Last Wednesday I went to the dentist on base because my teeth felt like they were exploding in my mouth. I have been blessed with teeth that are about the hardness of soap and they have been slowly dissolving all of my life no matter how much I floss or brush or try to exercise them by holding metal flashlights in my mouth. The dentist peered in zeroed in on my last remaining wisdom tooth which has been just floating there sideways, half-submerged for all of my adult life like a capsized sailboat abandoned in the marsh. It has never been a problem, nor has it been useful, but he figured that pulling it would solve my problem. He pulled the tooth and then for whatever stupid reason refused to let me have it. This was disappointing for Satu since she loves teeth and especially likes the ones with nice big roots like molars and wisdom teeth. He told me to go home and take advil.
I spent Wednesday night hanging my head off the side of the bed and pulling on all of my teeth with strands of dental floss to try and find a less painful position. On Thursday I returned to dental sick call where a parade of doctors looked in my mouth and discussed what could be wrong. There were a lot of differing opinions, but in the subtext they all boiled down to how much of a wuss I must be if a little extraction and gum irritation was causing me to act like I'm dying. They gave me pain killers and some mild antibiotics in case it was a sinus infection and sent me home for the three day weekend.
Friday was not a fun day, but percocet has a way of making you not care too much. I woke up only long enough to wear myself back down again by hiking the 40 or so feet to the bathroom or the kitchen for more drugs.
On Saturday when I woke, I discovered that someone had implanted a golf ball in my hard pallet overnight. Had I pissed off a tooth fairy or something? The pain was pretty intense and it caused me to be a mouth breather too which actually makes me feel dumb, so there's insult to injury. Since the dentist had given me an emergency number, I gave it a call at the insistence of my sweet neighbor Sharon who had been checking in on me and feeling my forehead periodically for signs that I might transmogrify into a zombie or a vampire or something. The number led to a useless voice mailbox that asked me to dial my party's extension and then hung up on me.
The golf ball and my cheek swelled up with a nasty infection. I took refuge in tapioca pudding and drugs and waited it out until Satu drove up to see me on Sunday night. I had been spending my conscious moments peering in the mirror with a flashlight, so I knew that things were getting scary in there, but when Satu gave it a look, she instantly turned green and shut her eyes. She has described it as something that she will never un-see. Then she patted me lovingly until I slipped back into sleep. I believe I dreamed about sidewalks. I remember looking for the places where grass was growing in the cracks and bending down to smell the weeds. Weird, even for me.
On Monday I went to the dentist and Satu worried at my house waiting for me. That visit is so far the most painful experience of my life. The doc narrowed the problem down to the tooth next to the now excavated wisdom tooth and began a root canal. If you have ever smelled roadkill left in a small, enclosed, dank space you will get the idea of what that was like. When the work was done, I sat up and the pain washed over me causing me to break into a sweat and complain to the doctor. "Please fix this." I begged. "It still hurts like..." I couldn't think of anything that was painful enough to describe it. He put me back in the chair and then showed me what real pain is like. I got a shot right in the golf ball and then there was a lot of draining and squeezing and screaming. When it was over, I returned home to catch Satu leaving for work. She stopped and came in to worry over me and feel my head and panic a little while I fell asleep.
That evening Satu made the 2 hour drive back to my house where she and my neighbor Sharon met to talk about me while I was sniffing grass in my drug fueled dreams. She told me yesterday that they discussed brain infection, blood poisoning and the massive infection that I was not at all taking seriously enough. They both knew that I could be seriously ill from the infection, but I irrationally believe that as long as I am not throwing up, then things are really not that bad. There is nothing scarier to me than nausea and all other maladies are rated in an unrealistic comparison with the stomach flu being a 100 and a broken leg being somewhere around 3 or 4 I suppose.
Satu helped make sure I took my medicine and could still think. On Tuesday when the golf ball was back and I looked like a chipmunk, Satu was the one to drive me out to a real civilian dentist who would drain and squeeze my face much more gently and then redo the root canal for me. She prescribed me enough antibiotics to kill a lesser mortal, and Satu took me home to put cold compresses on my face and keep my spirits up. She called out from work and bought me soft food and kept making sure I ate enough to get medicine in me.
I am pretty sure Satu spent the time while I was sleeping scaring herself on the internet by reading stories of people who died from mouth infections. She kept reaching over to touch my arm and my forehead gently I guess to reassure us both. She intentionally didn't tell me how bad the infection could be, Satu was maintaining a monopoly on fear for my own good and I was maintaining my monopoly on ignorance.
Now that I am feeling better and my golf ball is gone, we are having a lazy day together. I am a pretty simple organism that might have expired if she had not been there to take things seriously. I am so thankful that she cared for me and loves me and helped me recover. I honestly don't think I would be doing so well without her and I certainly wouldn't be as happy.
