[---the following is based on a true story]
YET ANOTHER EDITION IN THE CONTINUING SAGA OF THE MOST STUPID WEEK I HAVE HAD THUS FAR THIS YEAR:

EXHAUSTED JOSIE: "Hi. I had an appointment for an urgent extraction today. I mean, like now. I just woke up and obviously I'm not there. I don't know what to do."

GATEKEEPER ADMIN: "um... ok well obviously you are going to have to reschedule"

[wait ten minutes while there is a lot of hmm-ing and huh-ing]

GATEKEEPER ADMIN: "So, you can now have that [doomed tooth with the nerve that was destroyed and infected by the poorly done filling] extracted... in 8 days from now" ***

EXHAUSTED JOSIE:"Ohhh...nononono. No that's not ok. See I was going to have it taken out on Thursday right when he saw me, only it's so bad he needed me to take antibiotics first, but said if the pain was too bad, he would be willing to take it out on Friday. I can't wait another 8 days"

GATEKEEPER ADMIN: "Well you missed your appointment."

EXHAUSTED JOSIE:"YEAH. That's because I'm pretty much exhausted from this past week of being exhausted and then on pain meds and stressed out and-"

GATEKEEPER ADMIN: <snarksnarksnark>"Well, if I put you when it should ACTUALLY be done, it would be in May"</snarksnarksnark>

EXHAUSTED JOSIE STARTING TO CRY A LITTLE BECAUSE SHE *JUST CAN'T EVEN*:"...really? So it seemed so urgent to him that he would have dealt with the issue on Monday-today [or Friday if he had to], and prescribed me oxycodone IN ADDITION to what the ER had already prescribed me before, but suddenly I can't be seen until next week? How does that work? And what are you going to do, put me on pain meds for another WEEK, and then i have the procedure and have an additional 2 or 3 days on more narcotics? No, that's not reasonable in anyway and I-"

GATEKEEPER ADMIN:"Let me talk to the doctor hold please"

So now I am scheduled for tomorrow. I can deal with tomorrow.

Did I mention when they were originally scheduling me I told them the appointment was pretty early and I was exhausted and BTW was there ANYWAY I could be seen later?

NO.

Love it when admin do the gatekeeper thing, cause then they have to deal with that version of me that does the sobby-trying-to-control-myself-thing while trying to make a logical argument at the same time. It's reallyREALLY not pretty.

And yay for doctor being consistent at least.

***it is entirely possible part of this statement may have merely been suggested by her tone.

aaaand I have a fever.
It's not a really bad fever-99.3- though I tend to run low. My normal is usually mid/high 97.

More worrying in this context is there is a distinct channel of pain from my jaw to my inner ear and my neck is a bit sore and, most importantly, I've actually been taking penicillin since Thursday. Yet, I have a fever.


If I wake up tomorrow and it's not lowered I'm just going to hospital regardless of time.

now though, I'm going to try to sleep. again.
This is fun.
REALLY.

[Fresia]

Good luck with the procedure and hope the infection resides soon. Hang in there! ((((JosieTheGirl))))))

[gayleggg]

Hope you feel better soon.

[Perna]

Hope all went well!

[Pierro]

How did you get on Josie. Thinking of you.

Thanks guys.

I'm really sorry I haven't checked in and updated; I've not quite felt myself for a while. All the stress- the general mental stress plus the infection and physical ongoing stress have just pretty well beat me up and I'm just starting to feel a bit better.

The good news is that the very worst problem tooth is out.
The bad news?
The wisdom tooth issue, and a newer tooth issue have not been taken care of because the procedure ended up being such a hassle and I ended up being such a damn high maintenance problem patient.
[and it was so embarrassing, really]

I was under the impression that I was going to have general since I have a pretty intense reaction to local- I guess it's the epinephrine or something. So I discovered pretty shortly beforehand that I'm not having general anesthesia but local and also when I get there that the person doing the procedure is not the person I had seen before.

So that's all fun. Also, that particular day I kind of feel ike death warmed over. I don't know what is going on, but I feel all kinds of wrong, and, as I mentioned before, I had a low-grade fever the night before. I didn't take it the day of but I still felt pretty bad. I guess I looked pretty bad too because the dentist/oral surgeon said "so should we not do this today?"

I said something to the effect of "NO this is happening today".

