the_rck | Entries tagged with dental

Scott and I have received our absentee ballots. I had been a little worried. The election isn't until the first week of August, but I want time to research. For most local offices, the primary is the deciding election, and I want to make an informed choice. I also want time to take long breaks between each bit of marking I have to do. Holding a pen well enough to control it hurts like hell, and it gets worse the longer I keep going. Fourteen sections will take a while.

I'm seriously considering asking either Scott or Cordelia to help me with the marking of my ballot, but that will involve extra paperwork in terms of documenting who they are, how they're related to me, and that they really and truly did exactly what I told them to do.

I had three face to face medical appointments in June. One was my mammogram, and the other two involved tests that also couldn't be done remotely (allergy and urology). The mammogram follow up with the cancer center clinician was done remotely. I understand why, but I'm unhappy about it because, five years ago, the lump didn't show on mammogram or ultrasound but could be found manually.

I need to schedule another allergy thing later in the year, but it's going to be difficult because I need two appointments, about 48 hours apart, and have no good way to get to the office. The nearest in-service bus stop is two miles away, and most of the distance doesn't have sidewalks (and is otherwise pedestrian unfriendly). I don't know when those buses will start running again.

The allergist said that three days between the appointments was too long as I might have serious adverse reaction to one or more of the patches. The testing that we were able to do at the appointment was the scratch test stuff which I didn't much feel that I needed but that my current doctors felt I did. My last test results were from the late 80s and are too difficult to retrieve even though I'm still in the same medical system. These results were exactly what I told them they'd be-- cats, trees, ragweed, mold, dust mites. In practice, I'm allergic to other mammals in addition to cats, but I don't react as quickly or as badly to dogs or mice or whatever.

The allergist mentioned the possibility that my occasional breathing difficulties in response to things like rosemary might be mild (mild in as much as I never cease being able to breathe; I just have difficulty) laryngospasms rather than an unexpected resurgence of my asthma or any sort of anaphylaxis. Since I have GERD, laryngospasms wouldn't be unexpected. What would be unexpected is them lasting for hours which these issues do. There's also apparently damn all that I can do about them beyond what I normally do for GERD.

The urology appointment ended with a referral for pelvic floor PT that is on hold until the after the current crisis. Part of that is transportation, and part of that is that the problem is something I've lived with for years. I would like to resolve it, but I won't be harmed by waiting. If I was going to go out for PT or OT, it would be for my hands, and I'm not going out for them, so.

( Cut for urology details )

The buses are running reduced routes and only one bus per route per hour. They cap the riders at 15 people because they can't seat more than that with social distancing. If someone's at a stop and there are already 15 riders, that person will have to wait an hour for another bus that might have space. I took the bus home after my urology appointment, and I got the next to last seat.

I used the ARide for my mammogram, but that meant being prepared for pickup more than an hour and a half before I had to be at my appointment. ARide service is limited, too, right now, but is a better option than the bus since at least one knows whether or not a particular trip is even possible. I try not to use the ARide, generally, as it's meant for people who are unable to use the fixed route buses due to disability. Most of the time I can take the regular bus and do.

I last used the ARide regularly when I was recovering after radiation. At that point, I wasn't sure of my ability to walk to and from bus stops. For a while after that, I used regular cabs off and on, mostly for going to appointments from which I'd then take the bus home. Going somewhere is much harder than the trip home. Stepping out the door is often hardest because, once I'm out the door, I don't let myself think or feel much of anything.

I talked to our dentist's office yesterday. I had an appointment on the 20th but have put it off since I don't know if I'll have a good way to get there and home again. They're conveniently close to a bus line, but that doesn't help right now. Also, given that I'm not currently having trouble with my teeth, being in that space seems like an extraordinarily high risk undertaking.

The receptionist told me that they're quite busy due to many people trying to get in for cleanings that were due while the office was closed. I understand that the staff there are being careful and are really in need of getting paid, but... Routine dental care seems unwise right now.

I'm trying a lemon ginger tea from Celestial Seasonings (is there an 's' on the end? I can never remember, and looking it up requires, you know, effort). The good news is that it's not making my nose run. The bad news is that I taste neither lemon nor ginger. Maybe I didn't steep it long enough? I went for five minutes. There's a kind of vague bite that I only really get around my tonsils and that might be purely heat from the tea not having cooled all that much.

My sinuses were too irritated last night for me to use the c-PAP, and it was pretty much the best night of sleep I've had in months. I am not at all sure what to do about that since the c-PAP is necessary to address sleep apnea which will definitely shorten my life. The thing is that feeling utterly exhausted every single day is killing me, too. At this point, I only consider myself to have awoken with a headache if the pain wakes me or if it's not gone within an hour after I get up. This morning, I didn't have that business-as-usual headache. I've got two months before I see the sleep disorders people again.

My month to date word count is almost 22K, so I think this month is going to end up with as high a word count as December. Barring anything unexpected happening, of course. Today, I came up with 2800 words of a completely new AU for a fandom I've written before. What I've got so far requires some serious world building to carry it, though, so I may put it on a back burner for a while until I figure out those details.

My sinuses were less unhappy with me through most of today than they had been for a while. Then I took the trash and recycling to the curb, and now the right side of my face and my right ear hate me again. Apparently, while my lungs are now fine with the cold, my sinuses really, really aren't.

