Couch 233: Nothing’s Ghana Stop Us Now

me too anymore!

thanks guys. google told me that salt water rinses helps with the pain, and it was miraculous! the pain is 90% gone. But I still need to get my wisdom teeth taken out at the end of the month. I can't even think about that right now, way too terrified.

See if you can get conscious sedation or general anaesthesia?

I told the dentist I've ptsd and would like certain accommodations. He agreed and noted non judgementally that my dental anxiety was off the charts and obvious during scaling and polishing.

Since he said I needed an oral surgeon anyway due to badly impacted wisdom teeth, he put that in my referral memo.

The oral surgeon did a quick check and basically said general anaesthesia. Recovery after GA was way harder than my fears of never waking up after being put under, tbh.

Took me a week to recover after having all 4 wisdom teeth removed though! Reddit's r/wisdomteeth is friendly.

As for the bill...well...it was high... but I figure it'd cost more over time if I kept ignoring my wisdom teeth or cracked teeth due to teeth grinding in my sleep. Happened to a friend - 2 cracked teeth.

I managed to get help from my sister (she's got a wealthy husband) for the copay after deductions from my 'insurance' account. (Don't know how to explain it without revealing my country.) As I couldn't afford the copay.

Thanks QM-yeah i meet w the oral surgeon on the 27th, and going to let them know how bad my anxiety is around dental procedures. I also have two small cracks in my teeth that might need to get crowns in the future. that is why i went with the professional mouth guard from the dentist-for $700 *insert cry face*

Last night I dreamed I was in some trial program for a new psychotropic sleep medication. There were several women in this trial and we were sleeping in some kind of dorm in a sleep clinic or something. They gave us the drug and then told us that it may cause very vivid dreams. I said dude my dreams are already like that. He was all well tough you're in the trial so take it. So I did and it started working almost immediately and I was dreaming while I was awake, I thought I was beautiful, like some big movie star. And I knew I had to get out of there! I didn't want any more of their drug.

Holy carp i was ill today. I think im better now. At least im not writhing and moaning. I think something got swole up in my gut and triggered some old endometriosis. That or i had a kidney stone. It was just the left side of my innards. At one point i was wondering if my appendix was on the wrong side! I took just about every OTC med i have and lay down and massaged the hot spots, thinking about acupuncture (altho i couldnt remember the word til just now). Still feeling a faint twinge but cheezits i hope it doesnt return. An here i was just thinking how good ive been feeling.

I saw Visa today. Zoom, because I’m at my mother’s. (New cat and loan dog say hi to everybody!)

There’s a lot of stuff going on over my disability accommodation issues at my school, which is just so long and complicated I don’t want to write it out. Let’s justcall it frustrating and painful to the nth degree. So we talked about that.

But Visa also returned to what’s clearly going to be one of her favorite themes, how my mother always tried to minimize disability, e.g., behaving as nondisabled as possible, having us kids educated as normally as possible, emphasizing fitting in. Which of course is pretty common with children with disabilities—she pointed out how she sees as clients the parents of children with sensory disabilities or autism or learning disorders who do the same thing, insist the kid meet all the benchmarks of their age groups, that they be normalized, never mind if it’s hurting the kid short-term and/or long-term.

Anyway, all of that is true, and certainly true of my mother, though since she also has the same disability and was very successful professionally, I think she has more reason to have done that than a non-disabled parent of a disabled child trying to normalize their child does. They’re acting from somewhat different motives.

I just wish therapists would quit focusing on my mother. I had a father too.

I’m just sort of free writing this and babbling. But I feel pretty miserable these days, mostly because of work. Chiding German chair keeps telling me to relax.

I think i am officially mad. I miss doing mock interviews with the kids i used to pretend i was a reporter and shove an invisible microphone in their face and Say rhings like 'How was your day at school today?' And 'What do you think of the state of the bathroom' and 'Where you think the bird that nested in the tree went?' And so on anyway i have been mock interviewing the pets now and providing dialogue and laughing myself silly at the things i imagine they would say.

Last night I realized I was feeling the first twinges of sadness about ending with L. I was crocheting another hat and I noticed that I messed up the stitch count on one round and was about to toss it on the floor and say something like "This is stupid" when it hit me that I was projecting unacknowledged feelings onto said crochet piece. I frowned at myself of course, then admitted to myself that yes I am sad about this even though I know it's time, I started it, and I'm also excited to be moving forward... and continued on with the hat. I figured out how to fix the stitch count without frogging the entire round so that was good. Didn't finish it yet, but glad I didn't just throw it on the floor.

Hugs and head nods all around as appropriate.

That is growth, Artie. I'm very impressed, as I would probably have reacted similarly.

Thanks, Lost. It's a long time in coming for me! Realizing that I'm still a work in progress and always will be, is another part of that growth I think, because I don't catch myself that quickly when it comes to dealing with people (like hubby, when I'm already knee-deep in the reaction that I go oh I see what I am doing and calm down)... but it's good to know I caught myself doing it immediately with the inanimate object anyway.

Taking D to meet with a psychiatrist (in person) in an hour, and I'm really nervous. H and I met with him virtually on Monday, and he seemed nice enough. He's very experienced (including 20 years at a well-known mental hospital in my state), and his interests include autism and ADHD. I'm just hoping he'll be willing to prescribe something, as D has been really struggling lately, both in school and at home. Yesterday, apparently she stood on the cafeteria table and was also kicking some trash cans. At home, she's been pretty weepy lately, including in the middle of the night the other night. But she's a complex case, definitely with autism, likely ADHD, maybe anxiety, maybe OCD (Dr. T has said I few things I've mentioned have jumped out at him as OCD, but could also be part of autism).

So, uh, pocket riders welcome! Mask policy for the office though.

In your pocket with mask firmly on my face

Might be too late but hopping in anyway LT!! Masked, of course.

Thanks for the pocket riders! Went pretty well, all things considered. And D did a good demonstration of the H part of ADHD by basically pacing/running back and forth across the office for most of the time. The p-doc was good with her, and she did much better than I'd expected, with her struggles this week. Walked away with a prescription for Concerta (a stimulant)--it's capsules, and he said we can empty out 1/4 of one in apple sauce to start her on a really low dose, then see how she does. Intend to start Monday (too late to get it for tomorrow morning, and she's doing an overnight at my parents' this weekend). Then he wants us to report back in a couple weeks.

Hope the Concerta helps LT! HUGS

I hope it helps her LT.

Having my own kid with autism, like ADHD and OCD - I totally understand the struggle.

Thanks, Kit!

Thanks, Polibeth, it helps to know you understand, but sorry that you have the struggle as well.


Dr. T suspects, from what I've said, that she has OCD as well (which I've also had since childhood, along with anxiety). The pdoc said one possible side effect to look out for is increased anxiety. So we'll see... I'm just glad we're started down the path of trying *something* (and we'd have likely done so sooner if Covid hadn't happened).

No news on the job promotion front. But no news is good news. My bosses are overseas at the moment, about 10 hours ahead of me so they probably aren't going to try to contact me until next week when they return. I'm a bit nervous about it but if it is meant to be then it will happen. That's what I think anyway.

I have been playing with polymer clay again here is a beaver that inwanted to be a cockatoo dont know why they are upside AGAIN

The university I work for is wanting to turn faculty into mask police. I refuse to monitor the mask wearing of others.

I am having delicious left over from thanksgiving bok choy. Very garlicky.

Yeah that sounds like it is just asking for trouble these days.

One of my favorite take outs.