Tainted Kernel

Holy wow. And I thought a root canal was rough!

I’m not sure if I explained it before….a filling fell off my #14 molar a couple of weeks back. Went to the dentist to have Dr. J look. Nothing but bad news. Root canal AND gum lengthening.

I had, up until that point, had nothing more than a cavity filled. Which in retrospect is kids play when it comes to dental work. I’ve feared a root canal all my life, and finally had to face one. It was rough. But in comparison to the gum lengthening, it was nothing.

I thought I had luckily escaped the gum lengthening, which is a HUGE misgnomer, after Dr. Trinh (the endodontist) completed the root canal, he said that the gum lengthening didn’t appear necessary.

Cool, I thought. Save me from some oral trauma. That is until a week or so later when Dr. J’s (regular dentist) office called me saying I see you had gotten that root canal, but you didn’t get the gum lengthening. To which I replied Dr. Trinh didn’t think it was necessary. The receptionist said, “I’ll check with the Dr. and call you back.”

After a few hours the receptionist called back and stated, “The Dr. feels gum lengthening is a necessity. ”

F**K!

No escape. So I made an appointment to return to the Mouth torturer in a few days. Dr. Trinh obliged by removing a portion of my jaw bone after cutting open my gums.

Wow. That sucked even more than a root canal. big time. Let me put it like this:

After the root canal Dr. Trinh suggested tylenol or ibuprofen for the pain. The pain lasted through the evening, but was pretty much OK after that.

After the gum lengthening Dr. Trinh wrote me a prescription for antibiotics, antibiotic mouthwash, and norco. And thank goodness. I don’t think I could’ve made it through the first two days without it. it is still kind of iffy, and I’m only taking a half a norco at this point. Which is important as he only prescribed 12. I miss the good ‘ol days when you can spend your recovery period in an opiate derived haze, but society can’t handle their sh*t so we all have to suffer.

Like I said, HOLY WOW. That sucked! Big time. But I no longer fear the root canal like I did before. Just gotta set the bar higher.

Bad. Actually. Badly. I need my Tysabri badly.

It was really warm midday. Nothing excessive, but up there. Especially in the baking sun. Which I was in while I was playing with Kei before the kids started getting home from school. We were playing hard – or at least it seemed to me. I was hot. I couldn’t cool off. Then it started happening….

I don’t know wheat to call it, but my vision was disturbed. It was hard to look at my phones keyboard. The specific key on which I was focusing was hardest to see.  It was weird. Really weird. It was, and this is the best way I could put it, like I had a tear in my vision. Or a jagged line of light, mostly concentrated in my left eye. Makes me think my right brain is the most afflicted.

I’m not sure what happened, but I’m betting it was the Multiple Sclerosis exacerbated by the heat. After a thorough freak-out in my head – a lot of what ifs, I sat down in the shade. Aside from getting eaten up by mosquitos – chilling in the shade wasn’t getting rid of the visual disturbance. So I went and filled my water bottle and soaked my cooling towel. Chilled out and tried to relax while I hopefully cooled off.

I eventually did, and the vision problem subsided. As always, it is the fear of possibly having an attack that scares me most. A lot of what ifs where going through my head during that time.

Now so very clearly I need my dose of Tysabri. Stat like!

I have to wait until Thursday for my dose. Wednesdays were taken. Two months out. Damn cancer patients : P

It seems as though my extravagant youth has caught up to me. I had a huge  – likely unnecessarily large – filling in what I believe to be my #14 molar. It was a gargantuan filling. You’ll be impressed if I ever can find it and take a picture.

Let me get to last week. My kids were binging on starburst, which due to my younger two have to be unwrapped and given to them. Whilst unwrapping and distributing starbust, I unwrapped a cherry one. Thought to myself, I’m kind of hungry, I could use a little snack. Popped in my mouth. Started chewing.

One of the worst decisions I have ever made.

I realized that when I was chewing and felt a significantly sized piece of metal in my mouth along with the starburst.

When I first got it out, I thought my tooth had simply decayed and disintegrated and that was like a portion of the broken tooth. Looked really nasty. But I’m happy to say I did not panic. Didn’t really bother me much.

