Fixing a Hole

Today found me once more in the dentist's chair. Since I had my wisdom teeth removed I have not been experiencing the terrible tooth aches, ear aches, head aches, and neck pain that I'd been having off and on for the past few years. I was rather optimistic about the remainder of my dental work. My previous visit to this particular dentist had not yielded much beyond instructions to get my wisdom teeth and molar removed and then come back so he could get a better look at the rest of my teeth.

Unfortunately for me he peered at my x-rays and muttered various ominous sounding dental gibberish to his assistant. Then he informed me that I need 3 crowns. My stomach started to sink as I mentally calculated what that might cost me. When his assistant brought in the estimate I felt downright ill. $2,150 for what I need done. Ouch. That hurt almost as badly as those toothaches did. She told me that I'd get a $177 discount if I paid it all in full right then and there. Sadly, I do not have that much money just laying around waiting for me to throw it at my impossibly young dentist. My wisdom teeth, car insurance, and glasses all hit me within the same month. Hear that sound? That's not my wallet begging for mercy..that's my wallet begging on the street corner for any scrap that someone might throw.

Ah well. There is one small mercy in that I'll be having the crowns done at different times and so I can space them a few months apart. Give myself a little time to scrape together the money. Perhaps my jewelry sales will pick up enough to help me out a little more.

In the meantime I'm making a voodoo doll of my dentist.

Eye of the beholder

Yesterday I had an eye exam. I get one every year. I used to have them whenever I could be bothered to remember, but when you get engaged to an Optician you can't get away with that kind of thing anymore. Every year I resist getting a new eye exam, and every year he drags me kicking and screaming to the eye doctor. I'm also not allowed to clean my glasses on my shirt. Apparently it's bad for the lenses. Hmph.

This time I was pleased to learn that my prescription has barely changed. I have some minor change in my left eye. Usually my eyes get steadily worse each year. Perhaps they are finally levelling out.

My eye doctor was pointing out various things on the Optomap scan, telling me how this nerve or that random blob with some impossible to pronounce name looked fine. Then he told me that I have some "thinning" in my right eye, but not to worry because while it is rare, it isn't abnormal. I wanted to ask how something could be rare but not abnormal, because if it were normal, it wouldn't be rare, right? But I figured he's a good eye doctor, and if it's nothing to be concerned about I won't worry about it.

But I want to know why I can't have something rare happen that's actually worthwhile. Winning the lottery? Rare. Finding a diamond mine in my back yard? Pretty much impossible. Discovering a priceless artifact in my basement/attic/tool shed? Nope, sorry. Nothing but mice to be found there. Coming home to discover Orlando Bloom naked in my living room? Fate has other plans and he remains stubbornly clothed and located thousands of miles away with no knowledge of my existence.

Thinning of the eye? Yeah, that's the one I get. My sheer awesomeness is a wonder to behold.

Oh well. It could be a far worse kind of rare. At least this rare is the "nothing to worry about" kind, as opposed to the "limited chance of survival" kind.

It ended up costing just over $600 for the exam, my contacts, new glasses, and prescription sunglasses. That's after my fiance's discount, too. Ah, eyes and teeth..what expensive things they are.

Hello, Onstar?

Yesterday afternoon I went to my bank to straighten out an error and also do my Secret Shop. Yes, that's right..I'm a secret shopper for my bank. Who would have thought that banks actually used such things? Every month they send me a postcard with my super secret instructions and a warning to Not Tell Anyone At The Bank that I am shopping them. Oh, and this post card will self destruct in 3..2..1...

My shop this time was for their loan department. I hate loan shops. I did one last year that only served to piss me off. I had saved a substantial amount of money towards a new car. Over half the cost of it, in fact. I decided to ask about a loan for the remaining amount. Imagine my surprise when the person who was helping me told me that I needed to get a loan for the entire amount of the car and roll the cash into a CD. When I told him I would rather not do that, he told me to have my father call him to discuss what I should do with my money.

Uh...'scuse me? My father? The man who has never been on my bank account, and hadn't contributed a single penny towards the amount I'd saved? Why on earth would I want him to call my bank to discuss my money?

Needless to say, the loan department did not get a good report that time. The gentleman who worked with me is no longer employed there. I doubt I was the cause of his dismissal, but I'm guessing my report was at least a contributing factor. The bank also did not get my loan. I put the majority of the money into the car, paid the insurance with the rest, and financed the remaining balance with the dealership, who offered me a far better interest rate than the bank ever could have.

But I digress.

After my loan shop yesterday (which went much better), I got into my car and pulled out my pen to jot down the required details. Except I dropped my pen between my seat and the center console of the car. Naturally, I reached down to get it.

Fun fact: Saturn Ions have a center console that is encased in plastic, as most cars do. The casing does not reach all the way to the floor of the car, but leaves a gap. The edge of the casing is also rather sharp.

My fingers got stuck under the edge. Not "oops, just let me pull that free" stuck..I'm talking STUCK stuck. The kind of stuck that is usually preceeded by "Hey y'all, watch this!" and then involves a horde of firemen armed with grease and saws to get free from.

