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A Denture Adventure
A juvenile reaction
to a baby tooth extraction:
£2 – Yeah!
A middle-aged reaction
to a wisdom tooth extraction:
Quake
Quiver
Sob
Shiver
Cry
Weep
Pills
Sleep
Moan
Groan
Complain
Pain
An elderly reaction
to a last-ever extraction:
Sigh
Slurp
Burp
*
*
You can see other interpretations of the prompt at http://writersisland.wordpress.com/
It’s manky teeth time again. I have the worst teeth in the world. When Americans whisper behind their hands about British mouths, it’s me they’re thinking of.
I had root canal treatment on my front tooth, twenty-odd years ago. Being dead, it got greyer and greyer until I begged my dentist to help me. He suggested veneers – in the plural, because one’s front gnashers should match.
I told my friend Flo about it and she thought it was a great idea until she spoke to her own dentist. Next time I saw her, I asked her if she was going to have her own teeth done but she fobbed me off. She didn’t want to upset newly-veneered me, or make me feel uncomfortable. I knew she was fobbing me off by the way she blushed and ran to the other side of the playground every time teeth were mentioned.
I never did learn what horror story her dentist told her about veneers, but I can take a good guess. First of all, installing them hurts. My teeth were sanded down to nothing and every time I breathed (which I do a lot of; there’s no getting round it) it felt like a gale force wind was prodding them with a skewer. Then the cement used to stick on the veneers was so adhesive, it dried before my dentist had time to remove the excess. My mouth spent weeks looking as if it had been grouted to match my bathroom.
Worst of all, the cement only seems to work on the gaps between the teeth: my veneers have fallen off several times and had to be glued back on. Last night it happened again. ‘I don’t know why it does that,’ I said to the Hub as I finished my chewy lollipop.
I had intended to attend the monthly session of Stockport Write Out Loud last night, but I don’t go out with a broken mouth. It’s one of my rules. My new dentist has agreed to fix it this morning. She keeps a spare appointment just for me: I am forever losing crowns, fillings, veneers and bits of old tooth that I don’t use anymore.
I hope my children read this as a cautionary tale: brush your teeth twice a day for three minutes. If you don’t, I’m warning you: I’m going to smile.
I had to rise from my sick-bed to accommodate the massive sigh of relief I let out at the news that we finally have a new Prime Minister. I must say, the whole thing has been terribly British: discreet talks and lots of waiting around for something to happen. http://www.shesnotfromyorkshire.com/ was quite amusing about it, remarking that the fact that queues were involved in the ‘scandal’ of people being unable to vote was typically British.
Over the last few days I have been amused by the wonderment of foreign bloggers that we have no written constitution, but it is obvious that our system works fine just as it is – we are, after all, the people who tried having a revolution and then decided we didn’t like it and went back to the old system. We have had a peaceful, if delayed, transition of power, and can now look forward to a period of co-operation between the Conservatives and Lib Dems.
I hope. This is the first coalition government in the UK since 1945, and no-one knows what to expect. I am feeling quite optimistic that this is the start of a new era in politics. I say that from the position of being on the almost-winning side, of course, but the Lib Dems must be enjoying the chance of being in government after so long being the kid brother your Mum makes you drag along with you when you go out with your mates.
I like some Lib Dem policies, such as no tax on wages under £10,000, so I don’t think the coalition is necessarily a bad thing, as long as all parties concerned are working for our good and not theirs.
I thought David Cameron was gracious towards his predecessor in his speech, and Samantha looked like she was going to burst with pride. I felt proud myself to have voted Conservative when I heard him. He is really growing on me. I like that he is not afraid to compromise for the good of the country and I am beginning to believe that he genuinely wants to improve ‘our country’, as he is so fond of saying.
I have to say, I have never liked Gordon Brown more! He looked completely relaxed as he went to the Palace and his smile was unscary for the first time ever; perhaps it was tension that made it so frightening.
*
I say ‘sick bed’ but it’s more like ‘tired couch’. The Migraleve worked its magic yesterday as far as relieving the pain, but the nausea is still hovering and I am still feeling quite drowsy.
My friend Viv sent me an interesting email about a possible cause of the migraines, the gist of which I will share with you, in case you stumbled upon my blog looking for answers: do you grind your teeth? Your bite might need adjusting. You might have a high filling putting pressure on your jaw joint, linked directly to the nerves in the brain. A grind of the filling might cure the problem.
I’m almost certain that my own migraines are caused by my being a woman of a certain age and change is a-comin’, but I’d like to thank Viv for sharing such useful information.
