Saturday, April 03, 2010

Dental drama

kw: observations, personal experiences

I spent a week eating on one side of my mouth after my root canal. Two days ago I had the next steps: a deep cleaning, the crown preparation of the bad tooth, and extraction of the wisdom tooth behind it, which was getting rather loose.

I don't really want to go into the 3½ hours at the dentist. The crown prep, in particular, was like hearing a jackhammer inside my head. Fortunately, the dentist did a stellar job of numbing everything. The extraction went very quickly, because the tooth was pretty ready to go.

All this happened Thursday. I wrote a book review that morning, then went to the dentist. I came home just before 1PM, and sat around reading until the Novocaine wore off. I was surprised that the empty socket wasn't painful. I'd heard such horror stories about post-extraction pain. Anyway, once I felt it safe to do so, I took a nap. I didn't eat until dinnertime Friday, though I worked about 2/3 of Friday.

Now it is Saturday. Things seem to be healing quickly. I got up late, and have eaten just soft stuff, until our pizza dinner. Still, I am eating primarily on the "good" side of my mouth. Wrap-up of the dental work will require two more visits, and be all done in mid-May. I'll be so used to eating one-sided by then, I wonder if it will be hard to switch back? Ha.

On another note, I mowed for the first time today. Then I fertilized. Lovely day for it, a little cooler than the weather people had predicted. It was nice to be outside. I figure an hour of pushing the mower around is equal to anything I do when I work out at the YMCA, so I suppose I caught up for not going yesterday. Some of my neighbors have azaleas blooming already, but none of mine are. Spring has fully sprung.

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