Dry Socket Haiku
my two dry sockets
taste like wintergreen and clove
vicodin is grand
eugenol and gauze
yikes! those are deep, painful holes
interrupted smile
Dry Socket!One!11eleventyshift1!
This is why I haven’t posted for a while. I have been in more or less screaming agony for most of the week because after I had those teeth out, I immediately developed the dreaded dry socket, only I wasn’t sure I had one at the time. Or, if we want to be truthful- Two dry sockets at once.
I went back to the dentist yesterday and found out that indeed, those protective blood clots in the sockets had never formed. It must be my thin blood. I’ve always had thin blood, despite good nutrition. I think it has something to do with my celiac disease as I’ve read that people with celiac are often deficient in Vitamin K. I would suppliment but Vitamin K is something I don’t want to fool around with. I guess that’s more reason to have yet more coffee- I’ve not been drinking my coffee lately as I’ve developed quite a taste for tea. I suppose I could do green tea though. *ponder*
Anyway, I had the orignal packing out yesterday and nearly wet myself. Then the dentist called for the dry socket packing and I understood why I’d been in such pain since Monday. This dry socket packing is quite tasty, being a gauze soaked in wintergreen, clove oil, and aspirin. It was not such a tasty experience having it in yesterday. I thought I was going to scream. I know he was trying to be as delicate as possible but it felt like he was trying to shove it into my brain. The sockets were very raw. 
I made marks on my right palm that only disappeared this morning. I also had the packing replaced this morning- and the experience was much less agonizing than yesterday. I also hung out with both of the assistants before the dentist arrived. It was fun but very sad in how well I’m known there. *heh*
Ah yes- the trees. I had promised to mention them. When we went to Spring Hill, we decided to get a redbud and a whitebud. We’ve been wanting a redbud for years and liked the looks of the whitebud. Those trees have been planted in very strategic spots to improve the view- we’re tired of looking at the neighbor’s nasty back yard. Those trees only grow to a maximum of 25 feet tall, so they should screen the view nicely.
Speaking of trees- I am going to kill the neighborhood scum who came into our yard again and destroyed all of the new growth on our golden chain tree yet again. We had 6″ of new growth on it, it’s been around for nearly 6 years and, thanks to some neighborhood twunt or twunts, it’s barely over a foot tall. Last year, someone took some pruning shears and snipped the new growth off. This year, the nasty fscks seem to have simply kicked the tree until they snapped off the top. Why that tree and only that tree? Because it’s at the corner of the yard, albeit 20′ in but is only checked weekly? I’m going to get you, you little shits. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but I will find out and when I do, you are going to pay, pay, pay!!! 
I think I know who you are. I will have my revenge.
Dental Horror 5 of ?
I got two hours of sleep last night. I spent the entire time looking up things like dry sockets, greenstick fractures, and other complications of tooth extraction to feed my compulsive need to scare the holy hell out of myself before any major health-related procedure. I learned a few useful things I didn’t know- like the half lives of various dental anasthetics and why epheniphrine is needed with all but one or two current anasthetics- makes ‘em last longer. But mostly it was just to horrify myself because I’m stupid that way.
They gave me the nice orange Valium pill after I got to the office. I love you Valium- you keep me from amputating my left fingers by yanking them off in anticpation of pain… and in reaction to the high-pitched whine of the drill. Then I read Shogun a little but didn’t make it to any of the exciting bits before I began to doze. Saw my father who’d gone in before me to have a filling replaced and he hugged me for luck. They purposefully took another patient before me because they knew I wanted the gas, which was awfully nice as I was still hating life despite the lack of sleep and the tranquilizer.
When they called me, I was the last person in the waiting room. I told the girl that I wanted to be so tanked on nitrous that I didn’t want to know my name or whether my mouth was actually my own mouth or not. I said I preferred my mind somewhere either in the region of the ceiling or the Land of Out to Lunch. She laughed and put me on the gas. I got a goodly amount of nitrous before the dentist came in and deposited all of the very formidable-looking instruments he planned upon thrusting into my mouth in the very near future. Then, just as I was coming off of a buzz (as an aside… the nitrous seems to have some sort of cyclic action going on for me. I’m sure if I google it, I’ll find out why) he came in and gave me at least seven shots. None of them in the eye this time 
Then he let me marinade for a while, came back, bringing the assistant that I quite identify with, and gave me about seven more shots- I didn’t feel any of those.
