Maximus Painimus

Ok, my first blog… and what better way to begin then with an immature profanity… “F#$#%%@%#%$^&!@##K!!!!!!”

Now that we have the f-word out of the way, let me explain why I am screaming.

I have just returned from the dentist, where I had a tooth pulled. A large molar at the back of my mouth to be exact. It is aching, throbbing, really red and making me want to continue screaming. Now let me tell you about my tooth… 

 

"Oh, your teef hurt, huh? Your teef hurt? Well that's too freakin' bad, you hear me?!"

 

Well I should say, the space where my tooth used to be. I have some cotton type bandages shoved in there to fill the hole and soak up any blood. And boy, is there a lot of blood. The white bandage things are now deep red. But apparently this is normal in any tooth extraction. So why did I even need a tooth taken out? Let’s go back a few days… 

(cue the flashback music from the tv show ‘Lost’)

It was friday and I had only been back at work for a few days after having a strong flu/virus knock me around for nearly two weeks and still wasn’t feeling 100%. I was discussing some work with a colleage when she offered me some candy. As always, I hesitated while I thought of something funny to reply with but this was noticed and my colleage quickly said, “I’m not trying to bribe you” to which I just as quickly hit back with “no, you’re trying to poison me”. 

With the jokes out of the way, I started to look at the paperwork we were discussing and began chewing on the lolly. A few chews later and I was tasting a crunchy inside. I almost asked if there was hard bits in the middle, when I suddenly realized that is was actually my tooth, shattered in hundreds of little pieces. I was in more shock than pain initially and rushed out to the mens room to inspect. Here I noticed it was a large tooth at the back of my mouth, which was now pretty much just half a tooth. The pain kicked in now.

I got back to my department and made a call to the local dentist to try and quickly fix this. Well it turns out, there would be no quick fix as the next 6 weeks of saturdays had been booked out and the earliest I could get in was wednesday. Ouch!!!

So I’m at work on Sunday, still putting up with the dull ache in the back of my mouth when my back starts to feel sore. Actually, the best way to describe it is that my lower back started to feel very heavy. I felt this maybe halfway through the day and for the next couple hours this feeling got worse and more pain could be felt, like it was getting so heavy that I could barely stand and was being bent forward. I was in a lot of pain but as my team would tell you, I put it down to either laying on the lounge in an uncomfortable position or just simply getting a bad sleep. I had a drink after work and hobbled home.

Monday morning… I can barely walk, the pain and heavy feeling is much worse. This can’t just be from a bad sleep!? Can it?

I very slowly walked to work where I lasted an hour before being taken to the first aid room in a wheelchair and to the doctor an hour later. I’m fortunate that the closest medical centre to work is also where my local doctor is, so thankfully he could see me. He did a few tests on me and after a few screams of agony decided that I had pulled a muscle in my back. This was apparently a much better situation than actual damage to my spine or any other bones and would take a few days of being off my feet to start to heal. The next morning was quite scary as I collapsed in the worst pain of my life when trying to walk to the lounge room. My partner wanted to call an ambulance but I said i’d give it a day of rest and painkillers and take it from there.

It’s now today, wednesday morning. My back is still very sore and I can’t stand for very long before the pain and heavy feeling grows, but it has eased since yesterday and was improved enough for me to slowly walk to the dentist close by.

A few hours after the dreaded tooth extraction…

(yes I’m a huge Lost fan so let’s play the flash forward sound effect)

The painkillers have taken most of the pain in my mouth away and my back is feeling ‘ok’ in my office chair.

I have been feeling terrible thinking about my run of injuries and ill health. So much so that I wondered if I am unfit, unhealthy and really weak. But one good thing that came from my visit to the doctor on monday was my blood test results from my previous flu type virus. The doc said they came back fine and I was quite healthy and had nothing to worry about. So maybe I can put it all down to bad luck.

Which brings me to a possible change in luck…

Everyone I talked to about my dentist appointment had said it would cost around $250-$300 from their experience. My brother even said an individual tooth x-ray he had done, cost him $120. So I was pretty worried about the apparent high cost of dental work.

However as I was leaving the receptionist gave me the bill, which was $150 total, including a $30 x-ray! So either my mates were over-estimating the price or I found a really affordable dental clinic.

Either that, or they felt sorry for me when I slowly hobbled in and told them about my back injury and the need to be careful when they sat me down in the chair… Maybe it was a touch of good luck?

I hope so because I don’t want any type of pain ever again after this. Tooth pain, back pain, T-Pain…