Look what I found! :D

I have a 50-year-old car, under all that layer of desert sand. I don't think I've opened that garage in 20 years. 

Awwww :D Dental X ray. So cute.

OMG, look at my tiny little teeth! Look at those front bottoms! Like a baby goat! Sure, I have more metal in them than a James Bond villain and am getting the crown on the hook up right on Friday, theoretically, but... aww, look at that baby sleeping wisdom down on the left. That should be fun if it ever chooses to hatch, or, mnhehehe, gets inflamed.

Now, of course I have no idea what I'm looking at, is all this shit normal or am I about to have my entire jaw amputated, but I am fairly certain that dumpling bitch above my upper left row is a sinus. Or it could be cancer or I'm just wildly asymmetrical. Okay, I have no idea. But if so, I would have been correct: with all the empty space in my cranium, that dumb thing decides to push into my teeth. That's why they feel like they want to come out and no specific source of ache can be established. Arrrr. Bad sinus, bad! No cookie!

Saliva

I KNOW this is a freakishly unusual topic, as lubricants often are, but as I lay in the dentist's chair today and that awful suction hissing thingy was helping me not to gag, I thought how much I miss my spit when lacking in. The feel of latex gloves pulling and tugging on my dry cheek, at times even rubbing against the thinnest inner-mouth membrane in a way I thought might tear at it, and pinching and scraping my lips ... Once the doctor put a ball of mould rubber into my mouth and over time the suction thingy began to irritate my other teeth and we removed it, five minutes later, when he took the impression out, everything was wet and slimy and juicy. I loved it. It looked terrible, but it didn't hurt. It felt natural and organic. Believe me, I drool A LOT when I sleep. Could be because some part of my mouth is always hurting, or if I take a nap after eating, I am notoriously slimy. There are whole anecdotes about it, even illustrations. But between being slobbery and being dry, I'll take my snail soul any time. 

Getting to the dentist today, the poor man stated: 'Today isn't going to be painful, just a bit uncomfortable' ... and of course ten seconds in, he figures: Fuck it. Let's just give you the painkillers. 

Sorry, mister. Even just the sound of the drill causes me to have a gag reflex. 

Today they took the mould, I think, and stuck in the ... whatever they attach the fake onto. He told me to get the lot X-rayed, to see at least if it is indeed the sinus causing my ache. He used some kind of an electricity something to prod the teeth to find how ... nerved they are? Unnerved? I don't know. They are my teeth, nothing normal about them. They never NOT hurt. It's like a leaky bucket. Always something.

On the plus side, he did compliment me on how white they are. I smirked, thinking he's being patronising, with all the coffee I drink. But they actually are. Fairly bright teeth. They may be ugly, brittle and crumbly, but they are bright :D Yay. 

The General is like the Wolf, you know - from Pulp Fiction. You call him and something gets done. Even just saying 'Calm down, I'm sending G,' gives people a boost of morale. but ... His power is not infinite. It takes a toll on him and even though he would rather die than admit it, he does stress - it shows on his skin and how much he needs to sleep. It would be too easy having him solve every issue everyone I know faces. He'd do it. He'd get it done. But where would the happy hours of the day then fit?

As Mondays go, again, turbulent weekend, and dad's condition is getting worse - again mum has failed to reach anyone who would be willing to pick up the phone. We are talking about an assigned family medicine doctor, fully paid, insured, obliged to help. But no, not picking up the phone, hardly answering mail (I mean the nurse answers the mail.) We have no idea whether his condition is the body trying to clean itself, a reaction to the treatment or the infection getting to a stage where it will again erupt in septic shock. We just don't know. We just know he is getting completely and utterly defeated by pain and inability to move and occasionally spiking fevers. And the fucking doctor is not picking up the phone - the number given to patients to call if they ever need anything, anything at all. Mum can't figure out a way to get him to the waiting room, because she needs to park somewhere and can't leave dad outside for ten minutes, with no-one bothering to assist her. (My sister can't leave the dog alone, because he scratches his ears when alone, you know.) I have a dentist's appointment and G, who should take me, has work right after. 

You should see the look on his face when I told him I'll be okay, I can go to the dentist myself. It's like I was saying it's okay, I can deliver this baby myself, you go do the next most important thing. He considers my emotions paramount and it makes me feel ashamed at times, to make a big deal out of something trivial. It's a big deal to me, of course, when I am alone in my little universe. I do need him to take me and watch over me, especially at times when the dentist asks: do you want me to pull the tooth or do you want to pay a fucking fortune for reconstruction? It's not my only bad tooth. I have no fucking idea!

But to tell mum 'I am sending G', and he gets the doctor on the phone and he gets a nurse to come see dad and take his vitals and blood and to have G on stand-by in case dad needs to be transported - that solves almost all of the problems mum and dad are having right now, today. We are such lost, dependable people. Being helpless is catastrophic to our wit: needing help and not getting it and not understanding why. 

'Calm down. I'm sending G."

'Isn't he supposed to take you to the dentist?'

'I'll live. This is more important.'

What a moronic, insignificant conversation to have as an adult. Dad's leaking legs or my crown reconstruction. What a lighthouse G is. How embarrassing and how scary, what would we do without him? We are terrible at solving shit. We are even terrible at inspiring people to help/assist us. And he gets it done in an hour. An hour that could be spent having coffee outside in the sun, eating macarons and talking about the movie we last saw last night. In another little universe. 

Days are still up and down. Still fucking worried about dad. There is only so much we can do to cheer mum up, she misses her vital, adventurous husband :/  It's just a mess. He has the annoying tendency to pretend everything is great until it is almost too late. Plus the doctors are a fucking sham - nobody tells us ANYTHING. We don't even know which reactions are normal. I worry without pause. 

... But the world is so pretty. I sat in the vineyard while G saw to bees, watching snails and ladybugs and listening to birds and wind. So damn perfect. Everything wants to live and dance, from ants to the sky.

I'll probably go to the woods again tomorrow, just to chill, so we went to the shooting range today. My stance is improving, if I fired one shot too soon and missed completely. G is trying to explain this isn't the army, I don't need to shoot fast, but I wanted to see what would happen. 'Course, his recharge is stiff as all. Empty cases were flying everywhere. 

My brain is at that odd division point where I want to nap in the hay and play with kittens, or blow something up. I mean like a watermelon. Not a ShinRa reactor. 

General's line of the week:

My teeth still hurt - no reason found - far more than can be ignored. This makes me smile slightly sideways. G reacted to one of my attempts at laughing:

    "See, this is why I love you; you have a laugh of a shat-on pigeon sitting excitedly happy on their little branch."

Super trooper dentist visit

You know you're the village idiot when during a procedure the dentists says: "ALONE today?? I went outside to double-check if he's coming or what?"
    And the assistant lady: "Super brave!"

    Yes, yesterday was my first alone visit to the dentists', having two smaller procedures done - root mould and a filling, the worst of which was having to keep my jaw wide open for an hour. Ironically it was not the filling I wanted. But whatevs.

     For some reason, the entire upper-left row of teeth hurts like a bitch. Two of those have always been problematic and have recently been fixed, so in the worst-case scenario they were fixed poorly and there's still something wrong with them. However, he poked them, knocked on them, tugged them, hissed compressed air at them and found nothing. I imagine if there was an infection or something, at least one of them would hurt specifically when oppressed? I'll wait a week to see what happens.
     Fingers crossed the teeth are fine.
    The other option is my sinuses are clogged. Now THAT one is highly plausible. My sinuses are ALWAYS clogged. And it's something I can live with. That one goes away of its own.