I gave my blood, sweat and tears for this

I'm almost a week out of recovering from oral surgery. Last Tuesday, I had a tooth extracted, an implant placed and had bone grafting done around the implant. 

My stitches came out today. Sometime next week, I'll go back to my surgeon for a 2-week visit. 

Here are my post surgery thoughts, in no particular order. 

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First off, I decided today that people don't really understand dental pain or dental work, especially on someone my age (young-ish). To put my life in perspective, last Tuesday I walked away from that surgery with five different prescription medications, including two different painkillers.

Life pro tip: You don't have to explain pain to me. 

I get it.

This is not an optional thing, ladies and gents. You do not get rid of a tooth for fun, because you feel like it, or because you get a kick out of it.

You get rid of a tooth for the same reason that people get rid of any body part, ever  — appendixes, spleens, gall bladders — because if you don't, that problem will cause you pain and misery and eventually might try to kill you.

Me chucking that tooth was not optional. It had to come out. 

In the words of my dentist, when she was explaining to me that it was up to me to make that initial appointment with the oral surgeon: "You have a ticking time bomb in your head."

I get the seriousness of this. You don't have to tell me twice.

Let's get rid of the bomb before it explodes.

--

When I was waking up from anesthesia last week, the assistants/nurses/whatever their titles are at that office asked me how I found the problem with that tooth.

That tooth had a root canal and a crown. If you looked at me when I smiled or laughed, you could not have diagnosed the problem. To the outside world, that tooth looked totally normal.

Also, according to doctors, teeth that have had a root canal are no longer alive. The nerve of the tooth is removed, and that tooth is dead. ("It doesn't have any feelings. It's dead. It shouldn't hurt.")

However, that tooth was broken in two different places. Broken as in not chipped, but completely broken horizontally in the roots and not fixable. It was time for it to go to that big tooth place in the sky.

My answer to how I found the problem: I had a headache.

In my post-anesthesia haze, I explained to the nurses that I noticed I was getting headaches a lot that easily went away with over the counter medicine. Only, when the meds wore off, the headache came back, and when it came back, the pain moved around in different parts of my head.

Sometimes, it felt like an earache, like I had an ear infection. Sometimes the pain was behind my eyes, and at other times, it was a very specific spot at the back of my head.

I know my body well enough to know that a headache that moves around my head is actually a toothache. I knew immediately what the pain was and made an appointment with a dentist the week that I had that realization. 

The nurses seemed surprised by this. I remember them talking to me, saying something like: You did an incredible job of paying attention to your body and listening to it when it told you something was wrong. Good job on catching the problem.

Post-anesthesia Monica, who was slobbering all over herself and couldn't walk afterward and had to be wheelchaired to the vehicle, appreciated the validation.

Sometimes, when you're wobbly, bloody, numb mouthed and missing a tooth, validation and a 'good job' is all you need.

--

While I was still awake before surgery, they strapped my arms to the chair. They wrapped me in a blanket and explained to me that it was to prevent my arms from flailing around and hitting the surgeon. 

Whatever, I thought. You can do whatever you want, as long as I'm out when this surgery happens. 

That's a weird, feeling, though. It's weird to trust a stranger with your body. 

I remember thinking to myself before they put me out: "Mr. Oral Surgeon, please make good decisions. Just make really good choices today, please and thank you."

--

To say that I have anxiety about this whole process is an understatement. I do not like this. I don't like the sounds, I don't like being helpless, I don't like having something wrong with my body that I cannot fix by myself.

I don't like trusting strangers. I don't like waiting. I don't like pain. I don't like crying and blood and needles and pain and shots.

The thing about specialists, I think, is that they're used to people like me. More than likely, people like me are normal to them.

When we checked in, I filled out some paperwork and they took me back immediately — my butt did not hit a chair in the waiting area.

Anxious people really don't like waiting. Specialists know that and don't make you do it. 

I appreciated that. A lot.

--

I counted today and I had seven appointments in Wichita before this appointment. (Part of that was a crown I was getting on another tooth, but that still counts, in my opinion.)

I gave my blood, sweat and tears for this (to quote someone I did not get concert tickets for). I cried into my pillow at night. I cried while driving home from work. I cried in parking lots, behind closed doors, on the phone with my parents and to friends and to my dogs.

I will never handle this gracefully. I will lose it and cry every single time it happens to me.

