Honest to Eris, I have no idea where the last week has gone. It's been really hectic and I've gotten all kinds of things done. I'm still working on adding all my old favorite websites to this new computer, and seeing what kind of things it can do. So far, it's frikking amazing. Meanwhile, I have to figure out what to do with the old one. Most of it I could give away to someone who wants a monitor or whatever, but the tower is not going anywhere. Besides the fact that it's infected beyond belief, there are things remaining in there I'd just as soon not share with the world. I saved all the wordpad documents to disk and to the laptop, but I had to leave a lot of things behind. I'll get to those sooner or later.
I also had my final showdown with Bank of America. I've been waiting for the chance to drop them like a brick, and that day finally came last Friday. My intention was to close my accounts and while doing so get off my chest how dissatisfied I've been with them for several years now. However, the nice young lady who helped me, Marissa, is really sweet, and was always cool to me whenever she was the one fielding my issue du jour. So I settled for the satisfaction of being done with them and just took the high road. It was enough.
*****
Due to the graphic nature of this portion of the post, reader discretion is advised. Really.
Generally speaking, I'm pretty durable. I've fallen out of trees and never broken anything. I had horrendous bicycle accidents when I was learning to ride those darn things, and never got more than a bloody knee. I've survived two major car accidents with little more than a pair of concussions. So overall I'm pretty hard to injure. But I do have an Achilles Heel, and that would be my teeth.
They've always been fragile. I'll admit upfront that I haven't always been the most diligent in caring for them, but the truth is it's never made any difference what I do for them. I could brush six times a day and floss for hours on end, and they will still break, chip, and fall apart. It's always been that way. And they've been the bane of my existence for the last fifteen years.
They got worse during the Dark Years of the 90's. By the point of the worst of the worst (late 98), they were a mess. This is a subject I've long since resigned myself to, so it doesn't embarass me to admit it. By the time Guinevere met me, they were already well on the road to ruin. My top front six teeth were the worst then, aesthetically speaking, even though they didn't hurt at all like some of the others did. They just, for whatever reason, started to give way along the gum lines. Even when I got those fixed, they started to do the same thing again almost immediately. I was horribly depressed about them, and I always did my best to hide the damn things, which is why no one hardly ever saw me smile (well, it was one of a couple reasons). I don't know how successful I was in hiding them, but nobody ever mentioned them to me (at least, nothing was ever said to my face, nor did anything said behind my back ever get back to me), even people like Jayme who weren't the most tactful.
The second time I got those fixed it stuck, somehow. But by then the rest of them started to destroy themselves in a more serious way, and they've been picking me off one by one by one ever since. I held them at bay for a while, but Christmas 2003 through mid-January 2004 was one of the most trying times of my entire life, not to mention one of the most relentlessly painful. There was one Sunday in the middle of it, after I'd gone to see Elaine Brown (local dentist and infamous tax-evader), after she made the problem worse with a prescription to something that caused and allergic reaction underneath my tongue, when my folks came up to see me ... and I was little more than a ghost. I was pretty much a dead man walking. And not long after that I went through with a decision that changed my life (for the better) and set me on the course I'm still on now.
The Christmas flare-up knocked me down hard -- hard enough that I went back to see the one man I'd completely sworn off, the guy who I believed had screwed me back in 98, the one man I was most afraid of in the entire world: Elliot, my old dentist. I don't know if you know him at all, and I have no idea who Colleen saw in the Greenfield area, but he's kind of a strange guy. And back in the mid to late 90's I think he had some personal problems that might have affected things, too. But I swore never to go back to him again for two major reasons: 1) in September of 98 I had a tooth go south, and it needed a root canal, but he treated it like a cavity and filled it as such, and three days later I thought my head was going to explode with the single worst pain I've ever felt in my life; 2) he kept putting off and putting off fixing my front teeth, which I was *desperate* to have done, because he kept talking me into fixing other things first, and by the time we got to the fronts my insurance was completely eaten up, and I ended up owing that office a great deal of money. I was convinced, at the time, he'd done that on purpose.
But I was knocked out so completely during that Christmas that I was absolutely desperate, and I let my mom call him, and I went back. And it was then that he proposed the radical idea, and I said yeah, because I could see which way the wind was blowing here. But I had to make sure my mom was going to be ok with it, because even though I was totally convinced it was the right thing to do, I don't think I could have done it if she wasn't going to be on board. And he even had her come in so he could talk to her himself, and he convinced her. At that point I made the appointment for late January. The problem that arose in mid-Janurary, resulting in the Elaine Brown mistake (also borne out of desperation) was an unrelated occurance, but it was also a sign that my enemies, my own teeth, were ramping up the assault. After near to five years of relative peace and quiet, they were now trying to kill me.
I had that appointment in late January. I was a little concerned about it, because it was a big step, but I was nowhere near as nervous as my dad, who went in with me and spent the whole time pacing the waiting room floor. While I'm not uncomfortable opening up this subject, I'm still not going to be explicit about what exactly I'm talking about. If you figure it out, great; if not, great. I wrote about it in the Joyride, without being explicit with the details, but I emphasized the intensity of the procedure, and let me tell you, folks, it was some intense. It hurt, too. But I've always been pretty tough in these circumstances. I've had a deep-seated fear of all dentists since I was little, but when I'm there I can tough it out. Afterwords, it took me a little while to adjust to what was done, but I believed then and do now that it was the best decision I've ever made. Period.