I still haven't managed to deal with any of the phone calls I need to make. I need a couple of good days in a row in order to do the more optional stuff. Today was sorting laundry, changing sheets (past due for it), getting the trash and recycling out, and emptying the dishwasher.

I've decided to switch back to using Gel-Kam for my fluoride add-on toothpaste. The concentration of stannous fluoride is lower than the sodium fluoride concentration in the Prevident, but the stannous fluoride feels different on my teeth and seems to do a better job of limiting the sensitivity of my teeth. The stuff I found online about stannous fluoride read a little too much like advertising copy for me to take it entirely seriously, but Gel-Kam doesn't require a prescription, and Prevident does. A tube of Gel-Kam also lasts slightly (not a lot but slightly) longer than a bottle of Prevident does and costs about $2 less. It's impossible to tell how much is left in the bottle of Prevident except by weight, and having something in there does not guarantee being able to get it out. Prevident is thick enough to need several minutes to get the stuff on the bottom of the bottle to the opening at the top which kind of encourages the assumption that there's nothing left in there.

We only ended up with one guest last night. Cordelia stayed in her room, and Scott,

cherydactyl, and I watched Wonder Woman which they'd both seen but I hadn't. I enjoyed it overall, but I failed to connect with it emotionally. This is a common problem for me with action focused movies, especially superhero movies. I get distracted and just don't see what other people see.

Scott is showering right now. When he's done and dressed, we'll head for Cordelia's school to meet with a counselor. Hopefully, that will go well and not take too long. I just hope they've fixed the elevator. I don't want to climb to the fourth floor.

I slept badly last night because of anxiety. I was sufficiently wound up that the amount of Halcion that would normally let me fall asleep and stay asleep simply didn't. I didn't feel even vaguely sleepy. It was that I wasn't tired as much as it was that I had enough in the way of adrenaline and such going on to be quite awake. I'm not sure that Ativan would have done better for me, but maybe it would have.

Cordelia's dental appointment went okay. The dentist left us sitting for longish stretches off and on because they'd fit us in when they were already full up. She did an x-ray and didn't see hidden decay. She said that Cordelia's wisdom teeth aren't pushing on anything or positioned in a way that she'd expect to cause pain. The joint of the jaw seems to be fine. So we don't know the underlying cause of the problem. She suggested a cheap night time mouth guard in order to see if a guard would help at all (and in order to avoid paying $500 for something that, at her age, might not fit next year).

From the dentist, we went and got bubble tea for me and Cordelia. They've changed their menu display and options, so I had to spend a little while figuring out if they still had what I wanted.

After that, we went to Target and got Wonder Woman and the mouth guard. We stopped at Plum Market to pick up dinner at their buffet (you pay by weight). I gambled on a couple of things that looked (and were) tasty but that I probably shouldn't have touched because of spice levels.

My Captive Audience recipient has gotten back to me. I was right in suspecting that things had gotten lost.

Cordelia's having some pain at the hinge of her jaw, so Scott and I will be taking her to the dentist tomorrow afternoon. She also says her teeth are cold sensitive. I suspect that she's clenching and/or grinding at night since that's generally what gives me that sort of trouble.

I like Scott being awake and energetic in the evenings, so that's a positive for working third shift. The negative is that I have to be super quiet all day so as not to risk waking him. I'm even hesitating to make tea because of the noise of the whistle.

My left elbow is hurting a lot. Even when I'm not using the arm or hand, it sometimes hurts enough to make me mutter. The doctor recommended cold packs, but those hurt worse while I'm applying them and don't make things better after, so I'm wondering if I should try heat. That will be a bit harder because Scott moved my rice pack, and I'll have to find it. The elbow is bad enough to wake me if I move wrong, but I discovered this morning that, if I lie on my right side with a pillow between my arm and my body, the damned thing doesn't hurt. It's not ideal because I'm still feeling too warm most of the time and because the rest of my body doesn't like staying in that position, but it's better than nothing.

I have pulled out my sling. It can be useful in reminding me not to try to pick things up with that hand, but it also seems to make things worse in the long term. There's something about the angle and about how close in to my body the sling is that just doesn't work right. Possibly, I need a sling that holds the arm about three inches out from my torso.

I think that I have a solution to the problem of my c-PAP headgear sliding off-- I loosened the straps just a tiny bit, and now the dratted thing stays in place better. It's counterintuitive, but I've had it that way for two or three nights now, and it is better.

Sleep is still not great. Halcion has an effect, but it's not what my doctor said it would do. The stuff is supposed to be very short acting and hit me like a ton of bricks. It doesn't make me more immediately sleepy, but I am tending to stay asleep longer before I wake up to pee. The downside of that is that I'm getting up for that too close to when I have to get up for the day to be able to sleep again. When that's ten minutes, it's not such a big deal. When it's more than an hour... That's enough to matter.

I forgot to mention— I slept badly last night. I was up several times in the first two hours, and then reflux started. I hadn’t eaten anything to explain it, so I put it down to anxiety over today’s appointment and took an Ativan. I hadn’t wanted to do that and hadn’t thought that I needed one, but I was able to sleep once that took effect.

A chunk came off the side of my bite splint last night. There’s another bit that’s about to come off, and I worry that it will in the middle of the night.