Losing a piece of your body is devastating.

This is the fourth tooth that I've lost and the third implant that I'll have. 

This is not new to me.

Right now, I'm proud of myself for finding the problem while it was inconvenient and I'm proud of myself for finding it before it turned into a total infected disaster.

A message to my body: Please just calm down and don't have another huge disaster for five years. I'm okay if this happens every five years. Five to seven, ideally. Until then, just chill out with the teeth breaking and the pain and the drama.

Please?

"You're disappointing and you have no brain."

I'm going to set the scene for you.

My favorite little red-head is 8 years old. She's smart, spunky, and has an attitude that she blames on her red hair.

My Dad, her Papa, said something to her that made her mad. I have no idea what he said because I wasn't paying attention. Whatever was said was probably was not that bad.

My favorite little red-head went right up to her Papa, looked him in the eye, told him something and then walked away.

She said: "Papa, you're disappointing and you have no brain."

And then I died in a fit of laughter. 

That insult is direct and concise. It's clean, with no cussing and she didn't even raise her voice when she said it. Her tone was even, her delivery was perfect and she was confident in her wording.

I give it a 10 out of 10. It's the perfect insult. 

"You're disappointing and you have no brain."

Also, I feel that way about a lot of people in my adult life. Thank you, little redhead, for giving me the perfect words and the perfect insult. I'm going to put that one in my back pocket and save it for future use.

Meet me at midnight

I've spent about a week with Midnights now, and I am head over heels in love with it.

I've been a little bit of a Taylor Swift fan in the past, but this is the first time that I've considered myself a Swiftie. I loved Speak Now when it came out, but since then, I haven't listened to any of her albums from start to finish.

Until now.

Midnights, like I posted about on Facebook, sounds exactly like what being a woman in your 30s is like, particularly for those of us who have never been married and don't have kids. 

Thinking about your ex at midnight? We do that often. Cussing a lot? That happens, too. It's weird, but fuckin' beautiful? Nailed it, blondie. Falling in love again? Yes, that happens. Plus, sometimes there are dickhead guys. Um, everyone, blondie gave us the word 'dickhead' in a song, and I love her for it.

I am fan-girling over this album pretty hard. I love the lyrics and the sound. 

It's perfect.

I think Taylor Swift is one of the best songwriters out there, if not the best ever, hands down. Below are my favorite words of hers on Midnights.

Snow on the Beach and You're On Your Own, Kid are my favorite songs on Midnights. Each song made me cry the first time I heard them. These songs are the most beautiful things I've ever heard. 

Lavender Haze: I just want to stay in that Lavender Haze

Maroon: The lips I used to call home AND Sobbing with your head in your hands / Ain’t that the way shit always ends?

Anti Hero: I’ll stare directly at the sun, but never in the mirror

Snow On The Beach: And it’s like snow on the beach / Weird but fuckin’ beautiful

Life is emotionally abusive

Stars by the pocketful

I’ve never seen someone lit from within / blurring out my periphery

My smile is like I won a contest / and to hide that would be so dishonest

You’re On Your Own kid: Everything you lose is a step you take

Midnight Rain: A slow-motion, love potion / Jumping off things in the ocean

Question…?: She was on your mind with some dickhead guy

Vigilante Shit: Draw the cat eye strong enough to kill a man  AND Sometimes I wonder which one’ll be your last lie

Bejeweled: Sapphire tears on my face / Sadness became my whole sky / But some guy said my aura’s moonstone / Just ‘cause he was high

Labyrinth: I’ll be gettin’ over you my whole life AND You know how much I hate that everybody just expects me to bounce back / Just like that

Karma: Karma is a relaxing thought / Aren’t you envious that for you it’s not?

Sweet Nothing: And the voices that implore, “You should be doing more” / To you, I can admit that I’m just too soft for all of it

Mastermind: And a touch of a hand lit the fuse / Of a chain reaction of countermoves / To assess the equation of you / Checkmate, I couldn’t lose 

The Great War: Always remember / Uh-huh, the burning embers / I vowed now to fight anymore / If we survived the Great War

Bigger Than the Whole Sky: Every single thing I touch becomes sick with sadness

Paris: I’m so in love that I might stop breathing

High Infidelity: You know there’s many different ways that you can kill the one you love / The slowest way is never loving them enough

Glitch: In search of glorious happenings of happenstance on someone else’s playground

Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve: I regret you all the time

Dear Reader: No one sees when you lose when you’re playing solitare

Teeth and Icees

I don't have a whole lot of good memories regarding my teeth, but two stand out to me. I'm going to write about this in the next couple of blog posts.

