellation headphones. Those efforts both helped tremendously.)

One of the freakiest parts to me, at least, was how easy it is to take a tooth out if you know what you're doing. Shudder. Nothing like what you see in the Saturday morning cartoons.

I came away with some high-tech material stuffed into the empty space, apparently a good surface for the bone to attach to when it starts growing (which appeals to my geeky side). I felt like I got expert care and expert advice on after-care.

For the first hour after I got home, I was instructed to stay busy taking care of myself. For the rest of the day, I got almost nothing done. I felt like I went into a tiny depression with typical symptoms -- lack of focus, lack of interest, lack of energy. Then yesterday, I caught up a little with everything I was going to do on Friday, but I also took a three hour nap.

And today, we went to a party, and I started fading a few hours into it. So we came home and had dinner and here I am. Tomorrow, I go back to work.

The plan is to let this heal 1-2 months and then see the implant guy for a consultation. After the implant happens, I need to wait 4-6 months before I get the crown.

Then I'm done, unless, of course, some of the other cracked teeth advance so that they're beyond repair. I'll have some preventive work done on those teeth just before Thanksgiving and then cross my fingers.

I don't particularly recommend any of this; on the other hand, it's nice to know that there are trained professionals nearby, ones I would trust with this procedure, should I need it again.

health update

I got a letter today from the Breast Health Center saying that my breasts are good to go for another year; I seem to have been booted out of the risk group for now. It's always good to get a report like this.

The state of my teeth is not so good, alas. They are dazzlingly clean as of today but the Tooth in Question is scheduled for extraction a week from today. I don't seem to have done anything wrong; in fact, I'm doing a lot right. However, I developed a bad crack and the tooth cannot be saved. Or perhaps I developed a small crack that went unnoticed until it became a bigger crack.

During today's folding, spindling, and mutilating exercise, a few more cracks were found. Some landed on the "watch list" but two are bad enough to warrant extraction of the current fillings and likely some high-tech bonding replacement (I'm guessing) in an effort to save those teeth. It sounds like this whole episode will take around six months to resolve.

I will be taking my Bose noise-reducing headphones with me to future appointments and concentrate on some of the breathing tips suggested by KAH. And I'll probably shake anyways.

As a side note, my hygeniest was just mortified that I'll be losing a tooth and kept saying how sorry she was (despite having lost a tooth, herself, under similar circumstances). But somehow, it seems far less traumatic to me, on a lasting basis at least, than other possibilities.

in. out. repeat.

I've been thinking about writing a post concerning breathing. I have a lot of breathing disorders in my family history. I'm in fairly good shape -- I can swim a mile without stopping, for example. But get me vertical and out of the water, put me on a steep enough incline, and the heavy breathing starts -- you'd think I hadn't moved for the last eight years. Either that, or I'm channeling an anonymous phone caller who's up to no good. I think it's weird and just a little embarrassing; after all, I do exercise regularly but I sound like I don't.

And then lately, I've had some adventures in medical land.

Yesterday, I had one of my twice-yearly mammograms. That's the procedure where they use cold hands to put your nice warm breast on a cold plate and then they squeeze really hard with the other cold plate, hard enough to cause bruises sometimes. Then they say sweetly "don't move," which means don't try to breathe in and out of the pain because we'll just have to start over if you do. So I try to stand very still and hope that they're quick, which they were yesterday.

Usually I get results on the spot because I'm in an "at-risk" category. I suppose I'm at risk, but I've also been told that they're "just being careful" and there's really nothing to worry about -- standard procedures and all that. I opted not to wait yesterday because there was someone who had already been waiting for her results for two hours. I should hear something in the next ten days. And if I need to be called back, well, there's a month's wait for that (as opposed to being taken "right away" had I chosen to stay). I'm assuming it's nothing beyond a little aggravating.

And then this morning, I decided that the tooth that's been merely annoying really needed to be attended to today. It was getting worse, not better, and the ibuprofen that I'd been using to manage it seemed not to be helping as much as it was yesterday.

So this morning, I called and called my dentist. No answer. I went by his office. Locked. I went by my husband's dentist (just down the street). A sign on the door said they were closed due to a power outage and to go to his office in the next town. I drove to the next town but couldn't find his office. I finally wandered into another dentist's office and ended up talking to the actual doctor. I told him my sad story and he offered to see me right away. So an x-ray and some scientific experiments later, he decided that I had an infection and that I needed a root canal.

Somehow, there was a cancellation at the endodontist's, so off I went. She was really nice but after she folded, spindled, and mutilated, she said that it wasn't worth doing a root canal -- I need to have the tooth extracted and replaced by an implant. (Sounds very high tech to me).