*
The Boy Nik has lost the ‘c’ since the last time I saw him and he needs to lose the majority of his teeth as well, as he showed me. Not a pleasant sight, but that’s drug addiction for you. He had the number of an NHS emergency dentist but he wanted me to phone his Mum and give her the number so that she could make an appointment for him and then phone his mobile to tell him the details. He assured me that he wouldn’t be bothering me anymore because he was having a land line installed today and could he wash our car as a thank you? I declined his kind offer but I did appreciate it.
He puts me on the back foot because he always calls early, while I’m still in my dressing gown; and every time he apologises for getting me out of bed, which he never has, but I feel embarrassed just the same. I’m never sure if he is just going out or just coming in, but today he came between last night’s elderly neighbour, Mrs S, who called for her spare key because she had misplaced her own (again); and next door’s Mrs J who is really Mrs F but everyone in the family has a name beginning with J, plus the son-in-law and one grandchild. Only the husband escapes but his name begins with G so he’s almost one of them. Mrs J was looking for the Hub to fix her laptop, which took him ten minutes. She says we can never move because she needs him too much: she is always borrowing his tools and his expertise. She spends a lot of time on her own and she taps away at the walls at all hours of the day and night, doing we know not what. I think she might be building a secret extension into our living room.
It was Coronationside Square in Neighbourhood Central this morning because the phone rang as often as the door bell. At one point I looked like Taz the Tasmanian devil because I was just about to put the recycling in the bins outside the back door when the phone went; I had almost answered it when Nik knocked; and that was when I noticed the dog had upchucked and I wasn’t sure where to turn as I searched for somewhere to put down seven empty bottles, five tins and a partridge in a paper tree. However, rest assured, dear reader, that if there was a screaming baby I’d have seen to him first. Fortunately, the Hub was asleep.
Today’s original heading was It Doesn’t Happen Often, But I Actually Find I Am Outraged Today (snappy, eh?). I am a Yankophile and would probably vote Republican if I was an American citizen, but I came across an alert that said, Vote Republican: Together, we can Prevent access to healthcare, and I felt my blood boil for the first time since British Gas tried to lure me back as a customer; the same British Gas who charged me three times as much as any other utility supplier has ever done and treated me appallingly for the privilege.
I had marshalled a stern retort to the offender and written my own post exposing the nastiness of American politics, before I had even had time to click the mouse on the offending blog. When I did, all I got was this picture. I tried to find somewhere to comment and it was then I realised I was on a sales website and the logo was a pig, not an elephant. Looking closer, I realised it was a cushion with a satirical message. It gave me a good laugh.
http://www.cafepress.co.uk/+sick_pig_throw_pillow,287271298
It has done its job because it set me thinking about my own situation. Without access to free healthcare I could, quite literally, have died last week. I had a nasty infection that floored me even with two sets of antibiotics. We have no spare cash; I could not have afforded those antibiotics if I had needed to pay for them. The infection could quite easily have turned to septicemia without antibiotics. I can go back further: I had my wisdom tooth out because I have had two infections in the past two years caused by its awkward position in my gum; I can’t afford to pay for dental treatment. This blog might never have existed and my children would have been motherless today if I had not had access to free treatment for the infections.
I don’t believe I am being melodramatic: people die from septicemia every day. I once worked with a man whose sister died after giving birth because she had needed dental treatment while pregnant and refused it because she didn’t want to harm her baby. It was too late for her by the time she delivered. It was tragic but, in her case, she had the option of treatment. Millions of people around the world don’t have that option, including in America. I sincerely hope President Obama succeeds in his reforms despite the opposition. I know there were similar arguments against our own NHS before 1948, but I am so glad they didn’t win that fight, and I have the healthy gums to prove it.
So much for stronger painkillers: at one o’clock this morning I found myself in the Hub’s arms, blubbing like a girl that ‘They didn’t work. They didn’t work.’ My face felt twice its normal size and throbbed from crown to chin. A couple of magic pills in the form of co-codamol, however, and the pain eased enough for me to sleep. My face was throbbing again when I woke up at eight this morning (late for me) so I took some more co-codamol and it is temporarily bearable. I hope the antibiotics start working soon.
I am rather bored with the whole thing now, and it would be nice to have something else to blog about but, oww.
I am happy to report that I am infected. My dentist prodded the bruise under my chin and my swollen gums; decided against removing the stitches because the gum has grown around them; recoiled in disgust when she got too close to my breath; and prescribed strong antibiotics and even stronger painkillers. So, I am officially not a big baby.
A Denture Adventure
A juvenile reaction
to a baby tooth extraction:
Yeah!
£2!
