The worst kind of pain

There are three areas of your body that you can hurt that create what I like to classify as the "worst kind of pain". This pain isn't necessarily the most intense, but because every single action you take, from breathing, to walking, to simply existing, effects, or is affected by, the pain, it is the worst kind of pain. The three categories of this worst kind of pain are: tooth pain, back pain, and the pain following abdominal surgery.

The five year anniversary of my recovery from abdominal surgery just passed. I think I can wait, oh, 75 more years before repeating THAT lovely experience in wishing for death.

On Friday night I bit into my steak and thought "Hmm, crunchy with a metallic tang. Ahh CRAP" A great huge filling fell out of my upper back molar on my right side. Of course it was Labor Day weekend so I had to suffer until Tuesday before the dentist's office was even open, and then wait until Wednesday for an appointment.

I did a lovely job, according to the dentist with the large soulful dark eyes (What else was I supposed to stare at for an hour?) who is probably a good 15 years younger than I am. Not only did I lose the great big filling ("You really aren't supposed to swallow them". Gee, thanks) but I cracked off the back end of the tooth. Oh- and incidentally totally exposed the great big nerve. But he couldn't just assume that from the x-rays, he had to go and PROBE a bit.

After they scraped me off the ceiling he determined that I needed a root canal and a crown. I told him to pull the tooth. He argued. I argued back. He got very stern ( as stern as a 15 year old Asian boy pretending to be a dentist can be) and explained about bite and jaw position and mentioned the outrageous amounts of money my parents had probably spent giving me nice straight teeth with an aligned bite. Oh, thanks, guilt.

Then, because I'd collapsed in a goo of acquiescence, he did a full exam. The good news is I have no "new" cavities. The bad news is, I have another molar/filling cracked just like this last one probably was. It will have to be replaced. There’s a filling with decay underneath it that has to be removed, drilled, maybe root canaled and then crowned, and a filling that I lost that I wasn't sure I even had.

The grand total? $1700 AFTER insurance. Oh- and that's not counting the bill for the oral surgeon to do the root canal- because the 12 year old said my jaw wouldn't open wide enough for him to risk it.

As for the other of my trifecta of worst kinds of pain? Oh I managed to do that to myself by putting my eldest in "time out". Don't ask for more of an explanation, it is something that "Shall not be mentioned".

And THAT is why Ethan confided to his stuffed animals that "That Mommy is grumpy today".