In Bed.

I guess you've all been wondering where the hell I've been. Mostly in bed. Three major things have happened since my last post. I got cable, a new boy and a tooth extracted (with bonus complications!). All of the above conspire to keep me "in bed" more than out and about.

Honestly cable hasn't really thrilled me or incapacitated me as I feared, though I will say I'm grateful for its mindnumbing qualities while I've been trying to numb the right side of my face. The new boy is sweet. Very, very sweet. While I was still in bed on a recent Sunday morning, he went out and bought the makings for chocolate chip pancakes (and made them!). And that's really all I have to say about him for public consumption. The tooth: I've got quite a bit to say about this. Last Thursday evening I had a toothache. By Friday morning I was in agony and went to see a dentist as an emergency case. While I have obtained health insurance for myself, I do not have dental. I'd only heard good things about the NYU dental school clinic. Figuring that an extraction is pretty basic for a dentist and that they wouldn't let the students work on people if they were clueless, adding in the bargain basement price of $90 including follow-up visits...I went in.

The first "student dentist" I saw was terrific. She had been a dentist in Russia and was enrolled toward being certified here. She inspired absolute confidence. However once we determined that an extraction was necessary, she handed me off to the Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery department. Things went immediately downhill. My new student dentist promptly dissolved my confidence in her abilities by numbing the wrong side of my mouth. I got freaked out and jerked my head away. Her partner took over at that point. While I'd never had any serious dental work done before (I didn't even get my first cavity until I was 18 or 19), I had done some research and THOUGHT I knew what to expect. It was so much more violent than I had expected! The tooth shattered. I felt the bits on my tongue and lips. Finally they called over their professor, he hauled out the drill, and got the roots of my evil tooth out of my head. He then told the wonder twins to irrigate and stitch me up. Five minutes later I was on my way, with a baggie of gauze, a sheet of instructions and no antibiotics or painkillers. But hey, they know what they're doing, right? The pain came and went all weekend, I found the most effective dose of motrin to be about 6 tablets. But I was utterly out of commission. Monday and Tuesday I had some pain, but was successfully controlling it with the super doses of motrin. However Wednesday afternoon, the pain was so intense I couldn't concentrate on anything and finally called the clinic. They told me to come back in. I requested and got the wonderful initial Russian chick. It seems I had developed an infected dry socket that had a large amount of debris. So she and her partner clean out the hole in my jaw pulling out about four pieces of bone that had been floating around, jabbing into my gums and being generally problematic. They also call over their professor to check me out. He proceeds to pull another four or five pieces out, irrigates me and stitches me up himself. I'm now hopped up on mega-sized prescription motrin pills and antibiotics. I've been in bed all day.