(Inflation)
A middle-aged reaction
to a wisdom tooth extraction:
Quake
Quiver
Sob
Shiver
Cry
Weep
Pills
Sleep
Moan
Complain
Groan
Pain
An elderly reaction
to a last-ever extraction:
Sigh
Slurp
Burp
Yesterday began like every big event in my life begins – childbirth, exams, shopping – with a shower. No shaving, however: I am a married woman, after all, and I don’t want to give anyone the wrong idea. There’ll be time enough to shave for my future standby dentist husband when the Hub is castaway. Don’t worry: the Hub knows all about it and is hoping I’m castaway first so that he can get Ashton to dump Demi and move on with his life. I’m babbling now; slap me, someone, but form an orderly queue. Blame the tablets.
I’m not sure that Mr Lee – my future standby dentist husband and on-off chief teeth caregiver for ten years – recognised me until he shoved his head in my mouth and saw my manky left molar, but I’ll let that pass. By the time he was standing behind and over me, applying a corkscrew to my wisdom tooth and punching and twisting it so hard that the woman in the surgery underneath who had only come in for a steam clean went home with an extraction as well, I was past caring. It was not a simple procedure, he informed me; though not as difficult as he had expected. ‘Well thashallwight then,’ I wepwied, and twied to phone the Hub to cowect me. Unfortunately, he thought my first three calls were from a child who had discovered the joys of phoning and it was only on the fourth call when I started crying and the blubbering sounded like the end of every argument we’ve ever had, that he realised it was me.
The procedure was horrible, but not as horrible as I had expected. The worst part was getting anaesthetic: five injections, though I only felt three and a half, but one of those was near a nerve and felt like an electric shock. That might explain why I spent the whole hour rigid on the couch like an inmate in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. The painkillers are for my neck as much as my mouth. What helped keep me strapped to the chair was my brilliant husband’s idea: my MP3 player. I’ve only used it twice since Christmas – mostly because I can’t work it properly yet – but I took it along and listened to the brilliant Mango Groove while the blood was sucked from my gums and Mr Sadist Lee – who I don’t think I am going to marry, after all; I’ll settle for an optician instead – hacked away at my ivories. It was like the soundtrack was made for the occasion: it started with Hellfire when I was having my injections, as in, ‘your [anaesthetic] burns me like a hellfire.’. Next came Too Many Tears, accompanying my blubbing when it hurt; and as he finished up it was Hometalk.
And finally, I was a Special Star because I had endured it all so stoically.
Aside: check out Mango Groove online; they are the best South African pop group ever. It was almost worth living through apartheid and the violence that followed just to discover them.
The Hub brought me home, ignoring the wet hand stains on my pants from my encounter with the surgery toilets, tucked me up in bed and fed me soup and painkillers. I slept and read and slept and watched The Untouchables for the zillionth time – there’s nothing like watching Bob de Niro beat a man’s brains out with a baseball bat to make me feel better – and slept. My biggest problem was drinking (stop it!): I could only use the left side of my mouth but I couldn’t open it enough to use a glass. the Hub gave me an old plastic cup he found in the back of the cupboard; the type with an inbuilt curly straw, but that didn’t stop me from spilling water all over my pyjamas. I must have had a bit of a temperature because it dried quite quickly (I felt too poorly to get out of bed and change). I thought at first that I wasn’t feeling too bad, just before I borrowed a baby and named it after my dog and the Hub bought a gross of pretty dark blue kettles with flowers on them for 6pence each, buy two get one free, at Home Bargains. When I woke up, the anaesthetic had worn off and I knew it, in the way that you do after going eight rounds with a wrestling dentist.
A good night’s sleep last night didn’t help much, and I woke this morning to intense pain, numbness in the tongue and a hugely swollen face. However, the self-pity is wearing off now so the pain is merely uncomfortable, the numbness reduced to a slight tingle and the swelling is barely noticeable. Salt rinses, antibiotics and co-codamol are doing their job, and I feel well enough now to lie on the couch all day and watch telly. Once my stitches have dissolved in a couple of days I will feel ready to tackle housework again, but I don’t want to push it, do I?
Don’t you think it’s bizarre how losing a wisdom tooth has made me so cunning?
No more swollen gums and nasty infections after noon today. Hi, noon. I’m not nervous or anything. Honest. Tell my children I love them.
