Michael's Miserable, Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

If you haven't read the toothache post yet, read that one first. I'll wait.
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So I made it through Sunday, despite the fact that I got roughly four hours of sleep and ended up teaching a Sunday School lesson on two hours' notice. (Don't ask me what the speakers in Sacrament Meeting talked about, I have no idea.) And with the help of some Acetaminophen PM and a Lortab left over from my last root canal, I actually slept pretty soundly Sunday night. And I needed it.

So I awoke Monday morning at about 7:30. I tried to get back to sleep, but finding myself unable to do so, went ahead and got up and started my day. I had two main missions for the day, centered around two phone calls I had to make. One, obviously, was to try to get an appointment with the dentist. The second was to follow up on my student loan application, I'd faxed all the requested documents on the 6th, and even though they said it could take up to 14 days to process, I still hadn't heard back yet. So a follow-up call was definitely in order.

I called the loan company first. They informed me that I was missing some documents. WTH? I'd faxed in the signature pages from the promissory note, the signed IRS document stating that I would only use the money for educational purposes, and the proof of enrollment. Well, apparently they needed the first page of the promissory notes, too. Looking through all my loan papers, I could not find a single place where it said they needed those, but fine, I could go ahead and fax them in. I verified what they still needed and got the papers together.

The next call was to Nancy's dentist. The girl who answered the phone was pleasant and helpful, but told me the soonest appointment they had was Tuesday morning. But she said she could talk to the dentist if it was an emergency and see if they could slip me in at the end of the day. I told her I'd appreciate it if they could, and she put me on hold to go talk to the dentist(s). When she came back, she had wonderful news: not only could they see me that day, but they could see me in the morning. At 9:10. It was around 8:20 by this time, so I hurried and got ready, then drove down to the office. So far so good.

I got to the office, filled out the new patient paperwork, and was in the chair by 9:25. The dentist introduced himself and found out a little about me. Then came the needle. He gave me a lidocaine injection and waited for five minutes or so for me to get numb. I felt fairly numb as he began working—until the dental assistant sprayed a little cold water in my mouth. It sent a sharp pain through my supposedly numb lower jaw. So he gave me a second injection and waited five more minutes. This was followed by third and fourth injections, neither of which solved the problem. At this point the dentist said there was nothing else he could do; he'd have to send me to a specialist.

The office assistant got the specialist on the phone and set up an appointment for 3:00 that afternoon. The bad news is that the specialists were not only quite a bit more expensive, but also not nearly as flexible with payment arrangements. I'd have pony up a $200 co-pay for them to see me—$200 I didn't have, and given upcoming obligations for rent and bills, wouldn't have for at least three weeks. I asked if there were any arrangements that could be made in that respect, and the only thing they were able (or willing) to do was to take a postdated check. Good thing I have so many substitute teaching hours this month.

So I left the dentist's office, mouth mostly numb, and headed for the call center to use the fax machine. Once there, I had all the stuff ready to fax in. And then, for some reason, I thought I'd better call one more time, just to verify that I did indeed have everything I needed. So I did, and it was a good thing that I did. It turned out that had I faxed in what I then had, I would still have been short one document: the first page of my cosigner's copy of the promissory note. Which, naturally, I didn't have with me. I was pretty sure I had a copy stored on my hard drive, but that would necessitate me driving home and then back to the call center. My mother, the cosigner, also had a copy; I know this because I mailed it to her. I could call Mom and have her send me a copy of that first page, which could take a week or more. Or I could try to access the documents online, which is how I had originally got them, and which was the option most likely to allow me to get things done right then. I decided to try to access the information online.

The challenge here was that the loan company's web site is so poorly designed that it's nearly impossible to find that kind of information. If you're looking to apply for a loan, it's a piece of cake to navigate. But if you're looking for information on an existing loan, you literally can't find it from their front page. It's simply not there. So I called their number yet again (this would be the third time so far today, for those keeping track) and asked how to get that information. The agent who answered my call had no idea, so I asked him as politely as I could (considering that the anaesthesia was now starting to wear off) to transfer me to a supervisor. Fortunately, once I got to the supervisor, she was able to tell me immediately where I needed to go. I thanked her for her time and went to work on getting that final, elusive document I needed.