I tugged, trying to free myself from the casing. Alas, this only served to get my hand stuck even more and it cut into my knuckles. Now I was starting to get concerned. There I was, trapped by my car, in my car, with my knuckles slowly starting to bleed. I tugged a few more times before deciding that was in fact a really bad idea and wasn't helping at all. I debated moving the seat forward, but had a mental image of my fingers getting severed (unlikely, but I do have a vivid imagination) by the force of the seat pressing against the plastic as it slid forward.

Then I started to imagine what I'd do if I couldn't get myself unstuck. My fiance was working until 9:00. My cell phone was out of reach in my purse, which was in the back seat. I thought about the call I'd have to place to OnStar. "Uh, hello, OnStar? Yeah..I'm..uh...stuck in my car. Yeah, my hand is trapped between the seat and the console. Uh...could you..uh...send someone to free me?? and then promise you're not going to hang up from this call and share the story with all of your co-workers?"

Thankfully common sense prevailed and I reached my left hand down into the gap and pushed in the plastic until I managed to work my right hand free. It hurt like hell, and I lost some more skin, but at last I was finally free without having to call OnStar for assistance. But I do wonder what they would have done..sent firemen? the police? That would have been just great..stuck in the parking lot of my bank while they had to free my hand because I dropped my stupid pen.

The pen is still down there. I'm not going after it. It wasn't that good of a pen anyways.

In which I make plans to lose my wisdom.

Yesterday I had my appointment with the oral surgeon. I wasn't there to get my teeth removed just yet. It was just a consultation. I sat there surrounded by nervous teenagers and a man whose wife was having dental implants put in. He kept taking phone calls in the lobby, obviously not realizing we could hear him clearly through the walls. Apparently his co-worker is an asshole and his boss doesn't care. Also, he likes playing on the office sports team, but hates that the guy from Accounting is such a sore loser and has to one-up everyone.

They had the world's most uncomfortable chairs in the waiting room. For an office that requires long periods of waiting, you would think they would perhaps get better chairs. But these were tiny wooden ones with thin fabric seats and oddly curving backs that forced you to sit awkwardly as some edge or corner dug into whatever unfortunate piece of flesh came into contact with it. I spent my hour shifting and then shifting again in a vain attempt to find a comfortable position. Apparently such a thing did not exist when it came to the chairs.

They were running behind by an hour. I kept eyeing the clock, wondering if their horrible chairs were part of some mental trick. By the time they call you back, you're practically relieved to be standing and moving around again. Doesn't matter if they're about to yank bits of you out one by one and charge you thousands for it. Anything to get away from the chairs.

The oral surgeon told me that they would take all of the wisdom teeth and the molar in one go. He quoted me a price that was less than I was expecting (I was thinking around $3,000..my total cost will be $1200), which was a relief. He spent perhaps 10 minutes explaining the process, briefing my Fiance on the aftercare, and prodding at my teeth. I scheduled my appointment for August 12th. So long, teeth..I can't say I'll miss them. I'll miss my molar, probably. But the wisdom teeth have been constant trouble. I'll also miss that $1200. I never got the chance to know it.

I suppose when I'm all healed I can go back to my impossibly young dentist and let him fill those two pesky cavities. I would say that after that I am swearing off dentists for a while, but doing just that is what brought me here in the first place. Let my soon to be absent molar serve as a reminder to everyone..don't ignore your teeth. They tend to pack their bags and go off in a huff if you do, leaving a gaping hole behind them.

In which I learn that wisdom teeth don't actually grant you any wisdom at all.

Thursday afternoon found me sitting in a dentist's chair for the first time in six years. A constant toothache had finally driven me to make a long overdue appointment. Now, there I sat, berating myself for years of neglect as my teeth throbbed. I could feel it through my neck and up into my temple, a constant drumming of pain.

My dentist looked young. Too young to know what he was doing. But I have to keep reminding myself that I am 27 years old, now. Dentists and doctors are starting to look closer to me in age. My first reaction when he walked into the room was "Oh, god, he's 12 years old." Then I realized that he was probably not much older than me.

He pointed to various things on the X-Rays, prodded around in my mouth, and then delivered his verdict. My wisdom teeth had to go. One had actually killed the molar it was pushing against, so the molar was declared to be a loss as well. Other than that I have two cavities. One shallow, one possibly in need of a root canal, but he "had his fingers crossed" on it. He gave me two prescriptions. One for Vicodin, and one for an antibiotic.

I left his office with mixed feelings. On one hand, I was happy to hear that my teeth are not as bad as I had feared. On the other, I cannot delay having my wisdom teeth removed any longer. I have no dental insurance and I know it will cost a small fortune. I also feel regretful that my molar has to go as well. But I let it go too long, and my tooth is the price for foolishness.

I took a Vicodin when I got home, as his probing had sent my toothache into a full blown frenzy. It felt like demons were hammering spikes through my jaw. My gums were raw and swollen.

