Fun friends

Here is a photo of the ornaments we customized to remember this year's Conversation Circle.  I love how each of you modified such a simple doll and made it your own- changing hair color, converting skirt to pants, adding glasses.  You guys are awesome!  I look forward to pulling these out in future years from the Christmas box and remembering us this year.

It's back

Less than 36 hours without antibiotics and the infection is back.  I'm on penicillin again with instructions to go tomorrow to see the oral surgeon, intending to have surgery on Tuesday or Friday.
I'm actually quite pleased that it's coming to an end with almost no pain and just this foul, foul tasting drainage.  After all these years I'm not the least bit surprised that I need help and I'm ready to ask for it. 
I hope to be back to normal by the end of this week and with luck my blog will be back to some variety rather than tooth trauma all the time.
Thanks to all of you for your good wishes and offers of help.  I'll keep you posted.

Ambivalent news

I got a call from the oral surgeon's office today saying that I wouldn't need surgery but to still come on Friday.  I still have pain in my jaw so if they didn't find anything, what does that mean?  How can you help something you can't find?

I went to Ginger's today and old emotion, raving terror mostly, poured from my body as she worked.  Maybe I'll be able to sleep tonight.

Friday 1:30

Just got the call from the oral surgeon's office.  They won't tell me anything over the phone except to say that the doctor has reviewed the results and wants to see me at his first available appointment which happens to be Friday at 1:30.  I'm hoping that if they found nothing, they'd wouldn't make me pay another appointment to say "You're fine."  I'm guessing, they found something definitive.
****
I just called back at 4:31 to ask what my diagnosis is and they closed at 4:30.  I have requested a call tomorrow from a nurse or assistant who can read it from my chart to me so I don't have to sit on pins and needles for 3 days.  Shout out for my mom for thinking up that solution since the receptionist doesn't know and the doctor's not available.
The antibiotics are holding but not solving- I can feel it.  Given that, I am really hoping for the good news that they've found something they know how to help.  I suspect that I will be comfortable enough until Friday and then I'm betting they'll know how to hold it all in check until whatever intervention is necessary.  6th round of antibiotics, perhaps?
I keep saying two things to myself.  1.  I'm so sorry I let it come to this; I didn't know.  2.  I'm so grateful that there is help for me because many people in the world would die from this.

Dr Jenny and his assistant are decent people.  I saw it in their eyes when I told them I had been sexually abused and strangled as a child and that the exam could get hinky.  They had kindness in their eyes and the exam went fine.  They are good, competent people with that rare quality in medical people of a genuine sense of humor and I trust them.

I wish this was over.

Quick update

I just got back from visiting the oral surgeon who is completely confident that my pain isn't going to intensify, my x-rays show perfect teeth, and that this is referred pain from an unhappy nerve up top.  I'm going to get a CT scan on Tuesday to see what might be in there that everyone is still crabby about. 

I am not nearly so confident as Dr Jenny, however.  I'm hoping Dr Jenny is confident with good cause but I'm not taking it on faith.  Neither of the other teeth ever showed an infection on x-rays, ever.  So I have a call into my dentist asking what my back-up plan is, just in case my pain escalates over the weekend.

On a positive note, I am proud of myself for advocating for myself this morning, for following through quickly, for asking questions, for openly stating that I was very nervous and had been strangled as a child, and for respecting my need to have a plan, just in case.  This whole "I'm trapped in pain and no one in authority believes me or will do anything truly helpful" presupposition has got to go. 

Also, I got a copy of a really cool x-ray of my whole mouth and I'm going to get a 15-second CT even-way-cooler scan of my upper jaw next week.

Thanks for reading and for caring.  

Needing to connect and it's not pretty

I've been awake since midnight.  I'm 90% sure another tooth, lower left, is failing. As Tim pointed out, I only have so many teeth which means this can't go on forever, which is the most positive thing I can say this morning.  I am very worn, coming up on spent.  I have no sense of humor and no reserves.  And so help me, if the dentist's office says anything but "We've got you down for Monday morning at 8:00" I'm going to lose it.  I keep thinking this can't possibly be happening.  People don't have 3 teeth go bad in 9 weeks.  But lo, here I am. And yes, I'm just going to have them pull it out, and they're going to loooove that since they usually only "lose" a handful a year. 

I hate "losing" and I hate disappointing people, more intensely than I should, which I also hate.  I really, really hate being the odd patient.  Amy "1%" Reisdorf.  Hell, I hate being odd, period.  I feel like such a trouble-maker, such a problem child. 

Our family never made waves nor stood up for ourselves or each other nor advocated for ourselves or each other.  We took it, assumed this was as good as it gets given our solid rock belief that "Pain is the only way."  No matter that grampa was a known pedophile or that I got bullied at school or that I got sick every year.  It could never happen to me because they weren't the kind of parents who would let that happen and besides he would never do that to anyone else.  We were above all that stuff like feeling safe and getting justice for ourselves because we were too busy having compassion on the bullies for their tough lives and insecurities.  And life is just like this.  This is as good as it gets so quit whining.  You think this is bad?  Cause trouble and you'll be kicked off the island with no help or support whatsoever.  Insist on your way and you're dead.  I've worried more about being a good little patient/girl/student/wife/Christian/mother than I have about actually getting well and being happy.  And look where it's got me. 

On an ironically positive note, if I do have this tooth out on Monday, I'll still be on the second round of antibiotics from the last one so I won't need to start a 6th round.  My intestines are shot as it is.

Oh, and since lemon tarts are on the menu- I finally got to watch the 4 hour Shackleton movie starring Kenneth Branaugh from 1:00-5:00 a.m.  Interesting character study of this Antarctic explorer and crew in like 1916-17 whose ship get crushed by ice flows on an expedition.  28 of them then spend a year and a half on the ice and finally make it back without losing anyone.  Intense survival story.  Well done movie and gripping story.  I won't put it on my Top 10 List but definitely fine company for a sleepless night.

I see now where "pain is the only way" and "love hurts" have gotten me and I am officially opening my clenched fist and beginning the process of letting it go.  It's going to take me some time but I see what I've traded off for and I'm choosing another trade off.  Happy, happy, happy seems unrealistic but I've walked the road of pain and putting up, I know exactly where it leads, and as crazy as happy is, I'll give it a shot. 

And once again

I'm thinking about changing the title of my blog to Amy's Teeth Catastrophes.  Two days ago my jaw started to swell and ache and yesterday I threw the kids in the van and made a fast trip to Vadnais Heights to see the dentist before he closed.  I told them that the reason I'm coming every week is that I'm angling to get my own designated parking spot with a nice sign and everything.  Dang.  She x-rayed and he poked.  Pronouncing his lack of worry, he prescribed different, bigger antibiotics than the ones which made my whole abdomen go painfully rigid last week.  Thank heavens they're a kind I've had before with no side effects and I can already tell they're working. 
I don't even know what more to say.