Hesitant, Hopeful

I'd like to apologize for the relative silence over the last few weeks, but I hate apologies, so I'll spare you.  I don't seem to be particularly good about updating this summer, do I?  I love working from home, but writing every day and the fact that I'm not feeling well have made it impossible for me to want to write here.  I woke up last Wednesday with a horribly abscessed gum on the bottom left side.  It looked like someone had pushed a small marble under my gums and while I hoped it would go away, or the swelling would go down, I knew by the end of the day that I needed to go to the dentist.  Matt made me an appointment and they got me in first thing Thursday morning.  The dentist and his staff were all really nice, they took x-rays of that side and said that not only did I have an abscess, I needed to either have a root canal or have the tooth pulled.

I had a really bad experience with a root canal a few years ago, so I'm having the tooth pulled.  Well, the bad root canal and the fact that I don't have dental insurance so I can't afford a root canal, let alone a crown, have made getting the tooth pulled the only real option.  I'm on meds right now, Amoxicillin for the infection, and it's taking it's sweet time working.  If it hasn't done its job by the end of the week, I'm going to call them and try to get something else.  I was looking at it today and it looks smaller, so I'm hopeful that the meds are doing something... and I think you know how hard it is for me to be hopeful about anything.

They also gave me Lortab, but I learned this weekend that I cannot take it.  My tooth was killing me on Saturday night, so I took one Lortab with a glass of milk and went to bed. I had eaten late Saturday night, so I didn't take it on an empty stomach.  I woke up so sick on Sunday morning with horrible dizziness and nausea.  I slept half the day, got up and parked myself on the sofa where I remained.  I had plans to work on novel prep for a story idea I had, Matt and I were going to write together Sunday, but it didn't happen.  I felt horrible and couldn't focus on anything.  So, no awesome pain killers for me.  Honestly though, I didn't expect to be able to take them at all.  I gave it a shot, but I'm not particularly surprised by the response.  When I had my gall bladder out I couldn't take the Vicodin because it made me nauseous and dizzy.  So yeah, this is old hat for me, even though I hate it!

Anyway, I have an appointment on August 10th at 4 p.m. to have the tooth pulled out.  I'm also going to get two fillings on the tooth next to it, because I'm going to be numb anyway so I might as well.  They're going to give me conscious sedation, which will just make me so calm I won't care what they're doing.  I think that'll help!  I'm just a little bit worried about being able to take pain killers after the tooth is out and the numbness is worn off.  Guess I'll either just stick to the Ibuprofen or get them to give me something I can stomach.  I don't know.  What I do know is that I woke up feeling miserable again today and I'm tired of feeling bad!  I just want to spend one day not hurting somewhere.  It's starting to get really frustrating.

Okay, enough bitching.  I had some other things I wanted to talk about, more positive things, but I this post is more than long enough!  I'll post about the other stuff later.  It's time for me to be off to work.  I hope y'all are having a better week/weeks than I am.