Vicodin is interesting. Within half an hour my head was swimming. My bones and muscles felt as though they had turned to liquid and were rolling through my skin like the tide. I couldn't walk without falling and my thoughts fuzzy and slow. Eventually my fiance forced me to lay down so that I wouldn't hurt myself. I stayed in bed and watched my arms, halfway expecting to see the skin drag back and forth in time with the swirling feeling inside it.

The next morning I felt terrible. It took hours for the fog to clear from my brain. I was groggy and slow and every bit of food I ate wanted to come right back up. Luckily I was able to keep my breakfast down.

I think I'd rather live with the pain until the antibiotics calm the inflammation down. I'm saving the vicodin for when I have my wisdom teeth out and don't give a damn if I'm groggy the next day.

The Final Voyage of Blackbeard.

Last friday I came home to find my pet hamster collapsed in the entrance to his favorite tunnel. He was an old hamster. He was balding, and what fur wasn't gone was turning from black to gray. He didn't run on his wheel anymore. He hardly ate. I knew he would be dying soon, so it wasn't a huge shock, but it was still sad. I lifted him from the cage and discovered that he was still alive, but barely. So I wrapped him in a wash cloth and stroked his head until he passed, and then I sat down and cried.

I have had other hamsters over the years, and their lifespans have always been heartbreakingly short. Blackbeard lived the longest, at nearly 4 years old. They were a sort of symbol for me, of a freedom finally gained.

When I was a child, I always wanted a rodent of some sort. A hamster or a mouse. My mother has never cared for them, and never let me have one, which I accepted. I figured I'd get one when I was old enough to make my own choices.

When I was 21 I became involved with a man who was verbally, emotionally, and borderline physically abusive. He told me that if I ever did get such a pet, he would kill it. I believed him. He'd quite calmly threatened to kill me before, and while I wasn't certain that he'd actually kill me, I was quite certain that he was crazy enough to kill a pet I loved. I stayed with him for a year, and finally tore myself free when I grew up enough to realize that I didn't have to take the abuse, and that such things were not normal, and that I certainly deserved better than him. Leaving him was a huge relief. Every outburst he'd had was more violent than the last, and I have no doubt that if I had stayed, he would have become full blown physically abusive towards me.

One of the first things I did after leaving him was buy myself a hamster. My sister took me to the pet store, and I bought myself a russian dwarf hamster. I named him Rasputin. It turned out to be accurate, since he was quite possibly the most evil little creature in the world. He was mean. He bit me every chance he got. He attacked anything I put into his cage until he'd collapse into an exhausted, panting heap in his wheel. He peed in his food dish. I had to handle him with gloves because he'd bite me as hard as he could.

Still, I loved him for all of his meanness. It was a way of moving beyond that hellish year..a sign of freedom. I could have a pet without fearing someone would kill it. I could do the things I wanted. I could be myself. Rasputin lived for three years. The only time I touched him bare handed was when I wrapped him up after he had died.

I also had Attila, who lived for just a few months after I adopted him. I think there must have been something wrong with him from the start. He never seemed to gain much weight or grow, but was active to the point of seeming manic.

Now that Blackbeard is gone as well, I am without a hamster for the first time in over five years. It's odd not hearing him in his cage. Sometimes when I'm alone in the house I think I hear the rattle of the wheel or the rustle of bedding. But it's just my imagination, or the house settling, or maybe the wind outside. I buried him in the back yard under an oak tree, with a pile of pink creek rock on top of his grave to keep the foxes from digging him up.

I may get another one eventually..I don't know. Whether I do or don't, I will always be grateful for how those furry little bright-eyed creatures played a part in the healing process. Rasputin, Attila, and Blackbeard all helped me move beyond the abuse, and the emotional issues I had afterwards. I am with someone now who treats me far better. Life became good again. I am no longer the same scared person that I was. Pets can be many things, regardless of their shape or size..companions, helpers, supporters, and friends.

I thank them for all of those things.

Snakes On A Shelf

Tuesday evening I came home and spent most of the night working on the computer. At around 9:30, I heard a crash from somewhere behind me. I turned around just in time to see several books and a large black snake falling down behind the bed.

Wait a minute..snake??

It seems that our sudden hot weather has sent the snakes in search of cool, dark enviroments to hide out in. Our air conditioned bedroom provided too great a temptation for the scaly home invader to resist. I located the snake (behind the headboard) and got my future father-in-law to help me catch it.

15 minutes later, the snake was relocated to the woods behind our house. That was the end of it..or so I thought.

At 12:41 in the morning, my fiance and I were both soundly asleep when the sound of falling books jerked us both awake. My fiance turned on the light to reveal the same snake on the same bookshelf. It had knocked all but two of my books off the shelf and was preparing to make a final descent onto the bed. My side of the bed, I might add, and Mr. Snake was hanging a mere foot away from my chest.

The snake was removed once more. My fiance spread around moth balls, which are apparently supposed to keep them away. We still have no idea how the snake managed to get into our bedroom. There must be a gap or a hole somewhere. I'm betting it's where a hole was drilled for the satellite dish cables.

I made myself a snake talisman yesterday night, out of copper and snakeskin jasper. I'm going to hang it on the wall by the shelf the snake seems to like so much.