So I did.
And it hadn't.
I've spent the last six hours in not inconsiderable pain, having gone through a few anadin (well, four, DO NOT EXCEED THE STATED DOSE etc) and generally rolled around on my bed while reading, humming happy little tunes to myself to try and distract myself from the feeling that a dentist was giving me a root canal without anaesthetics.
Admittedly, the pain is subsiding now, though the last 6 hours have taught me that that may well only be a temporary thing, so I've been distracting myself by getting thoroughly immersed in a book.
"Pushing Ice" by Alastair Reynolds is a book that seems to have been unjustly maligned in reviews, with at least one reviewer describing it as a shameless ripoff of a couple of books, not the least of which was "Rendezvous with Rama". There are similarities I suppose.
The story follows the crew of a mining ship, the rockhopper, and its crew. The rockhopper is owned by a company that makes its money mining cometary ice and as the story starts, we find the rockhopper mining one such comet.
Before long though, they receive a message that Janus, one of Saturns moons, has unexpectedly left orbit of Saturn, and is accelerating out of the solar system. In true sci-fi adventure fashion, Rockhopper is the closest ship, and as such is tasked to investigate.
What follows is a novel full of scientific exploration, filled with conflict, not only between the ship's captain, Bella Lind, but between her closest friend, Svetlana Barseghian, and between the crew and the company itself. Such arguments and fighting, while initially put aside, are present throughout the entire book, during which Rockhopper not only tails Janus, but is carried out of the solar system along with it, into new realms completely outside human experience.
The book charts the survival of the crew and their descendants, as Janus carries them towards its unknown destination, where the crew quickly find that there are much larger things at stake than company or patriotic pride, where not only the solar system, but Humanity itself become things that are only distantly remembered.
Without wanting to go into any more detail though, I strongly recommend you get a copy - it's a very good book, and a great introduction to Alastair Reynolds' novels, of which he has written at least a half dozen more, in a similar style. As with all his books, the scale is vast, covering not only thousands of light years, but thousands of years of time as well.
I've also been playing around on ebay, winning a new lens for my camera, which is just as fantastic a toy as its always been :).
Thankfully, whether due to the second pair of Anadin I've recently taken, the fact that I'm distracting myself with writing this, or just the fact that the irritation of my jaw is beginning to die down, the pain is lessening, so I'm off now to read another Reynolds novel.
Have fun all, and let's hope I stop being in considerable discomfort sometime soon!
Update: 03:22AM
Okay, so my period of comfort/low pain didn't last long. While (going on experience) I'm pretty sure that this is only a temporary thing, going to bed didn't help affairs one bit. And whether it's cos the painkillers are wearing off, or because I was putting pressure on my jaw by resting my head on the pillow, my pain has worsened considerably.
I now have a very sharp yet throbbing pain from about the 3rd tooth on the lower right all the way to the farthest back molar, also extending up my jaw to my temple, giving me a throbbing localised headache. The pain isn't excruciating, and it's not the worst I've had, but it is the worst pain I've had for a fair few years, and it's definitley keeping me from sleeping.
So I'm up again, i've got a nice hot drink, and I'm going to chill out until the pain disappears. If it doesn't disappear by morning I'm gonna phone the d*nt*st and book an urgent appointment - even having my teeth drilled to bits is better than this pain.
What I wouldn't give for a shot of that dentist's anaesthetic right now! Ow Ow Ow!
Update: 08:17AM
Right. I finally crawled into bed at about 4:30am, and for at least 90 minutes, enjoyed blissful oblivion.
I woke up about 2 hours ago in absolutely sickening pain, and have been unable to get back to sleep since. I'm not going to put it off anymore - I'm in the process of getting changed and going to the dentists. I need to put a stop to this and frankly, I'm happy to subject myself to the dentists ministrations if it means getting rid of this pain. I'm tired, I'm very irritable, my voice is half an octive higher than it normally is, and I don't know whether I want to start throwing up, or start crying.
I am absolutely hating this, so it's time to get it seen to.
