Saturday, April 22, 2006

Pass the whine

The last couple of weeks have been a little challenging for me physically. I won’t bore you with the details. Suffice it to say that, just in April, I have already had more than my yearly quota of doctor and dentist visits, and I have more appointments scheduled in the next two weeks.

On second thought, I will bore you with the dental stuff. The day before Thanksgiving, I bit into an almond, and it made my teeth hurt. I’ve had a dental emergency over Thanksgiving weekend before, and I know it is next to impossible to find a dentist who is working then. (Thank goodness for the dentist at the mall.) It appeared that nothing was wiggling or shattered, so I toughed it out. The pain moved around from tooth to tooth, but eventually went away for the most part.

I forgot about it until I had my six month exam. “Did you know this tooth is cracked?” asked the assistant. “And this filling has a chip missing.” Before the visit was over, the entire staff stopped by to take a peek, multiple photographs were taken, and I heard the dreaded words, “I should be able to do all six of those in one visit.”

Yeah, he said six. And the “one visit” only refers to the Novocain-and-drilling portion of the program. Four of the six teeth require crowns or inlays. It takes a couple of weeks for those to be built. Until then, I have a mouth full of temporary caps. They are sensitive to cold, and I can’t floss around them, which is more annoying than I would have thought. But I’m sure I will be pleased with the results. Any day I get rid of an old amalgam filling is a good day, as far as I am concerned.

Meanwhile, I’ve had my blood pressure taken 5 times this week (that story I really won’t bore you with), and every time it has been 20 points higher than my normal reading. “It’s probably time for you to have a head-to-toe physical,” said the doctor. So I have submitted samples of my precious bodily fluids and will be getting the once over next week.

All of this is a long way of working around to the fact that I felt mostly back to normal today. The trees are green. The lilacs are opening up. Terry and I went for a bike ride, the first one I have taken since I fell off my bike and slid down an embankment a couple of years ago. It turns out you can forget how to ride a bike. At least, you can forget a) how to get on the bike, b) how the gear shift works, and c) how to stop and get off the bike smoothly. (The time I fell down the embankment, I was not riding, but getting on the bike. This clearly is A Big Issue for me.)

It’s clear tonight, and Terry has the telescope set up in the back yard. We had a very nice look at Saturn. Now he is trying to take some photographs.

The sweater needs about seven inches of sleeve knitting, a neck hemmed, and a few more ends woven in, and then it will be done. Stay tuned. There will be much rejoicing when that monster is out of the project bag.

2 comments:

Aser said...

Ow, Cheryl. Your blood pressure is probably up because of all the dentist stuff! Take care of yourself!

Cheryl said...

Debbie, yes, well, I've been the featured attraction there before, but always after the work is done. This is the first time it's been, "Hey, come look at this!"

Ase,I'm hoping the BP spike is just temporary. My blood work showed a slight infection. Or it could be those post-Lent potato chips I had.