Today was Day 35 of the 2017 Fall pollen season. I have been sick from pollen allergies for five week straight.
There’s really nothing else to say about that. If you’re a healthy person, you’ve probably never lived through five weeks of being sick like this. If you’re sick like me, it’s something that you have learned to cope with.
The pollen count today was 6.6, which means we are heading in the right direction. Are we there yet? No!
I spent what feels like a big part of my day at the dentist’s office. In reality, it couldn’t have been more than a few hours or so. I was there to have an old cap removed.
This involved removing the decay that had gotten underneath it, and reshaping what was left of the tooth that was under the cap. Years ago, I had a root canal on that tooth – hence, the cap.
The photo you see at the top of this blog is one I took after I left the dentist’s office. It is a fancy sidewalk located somewhere nearby. It was a quick decision. Looking at it now, the photo makes me think of straight teeth and the cement that is holding my temporary cap in place.
I came home numb, and tired. I’m writing this after a long nap, and I feel like I’ve been beaten up. The worse part of the experience was that my gums started bleeding. It is super easy to get me to bleed – but difficult to get the bleeding to stop. My best guess is this has something to do with my borderline anemia.
I’ll spare you the details, but will say that it took two people to “pack gauze” in an effort to get the bleeding to stop. After that, I had to sit with bigger gauze in my mouth, and bite down, in the hopes the bleeding would stop soon. I’m not troubled by this, but I may have worried the doctor and dental technician.
We had to take out what amounts to a small loan in order to pay for the dental work I had today (and the work that comes later when the permanent cap is ready). My dental insurance doesn’t cover any of this. Why? Because America is a backwards country that doesn’t have single-payer health care. (Or “Medicare for All”).
Today, the U.S. government announced it was going to spend a gigantic amount of money on our already hugely funded military. This, while the Senate continues to try – yet again – to take away affordable health care from all but the richest Americans.
Back to the Dentist is a post written by Jen Thorpe on Book of Jen and is not allowed to be copied to other sites.
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