What A Pain

I have a toothache. It started some time on Thursday. It was a small, dull pain, gone pretty quickly. I didn't think much about it at the time. Then, on Friday, as I was eating a sandwich on my lunch break at school, I happened to find a bone chip in the lunch meat. Naturally I found it with that tooth. But it only hurt for a minute or two, and afterwards I went about the rest of my day as normal.

By Friday night I knew it was trouble. Shortly after I had lain down to sleep, the throbbing started. I came to find that if I stood up and walked around, the pain would go away almost immediately. And it would stay away, at least for a little while. Since getting up and walking around isn't conducive to sleeping (at least in my case), I tried looking for other ways to deal with the pain. Advil, sitting up, hot pad, ice pack, rinsing the area with cool water—none of these seemed to help for very long. Nancy gave me a suggestion that finally did the trick: a decongestant. Who'd have thought?

The tooth didn't bug me much yesterday. I got through a busy day of doing dishes and tidying up the kitchen, delivering flyers for a neighborhood Halloween party, and assorted other little things without it bothering me too much. Last night we went down to Orem for a Halloween party hosted by one of Nancy's friends from work. I didn't have any particular problems there, either.

Then it was time for bed, and that's when the problems really started. We got to bed around 1:00 a.m. Then, for the next three hours or so, I got up every 20 to 30 minutes in order to relieve the pain in the lower left quadrant of my mouth. I did all the same things as last night, even adding prayer to the routine. The last time I recall looking a the clock, it was almost 4:00 a.m. I did finally manage to get to sleep some time after that.

And I was up and awake by 8:15 this morning...not because I like getting up early, necessarily, but because my body won't let me sleep in, regardless how late I got to bed the previous night. Being married to Nancy has helped, though. Before, I'd never have made it past 6:00 or 6:30.

So here I sit, a slight dull reminder of last night's travails in my mouth, typing away at my computer. I'd love to take this whole day off, but that's not going to happen. I'm the Sunday School president, and there are things that have to get done.

I'm going to the dentist tomorrow. I just don't know which one. I got a letter from my old dentist a couple of weeks ago stating that he's relocated to another area code. All right, Park City's not that far away, but it's farther than I care to drive just to get my tooth drilled. Besides, I still owe him money from an emergency visit last year when we didn't have insurance. Nancy has recommended her dentist in Midvale, which is considerably closer. And one of our friends in the ward goes to a dentist's office here in the neighborhood, well within walking distance. I don't know where I'll end up going. I guess I'll make some calls tomorrow morning and see who's accepting new patients.

At least we have dental insurance now. That's a blessing.