Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Dr. Teeth and the non-electric mayhem

WordGirl, thanks for the reassurance. I think you are correct - it's just occasional twingey feelings, it'll bug me for a couple minutes and then by the time I'm able to go find the Advil, in a lot of cases, it's gone away.

I've also developed the bad habit (which I should try to break myself of) of feeling the temporary with my tongue, with "just checking" to make sure nothing's wrong, and that's probably irritating the tooth and gum more.

The fact that I can (gently) chew on that side without pain is a good sign, I think.

I am still taking Advil right at bedtime, if no other time of the day - it's kind of unpleasant to wake up to a hurting mouth in the dead dark of night and have to go into the bathroom and turn on the light (so I can be sure I'm getting Advil and not, say, that little canister of silica they put in the bottles that is labeled DO NOT EAT). And then be wide-awake for the next half-hour or so because I had to put the light on.

Dental problems really suck, y'know that? I really sympathize now with the people who have serious dental issues - the worst I ever had up to this was the occasional filling or a once-or-twice-a-season tooth and sinus sensitivity brought on by crazy weather.

I also really feel for the people who live with chronic pain - I suppose at some point you learn to accept it and maybe even manage to work around it, but as someone who lives a (mostly) pain-free existence, it's like, wow, it really distracts you to have something hurting, even intermittently.

And I think the fact that it's been goshawful hot and humid here (it's about 10 degrees above what it "should" be right now) and the fact that some of the rooms in which I teach have indifferent air conditioning at best (and I think it was OUT in the lab room I taught in this afternoon - or at any rate it was pretty sticky and nasty by the end of the afternoon and a lot of the students were grabbing paper towels to wipe their faces with (and not just the big guy who's always perspiring).

I'm really glad tomorrow is "my" Friday, with no classes the next day (and my research student is out of town, so no running out to field sites, either. I do have work I can do but it's inside-type work that I can even do at home if the a/c isn't running well at school.)

4 comments:

Kate P said...

A Muppet reference! You rock!

nightfly said...

What we need is a clever plot device!

WordGirl said...

Aw, you're welcome! If I listed the crap that I've had done to my teeth... SHEESH!

And you are so right: You start to cut people in general more slack when you've been through something painful yourself. When I was pregnant and anemic and all I could do was lie in the bed and cry, I had real sympathy for people who are really and truly chrinocally sick. They get really overlooked by society. [sheepish look] And by me when I'm in a hurry. Sometimes people ARE just numbskulls in traffic, but sometimes they're just sick or confused. I try to remember that now.

WordGirl said...

"chronically" even