I did, however, realize that this was probably serious. So I took it upon myself to ring the dentist and make an emergency appointment. Unfortunately it took almost a week due to my procrastinating* and my dentist, who is wonderful, not having convenient office hours for my particular situation. Like I said I wasn’t in pain…physical at least. Sweating it was kind of hard. As it most usually is the worst part.

Anyway I got into the dentists on a Monday, and I could tell by her reaction as soon as she walked into the room.it wasn’t good. It wasn’t. At all. It was terrible. Pretty much my worst dental nightmare.

A visit to the endodontic studio.

Don’t understand? Lucky you. Let me put it this way:

Root Canal

I get home after stopping at the pharmacy to pick up the antibiotics my lovely dentist was nice enough to prescribe. And I break the news to my loving wife. I am filled with worry about the procedure I now have to face.. Most of the people I’ve heard talking about root canals are usually horror stories. My wife tells me they’re no big deal. My mom tells me they are horrible. My dad says no big deal. The internet, as expected, is nothing but horror stories. The anxiety is what destroys you!

So Wednesday arrives. I get to the studio early. Wait for about an hour to see Dr. Trinh. I was so nervous it was indescribable the amount of anxiety I felt. I sit down in the chair. Dr. Trinh goes over my options. One of which is to root canal the two molars surrounding the damage molar. He stated that the teeth have irreversible plaquitis. I declined, slyly stating that we should just go with what has already been planned.

He then injects me. The first round wasn’t too bad…like shots from a dentist. But the second round – I still fell those to this day. My jaw is still sore. Whatever he used really worked though. As I did not feel a thing during the entire procedure.  There was A LOT of drilling I could hear – which occurred to me today I did not smell that burning smell that is common during fillings at the dentist. But the pain was absent.

A bit under two hours after Dr. Trinh started, he was done with my root canal.  What a relief. It certainly wasn’t fun, but it also wasn’t the terrible experience I was expecting. I suppose going in with the lowest possible expectations really doesn’t set a high bar for a root canal. So high marks to the crew at Renovo and Dr. Trinh.

And then after I got home the numbing agent wore off and the pain set in. It was pretty harsh for a few hours. And all Dr. Trinh suggest was ibuprofen – NO – or tylenol. Wasn’t good enough for the few hours after I got home.

And hopefully when I follow up with Dr. Jaffrey she’ll have better news about those two molars that Dr. Trinh said would have to be canaled. C’mon conservative dentistry! I should expect for the worst, which I do, but I hope for the best at the same time.

*Avoiding what I ultimately knew would be a bad outcome.

School is back in session – for most kids I’d imagine. Mine included – at least 2/3rds of them.

After the summer break I thought it’d be a welcome…well…break, but it has been anything but since they’ve gone back.

I will say this, although the early mornings are a clear reminder of on of the reasons why i loathed school soooo very much, at least I get a few hours to accomplish some things I’ve been trying to accomplish since summer break started.

Hopefully as I get more accustomed to the schedule it will indeed be a break that will allow me to get more things around the house accomplished. During the mornings at least. And now that I’m looking at more AM free time, I might try to take a bike ride. Coming from a person who can’t find the time to squeeze in some crunches, It may be more difficult than I had anticipated. let’s hope not.

And oh yeah, I’m starting the feel the need for my tysabri fix ever so slightly. I suppose after almost ten years of this stuff, it is more obvious the need for my medication. Or the signs of it wearing off are much more established so I notice the need for a refil. if i’m putting it right. That’s why I consider it my Tysabri fix. I need it much like, I suppose, a drug addict needs their fix. I’m addicted to my Tysabri treatment…could be worse.

And this is why a DMT is so important!

Because RRMS is so much better than SPMS! Gotta treat your MS!

As I sit here in the doctor’s waiting room, I keep perciverating on something that happened yesterday. But first let me say the physical is a yearly doctors OK that I can indeed continue to receive my Tysabri dosing. Because lawyers…

Anyway, back to what happened yestetday…I went to my parents so that along with my kids spending time with their paternal grandparents I could get a bike ride in at PCT.

The trail was sweet. I was going pretty fast. When I hit the path I wanted to continue that trend. And I vertaonly did. Bested a couple weekender jersey wearing roadies (not that its a competition). I was riding so fast I broke my 10MPH average for trail/path cpmbined. It felt good, except for the puking mid path. That really sucked. It was a vomit comet, as I never stopped riding. Only the hardcore!