Tag Archives: dentist

Happy pills…

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Some pain is worse than others… while for most run of the mill problems, the standard dosage of ibuprofen is more than sufficient to dull the aches to a minor annoyance, missing half a tooth calls for something a little more substantial. Thankfully I keep every prescription I’ve ever gotten and usually have something high potency floating around in the back of the medicine cabinet.

For the last couple of days, my happy pill du jure has been oxycodone left over from the summer’s sprained ankle. To be honest, it didn’t just dull the toothache so much as it made it completely unnoticeable, which was just fine by me. To say that it improved my mood, even on a Monday morning is a profound understatement. Even with half a tooth missing, I was feeling downright chipper when I rolled into work. I can see how one might be tempted to keep these little gems on hand at all times. Sadly, my stock is now depleted and since I have no intention of turning into prescription junkie, I’m holding the last few in reserve for whatever great pain comes next. And when you’re me, you’re only ever a week or two away from a new and interesting pain. I write it off to the indignity of middle age settling in.

It’s probably for the best, really. If my mood were to improve dramatically for any extended period of time, I’m seriously concerned that it would be curtains for any kind of decent writing you might see around here. The best stories always seem to come out when I’m just short of being agitated enough to punch someone in the nose. Being chipper on Monday mornings just isn’t worth what I’d be giving up.

Returning to regular programming…

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The last few days have been an effort to clear out the photographic backlog I’ve managed to build up. Happily, I seem to have gotten through all of the at this point, so I am free to get back to my first passion… bitching about random subjects here on the internet. It’s good to get back to basics.

My alarm system is obviously still on the fritz, my dentist is trying to micromanage my health, and it’s a pain in the ass to get a doctor’s office to return your call in this town. Other than that, just a typical early Sunday morning working through a backlog of mail and bills. As you can see, it’s another exciting Sunday on tap here on the banks of the Big Muddy.

Traitor…

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Some day I am quite simply going to have enough of my goddamn traitorous teeth and have all the little bastards yanked out and replaced by form fitted titanium. If it’s good enough for submarine hulls, it damned well ought to be good enough for teeth.

I have very nearly spent more time in my dentist’s office this year than I have in my actual office. While that is a very slight exaggeration, I’m confident that if I laid out the days, there really would be only a hair’s breath difference between the two.

I took two hours of leave today to go sit in my dentist’s office, get and x-ray, and have him poke his head in the room and tell me I need to schedule a root canal as soon as possible. He wouldn’t work on me today because apparently I have an infection to go along with the general tooth-rot. He won’t work on me until I have at least two days of antibiotics in my system. The kicker is, this cavity developed under a filling that he filled two years ago. As I recall, his statement was, “looks like we didn’t get all of it after all.” Thanks for the fucking update, genius. I’ve managed to figure that out by the throbbing in my jaw.

Today’s trip cost me $89 with another $40 or so kicked in by Joe Taxpayer through my oh-so-generous dental plan. I’ll be taking another flipping day off on Monday, so we can spend some quality time with two relative stranger’s fingers in my mouth for the better part of two hours. That’s going to run almost $900, not including the taxpayer’s contribution. That’s more than my damned rent. It’s almost two freaking car payments. Bloody hell.