Back to Blogging

Thank you to everyone who sent emails or called my mom to see if everything was OK with my family and me.  I haven’t blogged for a couple of days.  The cause may make some of you think that I am quite the baby.  My lack of a daily blog was because I was in too much pain from the beginnings of a root canal.  I say beginnings because they were unable to complete the entire root canal in one visit.  My tooth was just too inflamed so I have to go back in two weeks to have it finished. 

I know that root canals aren’t uncommon and about everyone I’ve talked to has either had one or knows someone who has had one.  I, unlike most people though, have an incredible fear and phobia of going to the dentist. 

As a child, I had a great dentist and I had a fabulous orthodontist.  I have always taken good care of my teeth – I have just been unlucky with the make-up of my teeth.  I took a lot of antibiotics as a child so my teeth are a bit gray.  My teeth are also a bit brittle so I have stress fractures in all of them from having braces.  As a child, I had to have 9 teeth pulled before getting braces and have had my share of fillings.  Although I had a great childhood dentist, these types of mouth trauma left unpleasant memories.

As an adult, when I moved Minneapolis, MN, I had to go leave my childhood dentist behind and start going to a dentist associated with my dental insurance.  I went to a huge practice where I never saw the same dentist.   I felt like I no choice and this was the practice I had to visit because I couldn’t afford to go somewhere else and risk having to pay for the visit from my meager salary.  This was fine for routine care but when my husband I had children and our children started making regular visits to the dentist, and when I needed more extensive dental care, I found that this was definitely not the dentist practice for us.

While starting my search for a new dentist, coincidently the Minneapolis/St. Paul magazine came out with their list of best physicians and dentists in the metro area.  I looked over the list, found a few that sounded promising and called our insurance company to see if any of my choices were covered under our plan.  One of them was so I made an appointment for all of us.  I have been very pleased ever since!  This fantastic dental practice is Valley Dental and particularly Dr. Evenson.

Now this isn’t to say that my dental woes were gone.  They still had to pry my hands off of the armrests after my teeth cleaning.  After having to this a few times however, they came up with a way to help me relax.  They give me headphones so I can listen to the TV or music.  They do something special when they take x-rays of my teeth because I have bones growing under my tongue which make tradition x-rays extremely painful. They use a special water scraper instead of the traditional metal one……I get goose bumps just thinking about the metal one scraping my teeth. 

Dr. Evenson and his staff have also been fantastic with my children.  My children have had cleanings; teeth extractions (for braces); a chipped tooth from a baseball shaped back to normal; one cavity filled (between three children – one cavity is quite an accomplishment); wisdom teeth pulled and a gum correction.  Each time, they explained what they were going to do and they tried to make each child feel comfortable.  Dr. Evenson’s manner is calm and quiet.  He is so gentle.  I feel that we’re all in good hands under his care.

My recent tooth trouble was no different, however I found out how deep my dental phobia really is.  On Thursday morning, I called my dentist’s office from work and explained that I was in excruciating pain.  They said that someone could see me at 4pm that day.  I started to cry.  When the scheduler asked for my name and looked up my information on her computer, she quickly asked if I could hold.  She came back on the phone after a short time and said that Dr. Evenson would see me as soon as I could get there.  Evidently, in my information, it says that I am only to see Dr. Evenson.

As soon as I got to Dr. Evenson’s office, they took me in right away.  Within about 15 minutes, I had a diagnosis.  As soon as he told me I had to go to a root canal specialist, I started to cry.  He and his hygienist felt really bad and he assured me that the doctor who would be seeing me would be wonderful.  They made the appointment for me and made sure I had the directions on how to get there. 

The staff at the root canal specialist’s office was great.  They saw how scared I was and tried to help keep me calm.  They gave me a blanket, which they completely swaddled around me.   They never treated me as the lunatic I felt like I looked.  Here I was, an adult woman, practically having a nervous breakdown over a relatively common dental procedure! 

Dr. Anderson was marvelous and he felt bad that he couldn’t finish the procedure all in one visit.  The tooth was just too inflamed and they had given me as much numbing medicine as they could.  So I will need to go back on February 6 for last of the procedure and then I will need to back to Dr. Evenson get a crown.

So for now, the toothache pain has somewhat subsided but that part of my mouth is really sore and I am having trouble eating.  (I wanted to lose some weight but this isn’t really how I wanted to do it!)  My mom has emailed me some fabulous recipes for soft food and I’ve given myself the OK to have as many mochas as I want!

I spent all day Friday in bed watching Netflix but today I have returned to the living world.  I’ve been to the grocery store and I am writing this from a window seat at Caribou Coffee. 

Shortly, I plan to stop by my favorite knitting store, All About Yarn, to catch up with the store owner, Roxanne, and to get help on a project I’m working on.   I’m going to grill steak kabobs for my family tonight and have promised my daughter that I would play a few rounds of CLUE with her.  Life goes on. 

"Some tortures are physical, and some are mental, but the one that is both is dental."  -Ogden Nash