Then she said she was only going to take the one tooth and my response was similar, so she said I would do the paperwork and consent for everything and she would start with the worst and see how it goes so i said ok that's fair.

Then I told her about the local/epinephrine issue so she said we could do nitrous on top of the local.

Note to self: Nitrous isn't terribly effective.

The nitrous helped to some degree, but i was still kind of freaked out. Like more than I would have been sans the drug that was making me freak out.

Also, I was starting to feel kind of nauseated a few minutes in.
This wasn't helped when the local started to leak to the back of my tongue and I violently jerked up a couple times because I was uncontrollably gagging, on the verge of being sick.

When she was confused by what i was doing and I explained to her that i was gagging, she asked WHY I WAS GAGGING.

I kind of wanted to reply something snarky, but I just said that the local was making me react like that. So from then on, I was scared I was going to get sick and aspirate all kinds of gross.

Then, even though she said "if you feel any pain at all let me know", she didn't... exactly respond to me letting her know.
I was flailing all over the place and finally started yelling and waving and kind of actually made like I was going to hit her because i was full on panic and up to that point she was telling me "oh no it's PRESSURE you are feeling, not PAIN".

So I had to tell her "look, I've been through this. THAT is pain, not pressure. I've felt pressure. I am feeling PAIN".

So she had to give me two more shots of local... which definitely helped the panicky terrified feeling right?

UGH UGH UGH.

So finally I'm not feeling the pain, and the tooth cracks in half...

I do however feel as she's digging around getting the other half, and I break out in hives...

Her and her assistant get concerned and she says "You have a rash are you allergic to something?"

I don't really want to make a big deal and I don't think I am so I say "no, it happens a lot when i get upset"

"Oh, ok so you are allergic to people"

and I have to laugh at that.

We finish up, and I feel really really nauseaus and feel like if I keep trying to talk some bad things are going to happen.

I write to the assistant:
"Is nausea common with gas?"

She says no, and looks a little unhappy. I tell her, again with my ipod notebook app [and i highly recommend anyone going through something similar bring something like it with them] that someone is meeting me in a little bit.

She tells me I can sit in the room until they come and has me recline slightly for a while and kind of makes light.

Then they tell me if i have problems breathing or the nausea gets worse or the rash gets worse to come immediately back to the ER.

They also tell me to hang in the waiting room for a bit until I feel a bit less sick when my person gets there.

I hung out for like two minutes and then I'm like "I NEED TO GET THE HECK OUT OF HERE NOW"

But, now I get to do it all over again in a week and a half because it took a really super long time and was kinda traumatic in a completely new and exciting way.

Also, I'm calling tomorrow to see if i can talking with the person doing it next time to come up with a better plan. If i had eaten at all, I really think I probably would have gotten sick, and that would have been really bad news.

Um...

The terrible horrible no good very bad tooth is gone though!!!

[Yoda]

oh my, all that drama for one tooth you poor baby I hope you feel better soon

The nausea would have been worst for me. I can handle pain better than nausea any day.

Originally Posted by Yoda

oh my, all that drama for one tooth

I know right?
I felt so pathetic and just... really annoyed at my stupidstupidness. I kept wanting to explain why my body was doing whatever it was doing but had no explanation so just got annoyed that I had to come back again haha

The nausea would have been worst for me. I can handle pain better than nausea any day.

Agree.
The only thing is: if I can't see what she's doing, I might jerk away with the pain, so I might end up getting really hurt. Though if I'm bout to be sick and gaggin, it's hard to control that as well. hrm. So... it's like... how to manage all of this with the greatest damage control.

How do we make it so I don't start associating dental procedure with like... illogical fear? That's really what I'm going for. i'd rather not start to be conditioned to have that response. That could even spread out into the rest of the medical world and that would suck a whole bunch.

But ok...
So... it could have been worse?

YES. Could have been worse.
Also, no more nerve pain.
So those are things!
THINGS! Yay things!
haha.

thanks for the hughugs

[tealBumblebee]

This was so scary to read - especially since I need to get a tooth (or 4) out. I'm glad you survived but I hope the next time is muuuuch easier for you!!! *hugs*

[likewater]

That sounds horrible. I'm glad that tooth is out. Hope it goes smoother with others. Hope next tome you have your regular dentist.