Then he reached for the first shining implement and yanked the posts out of my mouth. “Shit!” he said. I really hate it when he says shit because you don’t know if shit means 1) “Shit! that was hard to remove.” or 2) “Shit! Look at the mess. I have also managed to break things off in the socket and it will require a pry bar to remove”. I’m a little hazy on the order of what happened next but there were several pick-like things shoved into the cavities where the doomed nubbins of my teeth dwelt… to widen the openings so he could get in there with those heavy pliers I went on and on about yeserday. Then, with the assistant supporting my lower jaw, he took a hold of the first tooth and yank! Drew it. Then, he got a hold of the second tooth and yanked it out with a huge crack. And I felt that maybe something had come out that he’d not orignally intended to come out with that tooth.
It turns out that the roots of one of the teeth had calcified to the bone and about a quarter inch long by the same wide by possibly a sixteenth of an inch thick triangular piece of bone came out with it. But at least he got all of the roots and the bits and what not at one go. I got to inspect my teeth and, wouldn’t you know it? One of them was abcessed. I have two sutures an I don’t know how much packing got shoved into the wounds but it was a lot. I kept my bone. Technically, it should have been disposed of as biohazard material, but dammit- it’s my bone and I’m going to make something out of it. Morbid- probably. Gross? Maybe to you . Disturbed- enh- personally I find it about as disturbed as keeping your appendix in a jar of alcohol. But I guess most people wouldn’t carry their appendix around with them. 
Hey- that’s some of the rarest, most expensive ivory there. *snort*
I’m in a crapload of pain. I have Vicodin but it doesn’t take much of the edge off… unless I take one and a half… shhhh- don’t tell. I’ve been prescribed twice as much, so it’s not like I’m afraid of ODing but that’s not the amount I’m supposed to be taking. If it still hurts like this, I’m calling him tomorrow and asking if I can take double and see if he’s willing to write me 16 more pills to tide me over until my next appointment on Thursday.
I’d like to stay and talk about my new trees but I have to go ice down my face again.
Dental Horror 4 of ?
Where to begin… where to begin?
Innocently eating a very soft, slightly refrigerated brownie and drinking lukewarm, nearly room temperature tea today, I experienced an explosion of staggering pain that rivaled my worst days with IC. The pain actually affected my vision, it was so forceful. I fumbled for the freezer and grabbed a cold pack, sobbing with the pain. I then knelt, bent over the love seat for five minutes, alternately wailing in agony and mumbling every curse word I knew in a low growl. Eloric convinced me to let him call the dentist, who was not to home right then. But about half an hour later, the dentist called back and I arranged to meet him at his office in 15 minutes- basically, I brushed the brownie bits off of my teeth and left with the cold pack jammed into my cheek.
We arrived just a few minutes before he did. He put me in the chair and hunted around for a bib holder for a few minutes, muttering that he didn’t know how his “girls” could manage to hide things like that. Then he says to me “Well, I hate to say it, but I think that your teeth are probably fractured near the tips of the roots. It shouldn’t be bothering you like this.” So he took another X-ray and we talked about how I’d gotten hit in the face with that box of 8pc bags nearly 2 1/2 or so years ago. Maybe it was even three… I can’t be arsed to remember that right now. The film developed and he brought it in. Sure enough, he pointed out two hairline fractures of the roots, snaking there in shades of grey, like diabolical smiles. And that signaled my defeat.
Guess what I’m having done tomorrow? I’m having two teeth pulled. Yay! Yay! Yay!
.
.
.
Sorry there. I choked on my sarcasm.
God. I’m having two teeth pulled… shit… TODAY. It’s today now. *faint* Like some idiot, I asked him to show me the pliers that will extract the two wretched nubs of bone from my aching jaw. It was like being in the Tower and having the instruments shown to you to frighten a confession out of you. But I had asked to see them, damn my lust for train wrecks. They looked like a pair of shining, stainless steel, slightly curved wire-strippers. Fsck all, fsck all, fsck all! They’re going to be in my MOUTH. My mouth. Not someone else’s as I hear their own personal dental nightmare later but actually in MY mouth. But he assured me that it will be easier than the bloodbath of a few weeks prior to this. And actually, the bloodbath was cake because I had no freaking clue as to what was going on in my own mouth.
