Extraction and bone graft…3 stitches. The pain was minimal, really. The cuff for the blood pressure monitor hurt worse than the extraction. Bone graft (they pour bone powder in and stitch it up) no pain.
Waiting at the pharmacy while a driver with no driver’s license for id wants narcotics—well, annoying. Waiting through this while the numbing agent wears off, less fun.
I am home now with 3 Advil and a Tylenol, and a bottle of codeine if I need it, and it’s just short of noon, from a 9:10 appointment. [25 min of which was waiting for the doc to finish explaining something to a particularly chatty patient.)
All is well. Not ow, yet, but probably soon. For two days I dine on yogurt and ice cream and only iced coffee and oj. Life could be worse. I had an extraction 50 years ago, and that one, yes, was nasty. This was just real smooth, and more uncomfortable than painful.
sounds like it went well. relax and recover.
I’m at the point where I’m ready to walk into the dentist’s office, ask them how much to extract the tooth that’s broken and causing me LOTS of pain, and then if the bridge the dentist wants to put in can be deferred until my insurance rolls over in January…..anything I get done will have to come out of my pocket, since I overran the insurance cap for the year back in March. Root canals and crowns have a way of wiping out the coverage in a hurry.
Two Vicodin last night just to get to sleep, and even that didn’t kill the pain all the way.
Glad your extraction went well, sorry about the “chatty patient”, and the apparently clueless individual with no ID who thought they could just walk in and get narcotics without some kind of ID…..
Update: I called my dentist’s office, they understand I don’t have insurance right now, so my out-of-pocket expense for an extraction of a bicuspid is $206.00. I have the money, at least, I have enough of a balance on my credit card that I can cover it, and there is money in my savings account that I can draw upon if I need it until next Thursday.
If the dentist is willing to work with you on the fees, I’d say go for it. Not being able to sleep because of mouth pain is definitely not cool. Giving your jaw a chance to heal between surgeries might be beneficial as well.
I have an appointment at noon (EDT) tomorrow.
I’ll let you know how it goes….in the meantime, I’ve got 5 large purple spots on my face, 3 under my left eye, one under my right eye, and one just above the bridge of my nose on my forehead. Laser surgery at the dermatologist to remove dilated capillaries that are somewhat unsightly, as well as the ones on my nose that make my nose appear to be blue under fluorescent lights. I’m sure the lady who came to my door this morning was wondering what was wrong with my face that I was bruised, but she was too polite to ask. I tried to be patient with her, I tolerate Jehovah’s Witnesses, and allow them to talk up to a point, and then I let them know that I really have to be doing something else, so they give me their pamphlet, I thank them, they thank me, and everyone is happy. She wasn’t pushy like they used to be where they’d almost force themselves into your house. Come to find out she’d lived on Guam, too, but not at the same time I did. She was somewhat familiar with where I’d lived, but since that had been destroyed in 1994, it’s doubtful that she ever saw it.
Anyway, I am still a bit nervous, I always get this way for dental appointments. The hardest part is the anesthetic, and then I can relax, but seldom DO relax. I’ve had too many instances where they’ve shot me full of anesthetic, and I still feel the pain…..but then, I don’t want TOO much, either, because then, it lasts all day and I’m afraid to eat anything for fear of biting the side of my mouth. So, like CJ, I’ve stocked up on ice cream, I’ve got jello, and plenty of iced tea. I’ll survive….
Good! Hope yours goes as well as mine.
Joe, We hope your extraction goes gently
Oh, I wish I could afford some dental work: fillings and tooth repair / replacement needed. I’d had “temporary” fillings (all I could affored at the time) which I’d forgot were temporary. They lasted about twice as long as predicted, but cost a lot. Those came out in a spate of events a year ago. I’m not proud of how my teeth look now. I’ve never had good teeth, and why is unclear. My bones and hair and nails all seem fine.
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Sea Anemones: A picture of one of these appears infrequently on John Scalzi’s blog’s masthead, with wow, all those eyes on eyestalks that billow in the waves. — And this made me wonder two things: I don’t recall, are sea anemones single organisms or are they a colony creature like corals? That is, is each eyestalk part of a separate little creature in the colony, or…do all those eyes waving around belong to a single creature? And from that, I got to wondering…. How would a creature like that put together all that visual information into a composite image, or individual frames? Lots of little eyes, all wobbling and turning. It seems like it would be terribly confusing. But then, they are (presumably) not that smart or complex in thinking anyway, so maybe it isn’t the sort of problem I’m imagining. Though, for a higher-order, somplex or more thinking organism, what would managing all that be like? Insects and arachnids have compound eyes made up of lots of tiny eyes, or else they have multiple eyes. So they must have their own way of piecing all that into usable visual information. Do we have any estimation what they see? Anemones or others.
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For a while now, I’ve had an idea running around about a very at-risk young character, as an interesting subject. But I think I’ve had an inspiration: How does that character turn out as an adult, coming from that troubled or diffficult or unlikely a background? He or she would, by necessity, have a very different outlook and personality and experiences than most people, myself included (or especially). And how would I write both the young person and the adult resultant? I don’t know yet if it will produce finished output, but at least the writing exercise and any finished results should be a challenge.
I keep discovering what my editor side thinks are weaknesses in my writing, so I think I’m still improving. I hope. Things like extra wording that’s not needed, it’s filler, or a few habits I seem to have in writing attempted fiction.
