I can honestly say that this past weekend was the absolute worst sixty-eight hours of my entire life thanks to my wonderful teeth.
Yes, again.
Ever since my toothache and root canal at the beginning of the month, things never quite returned to normal. I was sore for a few days, which is typical I suppose, but once the soreness went away I developed an extremely annoying, painful sensation in the same area in response to anything hot. It was cutting into my coffee addiction big time. I decided to fill the antibiotic prescription the dentist gave me in case I had any trouble. And I filled the one for hydrocodone as well cause you can never have enough narcotic pain killers around the house in an emergency. Maybe I sensed what was coming down the road.
After a week on the antibiotics, and weening myself to only one painful cup of coffee per day, I was feeling a bit better. The sensation was still there but it wasn't nearly as strong. I hoped, like I always do, that it would simply disappear on its own. As the days passed, it was clear it wouldn't go down like that.
By mid-week it started rearing its ugly head any damn time it felt like it, coffee or no coffee. Once it started, it would quickly spread through the entire right side of my face and within seconds my ear would throb as well. Without trying, I stumbled upon a cure for my discomfort: cold water. One mouthful of cold water and it would go away for a while, but by Friday it whittled down to a mere thirty seconds.
Yes, I said thirty seconds. I placed a frantic call to my dentist but to no avail. He was out of town. And I faced the weekend ahead of me. I was so glad I filled the other prescription and popped some pills the minute I got home from work. Too bad they didn't work. Not one single bit. Cold water was my only relief.
At first I was swallowing the magical mouthfuls of water but within hours I realized I was likely to drown in my sleep if I continued to do so. How foolish I was to think I'd actually be able to sleep. Anyway, I started toting a spit bucket around from room to room and only swallowed when I had to, like when I had to pee because I couldn't hold both a bottle of water and a bucket while sitting on the john.
Imagine if you will how utterly impossible it is to do anything when you need to drink water literally every thirty seconds. By midnight it had become a form of torture and I was ready to crack. Try falling asleep in a thirty second window before the pain returns. It was absolutely unreal. As the hours passed, I tried everything we had in the house for pain. Excedrin. Advil. Tylenol with codeine. And even more of the hydrocodone.
Let me say this, I have no idea how people become addicted to pain killers when the damn things don't even work. Hydrocodone is supposed to have calming effects similar to heroin, which may explain why it didn't lose my shit all together and stab myself in the eye with a toothbrush or strangle myself with dental floss, but I was still experiencing the worst pain I've ever felt in my life. Screw hydrocodone. It's useless in my book.
Anyway, by five in the morning I finally fell asleep. I'm not sure if it was from shear exhaustion or the pain killer cocktail I had swirling around in my bloodstream. I guess it was a little of both. And when I woke up at eight, thanks to one overly rambunctious two-year-old that shall remain nameless, the pain was gone. I was thrilled but it was short-lived. One bite of toast and sip of water two hours later landed me right back in hell. Instantly.
I finally heard from my dentist's office around seven that evening. His assistant listened to my story and called him on his cell phone to see what I, or they, or anyone could do to help me before I lost my mind. The result? Nothing. He called in another antibiotic prescription for me to pick up on Sunday morning, but he said there really wasn't any stronger pain killer he could prescribe. If hydrocodone wasn't touching it, nothing would.
I think I had a minor mental breakdown that night around two in the morning. I stood at the bathroom sink for almost two hours crying uncontrollably, swishing and spitting water, and praying for novocaine. Or death. At that point death seemed more likely. Novocaine needles simply don't fall out of thin air.
Once I finally fell asleep, Punky's dad let me go as long as he could to give me a break from the pain. He finally woke me at two in the afternoon because he worked third shift and was about to pass out himself. Within minutes I wished I never woke up at all. I started counting the hours till my dentist appointment on Monday morning. I honestly had no clue how I was ever going to survive another night like that.
Of course my appointment started with x-rays to try and isolate the culprit. By then, every nerve in my mouth was throbbing so all I could do was give him a general idea where it started. He only saw one small spot of decay on one tooth and found it hard to believe it could be the source of my excruciating pain.
I swear I wanted to punch him. I'm sitting there waiting to die and he's yapping on and on about a ton of shit I wasn't even hearing at that point. In a tone of voice that is normally only heard from birthing women, or demons, I yelled, "Novocaine now! Talk later!"
Relief came within seconds. I was in heaven. Life was suddenly good again. I put my bottle of water down for the first time in days. He continued to yap but I can't say I was listening any more than before. All I wanted to do was sleep and I think I actually nodded off while he was still playing eeny meeny miny moe to choose which tooth to poke.
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