Swerve

 

 

I've been quiet huh? Well, there hasn't been much to talk about that I figure would interest anyone. Believe me, I could write about pretty much anything but I am sure the subject matter would bore the hell out of people. Who cares about the Battle of Agincourt except me and a few Medieval history professors? Quickie note on that battle, the English use of the longbow skewered thousands of French knights. It was a slaughter.

So, something new.

I am startled, look up and see I'm halfway into the middle lane on 95N just before I get into Providence. I swing the car back into my lane and wonder why I'm nodding off so many times driving home. I feel soo damned tired that my eye lids, if they close halfway, will drop all the way and I'm half asleep again. I do it again just past Providence center right after the bridge construction.

Not good.

I force myself to stay awake as much as I can and make it off the School street exit and am glad because swerving the car at 25mph is “safer” vs. doing it at highway speeds. I make it home but don't get out of the car. I shut it off and lean my head back and fall asleep for about 15 minutes. Anyone walking by might think I'm dead. I never sleep in my car. I wake up, finally get out of the car, make it into the house and start to get done the tasks I had promised myself I'd do once home.

I barely get the laundry started when I give up and go to bed at 3PM and don't get up till 9PM.

I think I just of been really tired today, that's all.

A day or so earlier...

Halloween night, I could feel a molar on the lower right side heating up, a slight pain. That's nothing new to me. I have tons of fabricated teeth and on occasion, they act up a bit. But on November 1^st, that tooth started to scream. If you've never had a full blow HOT toothache, it's damn near impossible to explain that kind of pain. Ever stub your toe in the middle of the night? Ok, sort of like that but also set it on fire with no real way to calm it down. It just persists. My only go to remedy was ibuprofen which takes the edge off that agony. It's enough where you can't focus on the day's tasks. And that's the crux of the problem. You cannot focus on too much of anything else well when a tooth is pulsating in your mouth. It's deep bone pain under pressure, sharp, heated and throbbing. At work , we have two lines that you can reach us by, both “rings” are kind of similar but differ in cadence. So, the phone goes off and there I am, focused on the tooth making itself VERY known and I pick up...and no one's there. A friend, then asks me, “Are you alright?” He meant that why the hell did I pick up on a call that wasn't directed toward us. I stood there and realized what it was, the damn tooth had me elsewhere.

Unrelenting pain does a great job ruining your attention span and motivation to get other things done.

So I ate another ibuprofen, mindful not to pop them like candy mints. They'd last for about 3 hours and the label says four till you take the next one. Well, I shaved an hour off that. I'm no hard core drinker so my liver is in decent shape to handle that. I wait an hour and finally that loud mouthed tooth is shut up for a bit. Great, now I can focus.

Here's something about toothaches that I found odd and it's probably only me. If I can fall asleep, they don't bother me at all, even if it's a super stinging one. The trick is to pop some pills before bed and hope you zonk out before they wear off.

But...

The next morning I wake up, I'd say, give it about 15 minutes and my body's nervous system kicks in to tell me “you have a toothache!” and does it come back with a vengeance.
The pain is in concert with your heart beat... BANG...BANG...BANG!

I'm up and it's 5AM, I sat here, staring at this screen, occasionally out the window sort of hazed out. My jaw felt swollen and I was getting tired and spacey. Shit...is it spreading? Are we going to have nice systemic sepsis problem I can be admitted to a hospital for? That's the big worry about tooth infections. Will they spread and if they do, then tend to ape. I've never had that happen but I am acutely aware of the danger in that if you wait too long. I then realize the flesh on my right cheek, chin and lower lip is starting to sting. Fuck! It IS spreading.

By 9AM I was wiped out again. I was juggling the next options I had. Call the dentist and fork over about $1000 to $2000 of copays as the upper limit of my insurance would be wasted in seconds. Or, go to the clinic and cheat by getting some antibiotics which will kill the problem but it's only a few month temporary fix...or..go back to bed and see how I felt when I got up.

I went to bed.

A few hours later I get up, waiting for my body to start that cycle again. 'Hey, he's awake, start up that pulsing pain on him again!” But...it didn't happen. As I write this, I knocked on my maple wood desk here as a precaution that it doesn't come back. I hope my immune system won this battle, this time around. My face finally stopped stinging a day later.

I then thought of the time before antibiotics and pain killers and how the hell anyone then managed to tolerate a very hot tooth. . Alot of prayers to God? Booze if you had it? A witch doctor who waved a dead wombat over your head to cure you? You had nothing really but your own immune system which either fought and won or did not. Ugh..

Thank God for Louis Pasteur and medical SCIENCE..thank my lucky stars for being born at the right time too.  Not that I availed myself to them though, but they're there. Cheap prick that I am figuring out cost efficient options. 

I then figured out why I was driving all over the highway that day. Now that I'm older, illness's first symptoms hit me differently. They all seem to start by my becoming dead tired. The other usual symptoms, coughing, puking or turning various colors of red, happen secondly now. I sigh in my mind...”Great, it happens to me on 95 now...”

A paraphrased conversation with Dr. Casarella a couple of decades ago.

“I see your brother too you know...you both have similar teeth...soft enamel.”

Then he asks. “Did you have a lot of fevers as a kid??

I mumble..”Yes” and am very curious as to how he knows. So I ask.

“The molars...and the further back they are, have a dusty white color to them...it's indicative of high fevers...and softening...and it stays for life.”

I think, “Gee, what luck!”