The first time I had a tooth pulled that wasn't my wisdom teeth was a pretty bad experience. I did everything I could to save that tooth — I paid for a root canal, I went to a gum specialist for another surgery that cost $1,000 and I paid for two crowns for that tooth and its neighbor.

I lost my first tooth because there was a piece of cotton left in it after a root canal. It was supposed to be taken out, but wasn't. 

On the x-ray, it showed up as a tiny little square. I remember looking at it and thinking it was the square of doom. 

I knew having it removed would be a crappy experience, so I set a goal afterward of going to a movie with my best friend after. It helps me mentally if I have something to look forward to after going through something bad. 

Specifically, I decided that I wanted an Icee at the movie. That was my reason for going through this ordeal — I was going to get an Icee at the end of it.

For those of you not well versed in dental work, you aren't supposed to drink from a straw after you have a tooth extracted. I knew this ahead of time, and I put a spoon in my purse to eat my Icee with at the movies.

So me and my best friend go to the movies, I get an Icee, and we sit down in our seats. I pulled out my spoon in the middle of this theater and I'm pretty excited to go to town on my frozen treat.

Only, my spoon did not fit in the Icee lid. The spoon was too big. And the drink came up to the top of the clear lid, above where the cup ends (everyone knows what an Icee looks like, right?).

I just had a tooth removed and could not drink the Icee through the straw so the drink part could be below the lid — and if I took the lid off, the Icee would just spill everywhere and make a giant mess everywhere.

I sat there, frustrated, and I wasn't really sure how to be an adult and solve my Icee problem on my own.

My best friend saw my problem unfold, and I remember her sighing pretty heavily. She grabbed my Icee from my hand and chugged it through a straw like we were both in college on a Friday night at the most popular bar in town.

After a few chugs, she got the drink level below the clear lid. She took the lid off and shoved the Icee back in my face. 

And then I spooned that Icee into my very sore face. I was a very happy camper.

No words were spoken during this exchange, if I remember right. It was a glorious way to help me out when I needed it.

You guys, that's a true friend. I remember that moment like it was yesterday, and to this day, it's one of the nicest, coolest thing a friend has ever done for me.

Get you someone who chugs Icees for you. 

*I'm trying to remember what year this happened. I'm going to guess around 2014ish.

Twitterland

 

"It's normal for you."

About 10 years ago, I sat through a root canal on my front tooth. I've always been hard to numb in front, and I sat there for what seemed like forever.

Was it 20 minutes? Or 30 minutes? An hour? I'm not really sure. All I know is that the specialist breathed a sigh of relief and said that he was glad that was over with. I sat up, and went to grab my purse, pay and leave.

The specialist stopped me and asked me what I was doing.

It turns out the root canal had not even started yet, he was just done getting me completely numb in front. The process of numbing me took so long that I thought it was the entire appointment.

I asked the root canal specialist if that was normal.

His response: "It's normal for you."

On Halloween one year, I had two root canals done at the same time. The same specialist didn't tell me he was going to do two that day. In his words: "I made the best decision for your health, regardless of money."

And now, 10 years later, I no longer have those teeth that got fixed on Halloween, and I'm going to lose the tooth in front that was hard to numb.

This is going to be a woe is me post, but this is my blog and I can whine if I want to.

There are things I did not know about dental work when I was younger. I didn't know that dental work doesn't work sometimes. I didn't know that when you do a root canal, gum surgery and crown a tooth, you can still lose that tooth, which means you have to spend between $4,000 and $5,000 on an implant on a tooth you already spent $3,000 trying to fix. 

And by the way, when dental work doesn't work, no one really cares. You don't get apologies from your previous dentist or specialist. 

You don't get anything except more physical pain.

Six years ago, my health started to decline. I lost a bunch of weight and I was worried for my life. I didn't recognize it as a toothache right away because my dentist back home told me I didn't have any problems. 

I went to a surgeon to try to get my gallbladder taken out. I had another minor surgery, trying to figure out what the problem was. 

The problem was a tooth. That tooth, part of a bridge, broke above my gum line and when it got infected, the infection went to my jaw bone.