I told you shopping was a bad idea: the Hub and I spent our afternoon in Stockport squabbling. We squabbled in his bank – why could we not draw out the money in the warm inside, where muggers were less likely to steal it from my shivering fingers? And why did I not top up my phone through the ATM while we were there? What is this irrational mistrust I have of technology? (Pity he didn’t ask me that ten minutes ago, just after I lost the first and much funnier draft of this post*) My bank – why did he have to wait so long in the queue for me while I went to three shops in an effort to find one with a working machine to top me up by a fiver when I could have done it at his bank? We squabbled in the post office when I suddenly realised that he had not wrapped Tory Boy’s book like I asked him to before we left the house and he claimed that he hadn’t known I wanted it so urgently because I had never said so and I countered with the adult response that it was about time he learned to read my mind then; raspberry. In the £ shop we had reached glaring point and in the street outside, with our sotto voce argument now screechy-screechy, we decided to kiss and make up before we reached the point of exchanging blows with the bargain toothpaste we were carrying. After twenty-eight years together, we are pretty good at conflict resolution; especially because 1) I know I’m right – like the old joke has it, a husband’s place is always in the wrong; and 2) I wasn’t sure my toothpaste would get the first blow in.**
He will be nice to me tomorrow: I’m having a wisdom tooth out. Though he can’t help wondering how I’ll manage without it. I was not sure if he was referring to my mind or my eating habits when he said that, so I decided it would be safer not to ask. I’m not looking forward to the day – going to the dentist is as bad as going to the hairdresser’s: a stranger has your looks in their hands and charges a month’s wages for the privilege, no matter the out come. All you can do is shiver, sweat and pray that it won’t be too awful. I actually love having my hair done; I just don’t like going to salons for it. What I really need is a personal hairdresser that I’ve known for years to be at my beck and call: another reason to win the lottery.
Fortunately, I trust the dentist who will be butchering me: it is Mr Lee, who I’m going to marry when the Hub is castaway for four years, if you remember.*** Mr Lee won’t remember because I haven’t yet told him the fate that awaits him. Poor Mr L: he thought he had escaped me when he left his practice to go into dental surgery. The shock on his face when he sees me tomorrow will do more to relax my nerves than all the drugs he’s going to be pumping in.
I’m off now to stuff my gullet, because I won’t be able to eat for a few hours tomorrow and I want to be prepared. Still, it could be worse: I could be getting a haircut.
*the grass is always greener and the jokes are always funnier on the other side; have you noticed?
**the text is always greyer in parts where my techneptitude triumphs; have you noticed?
***new readers might like to type ‘Tom Hanks’, ‘Demi Moore’ and ‘Dentist’ into the Search box on the right for clarification
Ghosts of Christmas past
I was too busy to blog yesterday. I have packed so much into the last two days I can’t believe it’s not next week. I have had doctor’s appointments and dentist’s appointments: no details for you, but let’s just say that the turkey isn’t the only bird this Christmas to have people rummaging around its orifices. I have bought last-minute gifts, groceries and enough cakes to stop a French revolution. I have been visitor and visitee and wined about it. I have walked through mountains of snow without falling down; and taken my son and his friend sledding. I even had a go myself, which was fun and utterly undignified. I have eaten free toast in Stockport before ten in the morning: I met a Writing Friend and we exchanged gifts and Christmas horror stories: Had to queue for two minutes at the supermarket; ridiculous! Took a child shopping and regretted it. Was forced to drink copious amounts of alcohol and enjoy myself in order to be a good hostess; it’s so unfair. My WF gives me a lift to our writing class and won’t accept petrol, saying I should just buy her a coffee instead. I finally got the chance to do it yesterday. She very fortunately chose a cafe that offers two free rounds of toast with each brew sold before ten, which made me look generous but only cost me £3. I like those kinds of deals.
Today is Christmas Cleaning Day. I always spend Christmas Eve Eve cleaning, getting all washing and ironing out-of-the-way, making sure I don’t have to do anything but cook and enjoy myself for about five days. You may not know this, but I don’t like cooking as a rule, but Christmas cooking has a festive spirit (largely brought on by a glass or three of wine) that marks it out as quite different. I cook the meat on Christmas Eve because I refuse to spend all of Christmas Day in the kitchen, no matter how good the wine. The Hub carves it all up and I just have to warm some on Christmas Day when I cook the vegetables. Also, it means the juices have had time to set and the fat has risen to the top, giving delicious roast potatoes.
I am suddenly starving hungry; I don’t know why. See you tomorrow!
I am a little fat. I like food; what can I say? I have dull hair: mousey. I don’t wear much make-up and have no need of a dressing table. If I look like a bag lady, I chose my own clothes. If I look nice, the Hub picked them for me. Despite all this, I am a little vain. This photograph is from 2003. I had to go back that far to find one of me that I liked. But I don’t really care: my husband still thinks I’m beautiful and if he doesn’t, he loves me enough to lie about it. I’m lucky. I have two boys. They never lie to me. Still, you can't have everything.
The Laughing Housewife 
I have the funniest readers in the blogosphere (not necessarily ha ha…)