What a Week

I know I haven't contiued my "story" from my earlier posts, but I just need to whine a bit about the worst week on record. First last Saturday the 17th was supposed to be a great day. My son's friend who had recently moved away was arriving and later that day I was going to a family reunion on my husband's side. Both sound quite pleasant and I was looking forward to it all. Well, sometime in the afternoon while waiting at the sirport for my son's friend one of my molars on the top right side of my mouth started to ache. I have had some trouble with this tooth before and I figured I would take some Ibuprofen and it would settle down. It didn't and only got worse as the day went on. Later that day I was going to be driving my son and his friend to a Major League Baseball game in a nearby large city. A light in my car had been indicating that I had at least one tire that was low on air so I decided I had better take care of it before heading out on the freeway. Mind you it was about 90+ degrees andf humid that day amd my tooth was aching something fierce. I pull up at my local gas station to fix the tire pressure. It was a nightmare, I was hot and agitated and the thing just wasn't working right so I decided it was best to leave this job to my husband. So I get in my car and crank the air and slowly start to leave and I hear a crunch...OMG I had hit something. There was a metal guard rail type thing ahead of me where I had parked. I couldn't see it from my rather tall SUV. Ok, frustrated I go home and call hubby who is still at the reunion...no biggy he says that is what insurance is for. I am now very relieved that he wasn't mad and went and drove my son and friend to the baseball game. I went back to the reunion and helped clean up and went home. I took some more Ibuprofen and added some tylenol also. This seemed to make me more comfortable and I went to bed. Sunday morning I get up to a raging toothache. I really do not know what to do at this point and the over the counter pain meds are not working and it is gettng much, much worse. I email the nurse online at the hospital to see what she thinks. I know that ER's do not want to handle this type of thing and the best I can hope for is stronger pain meds or shot or something. By this time I am beside myself in pain. The nurse writes back and say I should try their urgent care center and gives me the number, but also says that I can come to the er if needed. I call the urgent care place and the rudest nnurse tells me that hey do not do tooth pain...ok. My husband is worried and he starts calling every dentist in the book who says they have emergency service and leaves a couple of messeges. An hour goes by and I cannot take it anymore so we head for the er. I sign in and take my seat knowing full well that the er people hate this sort of thing, but I am desperate. No sooner had we sat down and my husband's cell phone rang. It was his dentist and he was out of town, but thought his associate would be able to help. She could and said she would meet us at the office in a half and hour. I was so happy to tell those not so sympathetic nurses that I was leaving the er to see a dentist. We go to the dentist which is very traumatic for me, but I have to go no choice anymore. Dr. Emily was very nice and happened to bring her husband, also a dentist to help. They checked me over, xrayed me and quickly decided that I needed a root canal. So they went about it. Of course I have to have a complication. There are 3 canals in a molar and after searching for quite sometime they could not find the 3rd. It was possible that I either didn't have one or that it had already died. So she left my tooth open and made an appointment to come back wednesday to finish the job. She assured me that my pain should be gone. I was so numb that I couldn't even close my right eye, but no longer in pain so I went home. When the numbness wore off I was in a tiny bit of pain, but nothing I couldnt handle after what I had endured Saturday and Sunday. I went about my business until Wednesday and returned to the dentist. She worked and worked and even got th "boss" dentist in to try, but never did find that last canal. They decided that since I had had braces before that it was possible that when that tooth was moved it killed off that missing canal so she gave me a tempoary cap and sent me on my way. They wanted to leave it for a few weeks to see what happens. Well that night when the numbing wore off I was in more pain than ever. I called her and she got me some strong pain medicine and said that sometimes that happens and if it isnt better by Friday I should call. Well it wasnt better it was worse. But 2 more lovely things to complicate my life happen on Thursday ....my 12 year old daughter went to an amusement park with my husband, son , son's friend and a friend of hers...I get a call in the afternoon from hubby who says daughter's glasses fell off while riding a huge roller coaster and there is no way to find them...ok great I will call eye doctor right now and get a replacement pair...problem solved. That night after everyone got home and we all went to be after midnight somebody broke into my husbands truck parked and locked in our driveway. The funny thing about it was that the only thing missing was the knobs that controlled the heat and air conditioning. Husband is stumped, perplexed and a bit paranoid wondering who would steal just knobs. Is somebody trying to send him a messege? There were plenty of other things in the truck of value...why knobs? Later that day I spoke with my neighbor and she told me that her husband's car had been broken into and that they got the stereo. Now my husband is a bit relieved knowing now that the thieves wanted the stereo and not some criptic messege to be sent to him..he is so funny sometimes. Long story short there has been a few of these break-ins in our neighborhood so we now have a neighborhood watch system in place. More work to do, but necessary.

Back to my tooth problem...I will finish this quickly. I ended up in so much pain and now a swollen cheek. They put me on strong antibiotics and more pain meds and then tried to get to the bottom of the problem...digging and digging in my poor tooth. I was at the dentist 5 times in 12 days. Swelling and pain in cheek just wouldn't go away! I finally realized what may be going on. This goes back to my back surgery story that I havent finished yet, but it has been determined that I am allergic to titanium. The screws they put in my back for the fusion were made out of it and I turned up allergic. Very rare I may add. This metal was considered a god send to surgeons because of the low allergic value. Well lucky me. Anyway it dawns on a friend of mine when I am telling her about my root canal saga. She said do you think all of this might be caused by your allergy?...light bulb moment here. They have been numbing my mouth numerous times with long metal needles and shoving little metal saws into my tooth to kill the root...metal over load. This is why my cheek is freaking out and why the antibiotics were not working....pain persisited until they stopped probing. So here I sit now with a temporary cap on the tooth giving it some time to calm down before they try again. I have had a little bit of pain from the tooth so they may need to go at it again one more time before I get my crown.
Ok enough whining...that story was almost 2 months ago and I finally finished it today. My luck has changed a bit since then. I really thought I was stuck under a dark cloud. Oh by the way because I had that minor fender bender my car insursance is going way up. God forbid we ever use the stuff (insurance).
Luck is so good these days I am going to play the $200 million + powerball lottery tonight. Mama needs some money to pay for school.
Wish me luck!
Bye for now.