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
