GO TO THE DENTIST

I will begin today's post by saying I did NOT work out last night- although I dearly wanted to join Chalene on her path to fitness! But I had a good excuse. My head was about to explode.

I had uh, neglected to go to the dentist for um... 12 years. And uh... I decided when I saw some very bad things happening in there, it was time to go. Thanks go to Lori York for recommending an AWESOME place here in Houston.

Anyway, I went and I KNEW I was going to get in trouble and some further procedures weer going to be needed, but I truly thought that I would go in, have my x-rays, get a cleaning and then be set up for an appointment to deal with these other issues. That is NOT what happened. I went in, got my x-rays and they said my teeth were so bad there was no reason to just waste time and money on a general cleaning. It wouldn't do a thing. ... and oh joy, they had a couple who had appointments after mine, JUST cancel theirs. WOO HOO! YEAH! They wanted to do a full scaling and refinishing. They said five more years of neglecting my teeth, I would probably have to have dentures. Now, I don't think they looked THAT bad- but what was happening was the tartar was eating away at my teeth and in my bottom front two, I already have major bone loss. So they had to novacaine me up, laughing gas me up, and then they went in with this little knife looking thing, between each tooth and into, DEEP in between each teeth and gum. My bottom right side never numbs- he tried twice. So I just sort of had to sit through that one, in tears, but it could have been worse. The doc came in and said the bone loss was of some concern and hopefully this scaling will give a chance for the gums to heal and the ligaments to reattach to my teeth and that way, they will hold them in better. He would not tell me the next steps if this didn't work. HOWEVER, my teeth look and feel 120% better than they did yesterday. They look like a whole new set of choppers! ... and after having the laughing gas, which makes you feel like you had a margarita or two, I started to wonder why I don't drink more. It felt GREAT!

I went home numb and with a pretty bad headache. Chalene may have sent me over the edge. I took 4 Advil and went to bed at 9 PM after gumming my food and HOPING it was going down and not coming out. UGH.

Anyway- after a good 9 hours of sleep, I feel ok. My mouth is sore. I brought Chefboyardee for lunch cause it's soft.

They are trying to talk me into braces- but you can't eat tortilla chips for two years and you can just forget about THAT! He said there are some other options. How wonderful, can't wait.

After telling ALL of this to Conrad last night, he's panicking about his own gums. He is worried his teeth are going to fall out. He was staring at me last night in 1/2 facsination and 1/2 horror.... I said "Am I scaring you?" He said "YES".... it was the dentures thing. Having just come from the Dentist of Death's chair myself and fancying myself a bit of an expert now, I offered to take a look at his pearly whites to give him my professional opinion. They looked ok to me. Apparently, NOT GOOD ENOUGH for Mr. Hopkins. He doesn't trust me a bit! :( He wants to find a Saturday dentist now.

Moral of the story- GO EVERY SIX MONTHS or you'll end up like me, sitting at your desk with a headache, eating bananas and the lunch of a four year old- Chefboyardee Beefaroni. You KNOW how bad they're going to make fun of me today, don't you?