And how did I behave in her office? Like a baby. They kept saying "try to relax" and "think about a place you'd rather be". And I'd try to breathe deeply, as I was taught (and re-taught) to do. I'd get a few breaths into it and then try to concentrate on not hyperventilating. I appreciated the reassurance, but I couldn't keep myself from shaking. Clearly, I need to get used to all this, given that I'll be seeing dental specialists for a while.

And I will practice my breathing, even if I'm not very good at it when I'm upright.

you know it's been a good vacation when...

... you forget your password at work. whoops! In a few hours, I go back to work after three weeks of vacation. The office has just moved, so today I need to find my new desk, unpack my one pathetic little box and figure out how to get a new password, amongst other things. I expect I'll be wading through a lot of emails too.

We've been home about 36 hours. So far, we've done mountains of laundry, thrown out loads of junk mail, paid bills, slept in our own beds for two nights, gone to the farm for a pickup, shopped for groceries, talked to our mothers, made a first attempt at catching up with email, and have come close to erasing the combined volcano-tornado that seems to travel through the house when we come back from a trip. Oh, and Robert went to work yesterday for a few hours; more on that in a bit.

And yes, the vacation was wonderful. I've been a little slow in writing just because there's so much to say and there are so many pictures to select from (over 1000; Robert claims that a quarter of them are of cats). So I'll say a bit here and then more later. With that, some highlights:

• When we arrived at our hotel in Athens, we realized we were directly across the street from some ruins, so we went exploring and found the Temple of Zeus and Hadrian's Arch, with the city roaring all around us. Several times walking around Athens, we'd stumble on a preserved site, protected from modern life, but out on display. In fact, it turns out that the subway has several stations with museum-quality exhibits to admire while you wait for your train.
• On our first day, we headed to the National Archaeology Museum of Athens, which we picked almost at random from a list of many tempting sites to visit. What a treat. We spent a lot of time in the Mycenean area, where they've arranged the displays beautifully and helpfully. Later, we visited Mycenae and the museum at the actual site, so it all fit together well. One of the huge ka-thunks of this day was finally realizing how much the Greeks and the Egyptians interacted. So I felt like our trip was a follow-on chapter to our trip to Egypt.
• On our last day in Athens, we spoke to someone who invited us to see a brand-new exhibit connected to the not-yet-opened new Acropolis museum. It was small and stunning, presented as an archaeologist might see it, with all the exhibits in sand.
• We ate outside almost every single day, usually in a quiet spot such as a pedestrian-only square. Overhead, we typically had umbrellas or grape arbors or trees. The food at the tabernas was fresh and delicious.
• Nearly everyone spoke enough English to get by and many signs were in both English and Greek. I was delighted to be able to sound out most words in the Greek alphabet, but I felt like a five-year old as I'd proudly read words to Robert. I also learned a few Greek words, including maxillaria for pillow. Those of you who've seen my bed at home understand why I needed to learn that word. It seemed to delight hotel staff that I did know the word.
• There were high winds for the boat portion of our trip, which forced our captain to change our itinerary dramatically. Still, we went to great places, including Hydra, a car-free island where most heavy transportation is done by donkeys who can walk up and down the staircases carved into the streets. We also went to Kea, where we hiked along a mountain path to visit a huge statue of a recumbant lion.
• Then on the bus portion of the trip, we visited some very moving sites -- Mycenae, Corinth, Olympia, Delphi, and Meteora.
• The people on the trip were wonderful. Dancing on the boat was -er- an adventure (the floor was "grabby", the deck was curved, and there were obstacles -- what's that mast doing in the middle of the dance floor?). But the dancing was gentle and fun, we had great musicians and caller, and that part of the trip provided a great way to connect with our fellow travellers.
• Barcelona remains as loveable a city as it was when I last visited 30 years ago. Transportation is quick and efficient. My brother and his family are just settling in. They're working hard and seem to be thriving.
• And coming home was a treat. Our house sitter is careful and thoughtful and leaves an extremely clean camp site. The cats seemed very happy to see us, picking up almost exactly where we'd left off. That means they were treated with great kindness in our absence.
• Oh, and I think I mentioned that Robert verbally accepted a verbal offer for a new job just days before we left. Minutes before we left, he received emailed paperwork that he needed to fill out, sign, and fax back. So the first few days of our trip included a scavenger hunt for an internet cafe (we found lots) with a working printer (some) and a scanner (plenty) that worked (ah, that was the problem). We finally found one on a small Greek island. So we spent part of a sunny afternoon in a dark, smoke-filled room lined with computers. Most of the people there were playing internet games (it was called the Fight Club, after all), and there we were, madly printing, filling out forms, signing them, and scanning them back in. After submitting the paperwork for his new job, he sent in his official resignation letter to his old company. So yesterday was his last day on the job, with a goodbye lunch to come later this week. New job starts on the 22nd. Go Robert!