I don’t know if I’m learning fast enough, or if I’m being overly self-critical. But my major problem is still getting myself to get a complete plot / story arc and chracter arc, not just a few scnes or chapters or a neat character or situation. I haven’t wanted to go back to outlining first, then writing, rather than just writing it. But it seems like not outlining is not giving me a good enough chance of a finished story, so…outlining is going to have to come back in for some things, and to try to go from there. I still feel very much ike a newbie, even though a more experienced amateur tried to claim I have more experience than he, and a passion for it, and need to trust myself on it more. I don’t know yet. — My current worst issue is, I keep having either autobiographical stuff or wish-fulfillment (Mary Sue?) stuff or too much angst crop up. I want to do better. I think I’m still a newbie, and I haven’t finished much in quite a while, fiction attempts. but yet I like trying; I like this thing of telling a sotry in writing. My attempts so far make me really admire published writers, who can do that repeatedly, with great stories, whether shorts or long-form. so… still going.
Joe, if it isn’t deadened, complain. Make them have another try.
BCS, put a character with a lot of baggage in a time-critical situation and give him an additional problem which turns out to be an asset. His rough background can serve as ‘thought background’ of current decisions, particularly if you put him with someone who can serve as a mirror to his past situation. As to how that works, I point you to binge-watching, say, Elementary, on telly. Watch the characterizations. They’re pretty good.
Re anemones, they are if I recall my zoology, a five-part creature like a starfish or urchin, have no eyes at all, but do have chemical receptors (smell, if you like), are sensitive to currents, and very sensitive to light—like plants (which they maintain in their skin and that give them color) they depend on light for photosynthesis (sugars) in many cases as much as they do on ingested food. Unlike plants, they can crawl, or just turn loose until the current takes them to a place they like better. This doesn’t always end well, but then this five-part ‘brain’ doesn’t have a circuit for life and death, just ‘light’ and ‘food.’
Well, I’ve had worse. It wasn’t the tooth that was hurting, it was the gum down near the bottom of my jaw. She had given me two really good shots of novocaine, but apparently, and this is no surprise to me, my lower jaw just doesn’t respond well to novocaine. She gave me another stiff shot, and while the pain wasn’t completely gone, it was suppressed enough that I could tolerate it.
The tooth is gone, I’ve got the space packed with the second piece of gauze. I couldn’t get home to read the instructions until a few minutes ago (it’s 2:00PM here) so I left the first piece in place for an hour-and-a-half. Not as much bleeding as I thought, but well, it’s done.
She was NOT happy that I don’t have insurance. Well, I do, but it’s capped at $1,300 per year and the root canal and crown earlier this year wiped that completely out. She said that in January, when my insurance starts up again, I can have the bridge put in place. YAY!
In the meantime, I’m going to follow the instructions explicitly…except they don’t say anything about brushing my other teeth…I presume it’s safe to do that, just be careful where the brush goes. And no spitting for 2 days….well, I don’t smoke, I don’t dip snuff, and I can forego the straw for a couple of days……
Thank you all for the kind wishes and thoughts.
so glad you’ve got this done. it impinges on general health.
Joe, if it isn’t deadened, complain. Make them have another try.
Concur! I suffered a lot under the hands of an intern who didn’t quite hit the spot injecting local anesthetic. His colleague injected perfectly, and I didn’t feel a thing–well, pressure not pain. Also, I had a surgery to remove a benign tumor; I insisted on local only (I don’t react well to anesthetic), and I was kibitzing the doc, “Starting to feel toward ___,” with no problems. Except: I should have brought a mirror: I wanted to watch!
BCS, put a character with a lot of baggage in a time-critical situation and give him an additional problem which turns out to be an asset. His rough background can serve as ‘thought background’ of current decisions, particularly if you put him with someone who can serve as a mirror to his past situation. As to how that works, I point you to binge-watching, say, Elementary, on telly. Watch the characterizations. They’re pretty good.
Cool! Thank you! It’s gems like this…. I’m not quite sure how to arrange that additional problem; could you (or Jane) give a however-banal example?
I like Elementary, too. Sherlock is great, but just too few eps.
@CJ — Thank you! I am copying your suggestion to use as a writing prompt and so as not to lose it.
Re anemones: Then if that’s an anemone, I’m misidentifying the structures as “eyes” and they’re something else (stomata for feeding / breathing?) — Or else it’s a different organism than an anemone? — But, wow, photosynthesis in the skin from plant / algal cells? A really weird, impressively “alien” little family/genus right here on everyday Earth.
That kind of thing makes me wonder what sort of life we might find on alien planets. Even our Earth-based ideas on what is a “plant” or “animal” or “fungus” or “protista” or “monera” might be blurred past recognition. And 5-fold or asymmetric critters instead of radial or bilateral symmetry. Different sorts of DNA and RNA…. Biology’s so wild. (Yes, bad pun.)
Eg,the ongoing problem with an assistant who turns out to blow things up/have Issues/or a private grudge. A ‘loose cannon’ is an asset to many situations. Or a problem that, when you pull it into the light, turns out to have really bad strings attached, several of them. Eg.
Went in for routine cleaning and found that there’s an infected spot in one gum. Fortunately, it’s relatively accessible, and doesn’t appear to involve any teeth, but I have an appointment two weeks from now to deal with that, as it involves numbing and whatnot. Also fortunately, the dentist is quite competent.