But I will get Valium and gas and he has promised to jam that needle into my eye six or seven times so I will be good and numb. That’s good but I really don’t even want to know my own name by the time the shining pliers of doom reach for the festering remains of my bicuspid and er.. lateral incisor? Anyway, whatever the hell you like to call them, they are dead teeth chewing. Or rather, not being chewed on because of recurring bouts of lesser but still quite fantastic pain despite Vicodin. I’m sure this will be plentifully amusing in about two weeks, provided I don’t have dry sockets. I’m probably in the right time in my hormonal cycle to make those more probable too… but I don’t care because as soon as I got home and found the Vicodin working only partially, I’ve decided that enough’s enough and I will do my very best not to fear the pliers.
What I do fear, however, will be the gaping hole in my er… toothscape after the posts and nubbins are removed. I am already hearing the strains of Dueling Banjos in my head. Pray that I do not form a fondness for Larry the Cable Guy *throws up a little*, ATVs, spandex, or trashy romance novels. I’ll be getting a bridge but it will be a while as the swelling goes down and the dental lab makes the thing. I’m not even sure how one can keep food from going under a bridge but that’s what google’s for. I’m sure it’s easily understood and my narcotic-and-pain haze is just clouding the logical part of my brain.
Ah yes- and I added a brushset to A-T.net. If I get sparking, there might be another one by the time I go to the dentist. I need to distract myself.
Erotiku ;)
Though there are some who’d call me a prude, I just prefer to keep my more sensual side out of the public eye. Therefore, it’s not often that I celebrate it here or to anyone but Eloric. However… that being said- why not Erotiku? *snort* It’s as good an excuse as I can create at this time in the morning. 
fragrant litany
skin against skin… lock the door
time becomes timelessthe eye’s silken look
pale moon on a peal-like brow
her face is heavenmusk and opium
drunkenness I have longed for
in one gentle touch
Dental Visit 3 of ?
The dentist only took an X-ray. *whew* 
I was very apprehensive as he had me in the room without the gas and I’ve found that nitrous actually has some analgesic properties or something like them at any rate, and I very much prefer to be tanked as high as possible before he jabs that needle into my eye. So he took the X-ray and when it came back, he showed me where the abcess had been. Damn. *!* I had been reading them backwards all along and I must say that the abcess was larger than I had orignally envisioned it. I’d estimate (though I can do it bugger well at this time in the morning and on painkillers, with an icepack held to one side of my nose, trying not to vomit all over the keyboard from the nausea) it was approximately 2 to 2.1cm wide by 1cm in height. Bugger if I know how deep. I about shat myself. No wonder it was interferring with my sleep. This is one case in which I’m glad there are such things as antibiotics.
Oh, and I’m back to researching opiophobia. Not because of myself at the present- my pain is either nil or managed, in the case of the dental surgery- but because of past experiences and people I know. Pain management here is medevial. Thank you War on Drugs, cultural stigmatisim, and holier-than-thou people and health care professionals. May raidoactive, invisible, mind-controlled fire ants attack your genitals. Repeatedly.
Friday we are going to the Spring Hill Nursery- yes, the one from the catelogues- to look at trees and assorted other plants for the yard. We still need some landscaping for the cottage and I am hoping to get another birch tree. Of course another birch tree. 
I collect them.
Other than that, I thought I might mention that I am heavily considering joining OBOD, the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids- for the formal education, if anything. I’m too tired and nauseated to discuss it more now.
Collective Overhaul
Nothing much to say today other than I’m overhauling and skinning my collective as it’s time for a spring theme. I still like the other though, hence the skinning- I put in a heck of a lot of work on that layout.
And I have yet another dentist appointment tomorrow. I’m not sure what horror is in store for me then. I’m just glad that I stopped my Elmiron because I do believe I’d be a geyser of blood, otherwise. Two weeks ago, I’d have been a extra in a B horror movie. Extra gore. *hurl*
:X
…
not motivated
today just isn’t haiku
perhaps tomorrow
cats, 