Unfortunately, I found I couldn't access it under my login. I'd need to go home and print a copy from my hard drive after all. Or, I could try to access Mom's account, since she'd had me create it for her in the first place. So I entered her username, then found that I couldn't answer the security question that I had helped her create. So I logged out and headed home. Grrrr.

I got home and checked my computer and discovered that I didn't have a copy of the paperwork there either. Apparently I printed off the information without saving a copy of the .pdf on my hard drive. Big mistake on my part, I know. So I called Mom to have her walk me through everything so that I could print out everything. I had Mom on the phone for about two minutes when the battery on my phone started to die. I quickly told her to call me back on our home phone—good thing Nancy wasn't working that day! Mom called me back pretty quickly, and we got online to look up her stuff. When I finally got back to the right web site, I found that the system would not allow me to try to log on with her user name. Why not? Because there had been too many previous unsuccessful logon attempts, i.e., when I had tried to log in earlier in the day. I told Mom I'd have to call the loan company back and get the lockout reset, and call her back when it was done. So I called and talked to yet another representative, only to be told that she would have to call and make the request herself. I called Mom right back, only to have Dad tell me that she'd just left to go into town to pick up a few things. I told him to have her call me back when she returned.

Then, feeling more frustration than I felt like I ought to have to deal with in any one day, and with the realization that I still had a root canal to look forward to that afternoon, I went into the bedroom to take a nap.

I slept for about an hour and awoke just moments before Mom called back. With Nancy's help, I got both my Mom and the loan company on the phone with me at the same time—thank heaven for three-way calling!—and began to get the issue straightened out. We spent about 20 minutes with the loan company getting the account cleared and verifying her login information, after which I spent about another 25 minutes on the phone just with Mom getting the information I needed. But at the end, I had what I'd been looking for all that morning and now well into the afternoon: the front page of her copy of the promissory note. You can be darned sure I saved a copy of the .pdf this time.

The page in question now printed and in hand, it was time to leave for my second dental appointment of the day. That's a new record for me, by the way. I've had more than my fair share of dental visits in my life, but never more than one in the same day. Anyway, I kissed Nancy goodbye and made my way to the specialists' office. It wasn't easy to find, but I managed to get there in time. Once there, the lady at the desk asked me for my insurance information. I didn't have it. The insurance company doesn't issue cards, they just have you download a form to bring in to the office and have them fill out. And I didn't have one of those forms with me, partly because I hadn't thought to print a second one and partly because I'd heard the lady from the first office read all the applicable information to this lady over the phone when she'd set up the appointment for me. When I pointed out this latter fact, the receptionist told me they'd call the original office for what they needed. Good. As much as I generally dislike dental work, I really couldn't wait any longer for this.

The root canal itself was fairly uneventful. I say this because I've had them done before and I've become pretty familiar with how the whole process works. This particular dentist was really good, and really fast. He was also very personable. The only tense moment for me what when he administered the anaesthetic. Still aching from the morning's experience, I was afraid it wouldn't take. He gave me the first injection, and I don't know what he was using or how much, but it was already more effective than what I'd received a few hours before. Then he told me he was going to give me a second injection, and that this one had some epinephrine in it. So if I felt my heart start to race, he said, that was a normal reaction. I was really glad that he had covered that when it did happen. Otherwise I would have been really freaked out.

After writing out that post-dated $200 check, I left for the call center again. I'd already called my boss and told him I was having a root canal, so he knew I wasn't coming in to work. But he'd also been there while I'd been having the previous conversations regarding my loan situation, so he wasn't surprised to see me when I showed up again to use the fax machine. Verifying that I did indeed have all the documents I needed, I faxed them over and got a confirmation sheet showing they had been transmitted successfully. It was now around 5:00 p.m. Having now accomplished everything that I had originally thought I'd get done by noon, I went home. It had been a long, frustrating day, but I'd made it. Through all the clouds of the day, I'd finally reached my silver lining—or composite, actually, since dentists don't seem to use silver much any more.

And that brings us up to today. I went back into the original dentist's office on Wednesday to have a real filling into the tooth in question. It's responding just as anticipated, which is to say, not at all. It's dead now, after all. But with all the poking and prodding and pushing that went on Monday, my lower jaw is still sore and swollen. I've been taking copious amounts of ibuprofen for the swelling and acetaminophen for the pain. And it's getting better, little by little. Another day or two, and I'll be back to normal.

As normal as life gets for me, anyway.