I lost a $7,000 bridge and I spent $10,000 fixing it. 

I put off buying a house when it happened. I canceled a vacation I wanted to take. I took a loan out on my car that was already paid off to pay for it. 

--

I went to a new dentist this week, a young one just out of school by a few years. These visits never go well for me, and I'm not sure why I even try anymore. 

This new guy was nice enough, and I tried to be nice back. He looked at my x-rays, noted how many root canals I've had (too bad x-rays don't show how many teeth I've had two root canals on), and he leaned in pretty close to me.

He said: "Oh my God. What happened?"

Dude, I thought, you should have been there when it happened. Imagine how I feel right now.

(I ended up at my tried-and-true dentist in nearby big city a day later, who treated me with kindness and respect, as they always do there.)

You don't remember the time I went to the emergency room three times in one week because I couldn't take the pain (infected jaw bone incident). You don't remember the time I got a pain shot in front of my best friend in the ER in a not safe for work location on my body. (Are you really best friends with someone if you haven't seen them naked?)

I left that appointment a couple of days ago and waited until I was in my car to cry. On Tuesday night, I put an ice cube over my eyes to try to reduce the swelling from crying so much.

It turns out that I'm going to do the implant thing again. 

I don't have much of a choice and right now, I'm going to take the time to be mad that life is unfair.

--

So, what the hell happened to my teeth?

A series of unfortunate events, coupled with depression when I was younger. There was a piece of cotton left in one tooth after a root canal that was supposed to be taken out, but wasn't. I lost that tooth. There was a broken instrument in another tooth that was left after a root canal that I wasn't told about.

My specialist who broke the news to me: "This really pisses me off."

I thought to myself at the time: Dude, try living through it. Imagine how pissed off I am that foreign objects were left in my body without my permission.

The thing that sucks about having bad teeth is that I don't know another person my age who's had a single root canal, let alone as many as I have (11 on nine teeth). I don't know another person my age who has implants and has lost teeth.

I have no one to go to for advice. I have to rely on myself for that, and only I know what I can and can't tolerate.

I set a goal for myself 10 years ago when I started going through the worst of it, and I think those goals are still accurate today. They are:

• I want to smile and not feel embarrassed about it. 

• I want to chew food.

• I want to live without pain.

The question now is how much more of this can I possibly take. My current dilemma is not dire, and it will be fixed with an extraction via an oral surgeon and hopefully an implant.

The fact that it's a front tooth doesn't even bother me. I'm way past the point of being vain about this. I'm past being embarrassed about the state of my teeth. 

You don't really get to complain about a front tooth getting extracted when you've almost died in the past because of your teeth (jaw bone incident).

So, why am I complaining about this? Why am I writing about this?

I don't really know.

Let's normalize going through hard and painful things. Let's just admit that life sucks sometimes and there are times that you have to make the least possible sucky decision out of a few decisions, all of which cause pain and misery.

Also, there's a list of things I really don't like being said to me. 

Among them:

• "If you keep going to the dentist, they'll keep finding things wrong. Stop going." Thanks for that advice. I would die if I did this.

• "Get them all pulled." Chop off one of your body parts, a leg or an arm. Just do it and see if you're all sunshine and roses afterward. 

• "Are you still going through that? Aren't your problems fixed by now?" My favorite way to respond to dumb people: Thank you for sharing that.

The amount of money I have invested in my mouth at this point is astronomical. If I told you, you wouldn't believe me. I could pay for 50 trips across the country and back; I could pay off my student loans, twice over; I could pay for 250 Eric Church concert tickets (and I wish I could); and at this point, there's probably a Tesla in my mouth. 

And it's still not over?

What do you do when you go through hard stuff and have no one to go to for advice? The answer: The only way out is through — with a really, really sore mouth.

Penny Pug.

 This is a recycled post from Facebook, but I haven't posted in a while. It will have to do.

Penny. 

Things I’ve comforted/helped my dogs with today:

• Her foot got stuck in her harness and she flipped out about it - Pickles.
• Getting over a fear of a new suitcase - Penny.
• It rained 13 hours ago, so obviously it’s still raining outside which means she can’t go outside - Raven.
• Got stuck in a corner because of blind dog reasons and growled and got pissed off at a wall - Raven.
• Fear over a new rug and re-arranged furniture - all of them.