The next flare-up was in early 06. I think it was January again, too, but I'd have to check the NHJ archives to be sure. This one was an abcess that had been bothering me at least since Thanksgiving, and as I tend to do, I put it off and put it off until it was freaking murdering me. The pain of that tooth was turning me into a shadow of myself, but somehow I still made it in to work every day. It takes a lot for me to miss work, always has. I finally went and had the problem removed, and that experience is immortalized in my infamous "river of blood" post in the Joyride, because as it turns out, I'm a wicked bleeder and it would just not stop coming. It was like a volcano that keeps on pumping out that lava everywhere. I think it was worse in that way because it was a bottom tooth, and a molar to boot, so it all just pooled up and went everywhere. I wasn't ready for that, and I didn't know how to properly take care of it then, and the crater became infected. The condition is something they call 'dry socket', and it's horrible. That hurt even *worse* than the tooth did (and this is #2 on the overall list), yet somehow I still made it to work everyday, even though I was in massive agony and pale as a corpse. I thought it would go away on it's own, and when it didn't I called Elliot's office and begged them to take me in, which they did that same day (I'd finally called out of work). I felt so much better on the way home that I was actually singing along to the radio, and I never do that.
Things were quiet again until this past Christmas. A bottom tooth on the other side had collapsed months earlier, but it only flared up here and there, so it was manageable ... until late evening on Christmas, when it really started to hurt like a bitch. In the grand scheme of things, the pain from this one was really just an uncomfortable ache that wouldn't let me sit still, and it really wouldn't make the top ten list of the toothache pains I've suffered, but I won't downplay that it really hurt and was really annoying. That got me back to Elliot yet again. I figured with that taken care of, I might get a little break now.
Which brings me to this week. I was eating a piece of toast on Monday (a piece of freaking TOAST), and I bit down on it and heard something snap in my jaw, below the tooth, a millisecond before I felt the massive, intense pain that followed. I knew what the feeling was, having felt similar before. It was root canal kind of pain, where you can't even touch the tooth without enormous pressure squeezing your head like it's in a vice. I was at home because it was a holiday for us at Rugers, and I called that office again seeking help. No waiting for weeks this time. The pain was much too fierce. But they couldn't get me in until Thursday afternoon. Oh man. I had no choice then, I had to try and tough it out. I bombed the pain with a liberal dose of Ibuprofen and just camped out on the couch watching Friends on dvd. As rough as this pain was, I can't put it higher than 4th on the all-time list. It wasn't worse than the root canal mistake 98, or dry socket 06, or the complete destruction of January 04. But it did hurt a whole lot, and I wasn't sure how I was going to make it through three ten-hour shifts between then and that appointment.
A miracle happened and I woke up Tuesday morning feeling ok. It did flare up here and there throughout the day, but it would always recede and give me some respite. I was still taking the pills, but in smaller doses than during the dry socket incident, during which I was taking five Ibuprofen an hour, on the hour, for days, to try and kill the relentless scorching pain. I'm sure that didn't do my liver any good, but I was willing to cross that bridge when I came to it. I'd have done anything to make that horrifying pain go away. This time, though, I could keep it at bay with less.
Until yesterday. I don't know what happened. I think maybe I bit down on that tooth in my sleep, but I woke up and it was screaming bloody murder. It hurt so much it was trying to climb the list past those other incidents. It didn't, but it tried really hard. It was massive, intense, and untouchable. No amount of pills would put it down. And I went to work. What choice did I think I had? I don't have any vacation time yet. I don't go to work, I don't get paid. But I should not have been there. It was a walking disaster. I tried, though. Everyone could tell I was not myself. The lights were on, but nobody was home. I was determined to make it through the end of the order we were working on, but I was pretty sure I was leaving right after, and let Barney know. Just to be clear, they weren't dicks about it. I could have left any time. I was just trying to be a good guy and finish something.
The final straw came quick. It even hurt to talk. Anything I said vibrated that fucking tooth and made it hurt worse. Then I was saying something to Barney and my tongue sideswiped the tooth and I'm not sure how I didn't break down in tears right there on the production floor. That's when I knew. I finished the order, and just before 7:00 AM I said to Barney, "Ok, I'm throwing in the towel." And I went home with the intention of calling that office back and begging them to take me in that day. The thought of having to make it to the afternoon of the next day was unbearable. I lucked out. They could get me in at 2:30.
I killed a few hours on the couch again, watching more Friends episodes, and mercifully the tooth lightened up on me for a while. I made it to Greenfield, had the appointment, and Elliot and I continued on with the longterm plan. And again, this being on the bottom like before, it was another "river of blood" situation. I left with a large piece of gauze clenched between my teeth, blood staining all the rest, and I looked like I'd just come from the Cannibal Jamboree ... which made stopping to get gas a little more interesting than it would have been if I'd had the foresight to buy it before the appointment. But it was over with. I knew I'd be sore later, because it was a difficult appointment, but at the time with eleven shots of novacaine in me (I counted), I wasn't feeling bad at all.
The difference was apparent today at work, because I was feeling great. I was animated and funny and happy to be alive.
But I know the rest of them are laying in wait. They're all ticking time bombs waiting to attack.
I'm almost mentally ready to finish it.
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