Forced downtime

Three consecutive days of dentist/oral surgeon visits have resulted in forced downtime for me on the ranch. On Wednesday, a visit to the dentist to address the broken tooth slated for a crown. While much of the shearing off was the buildup, some of it was the actual tooth, and what was left after that was one little stub, resulting in yet another unrestorable tooth. Luckily, we had already made an appointment with the oral surgeon for Thursday, because I could tell what was coming: an extraction of what was left.

And that’s what we did on Thursday: appointment at 10, and by 11:20 I was walking out the door, my mouth yet one more tooth lighter. This was a bit more difficult an extraction, as the top stub broke of and he wound up using forceps to dig in and grab the root, but he managed to pull the root out in one piece. No cutting! Gauze, the usual prescriptions, and off I went back to the house. Because of the additional rooting around (no pun intended) this one hurt quite a bit more than the last one, and my lower jaw started to swell fairly immediately. I also felt quite a bit more nauseated this time than last, but sleep plus the various drugs made it all slide down the list of my concerns, even if it did put me behind on various things and make me a bit foggy throughout the evening. My oral surgeon – Dr. Tayapongsak, by the way, if you’re ever in this area and need a very good one – also mentioned to me something I resigned myself to three years ago as I began the never-ending dental work: eventually, all my teeth will probably have to come out. For now, though, I’d like to retain what I can.

Friday, back to the dentist for what was actually my scheduled appointment for crown preps, now on a single tooth instead of two. That didn’t make it hurt any less, as my jaw had swollen further through the evening, but I went ahead with this appointment to avoid having the other tooth meet the same fate as the one requiring extraction. As he shaved away the buildup and shaped the remainder of the tooth, of course some of that work wound up going right along the gumline. Ouch. Then the impressions, and me trying to open my mouth widely enough to get the trays in, which were then jammed up against the teeth and held there for several minutes. Then the even greater challenge of getting the trays out through my limited opening, without destroying what we’d just managed to create. Then the temporary crown, on the tooth, off the tooth for shaping, over and over again, every time jammed up against and into the gumline until it was shaped properly.

After that adventure, off to the hospital and an EKG and a chest xray, so I can begin hyperbaric dives on Monday to promote the healing of the socket where the root had been. While I was in xray, getting lined up for the second shot, a code blue in MRI comes over the intercom. Such is the ebb and flow of the medical world.

All of this adds up to no work outside since Wednesday. My face is still swollen today, although less so than yesterday, and there is no heavy lifting permitted anyway for a day or so after the extraction, to avoid the potential of dislodging the (very nice) blood clot that formed in the empty tooth socket. Since I feel like someone has been beating me with a lead pipe – and look a bit that way, too – this is disappointing, but sort of welcome at the same time.

Tomorrow, though: full steam ahead. Lots to do. Not many people to do it. It’s time to really start ramping things up here on the ranch.