Update: 09:09 AM
I've just got back from the dentists. Surprisingly the pain seemed to lessen on the way there. I put this down to the fact that it's still hanging around the high minuses outside, maybe -1/-2 C. Whether the cold deadened the nerves, or whether it just made the rest of me as uncomfortable as my jaw, I don't know, but it's better than being inside.
I got into the dentists, explained my situation in a "please help me!" kind of way, and she said that a bunch of university students are coming in to practice their dentistry. Alarm bells started ringing in my head, as I remember a scene from an old film where a guy (he's being chased by hospital security so he disguises himself as a dentistry student) accidentally pulls out a perfectly healthy tooth from a patient who had otherwise perfect teeth.
She mentioned that they'll be fully supervised by a trained dentist though, and as my dad rightly points out, they'll no doubt do their best to avoid hurting me because doing otherwise doesn't make them look good.
It's 09:13 now, and my appointment is at 10:10 - it's being treated as a short-notice dental emergency, which sounds about right!
On the way back though, I began to feel dizzy. The fact I haven't had anything to eat for 24 hours, coupled with 2 hours sleep in the same time, has left me feeling very faint, and not all there. I tested myself, closing my eyes as I was walking along, opening them again to find that completely without concious effort, I'd wobbled onto the other side of the path and onto the grass.
If I can get back there without passing out, I'll consider myself lucky, but I feel more terrible than I've felt for a long, long time.
Oh well, let's see how the appointment comes along. Yes it scares me, but anything's got to be better than this pain which isn't helped by my FCUKING computer beeping warnings at me every goddamn 20 seconds!!!!
I'm off to mope around for a bit anyway. Hope you're having a better day than me!
Update: 12:14PM
Okay so I've got back from the dentist, having seen a team of completely wonderful (no, really!) student dentists, and I have a tale to tell.
Apparently when I bit down on my tooth, I may well have severed the blood supply to that tooth. This means that the nerve inside the tooth will now be in the process of dying - this is a probable cause of the pain. What needs to be done is to see whether a (medicated) temporary filling solves the problem - if not, I will need to have a root canal (the removal of the entire inside of the tooth to remove the dead/dying tissue. This is likely to be the main cause of the pain.
She did however notice on an Xray, that the portion of the root that my regular dentist left inside my jaw when she removed the tooth directly in front, has become inflamed and infection has set in - while this may not be responsible for the pain, it does need to be dealt with - given how unpleasant having the tooth itself out was, I've elected to have this done under general anaesthetic (they put me to sleep and then operate on me), at a local hospital. I will probably have to wait a while to have this done.
In addition, she noticed a couple of cavities, some surrounding the filling in the larger of the two painful teeth (the one that is likely to have a dead nerve inside it), and one in the center of the smaller tooth in front of it.
Here is a diagram I cheerfully spent 5 minutes drawing, for you to see :).
She sent me to the pharmacy, and I've returned home with two prescriptions. The one she prescribed, and the one I prescribed.
Ibuprofen is a painkiller.
Co-codamol is a very powerful painkiller.
Metronidazole is an antibiotic, to counteract the infection in my jaw.
I took one met, and 2 co codamol, and the pain more or less disappeared, for about an hour - it's coming back now :(.
But, I also prescribed myself some aero bubbles, a drink of lucozade, and a nice burger, to cheer myself up :).
Now I'm going to try to sleep before the pain kicks in again, and I should be on soon :).
Update: 20:00PM
For whatever reason, the effects of the co-codamol wore off very quickly, and within 90 minutes, the majority of the pain had returned. Confused at the advice the dentist had given me and not wanting to accidentally commit suicide (that WOULD stop me from becoming a tankie!) the Ibuprofen laid neglected while I took the co-codamol (I later found out that the dentist's advice was right, I CAN take co-codamol and ibuprofen at the same time (well not at the SAME time but you get me)).
In retrospect, the pain should have been expected, because I gather that co-codamol is cumulative, and takes a while to build up in your system, which would explain why it didn't really take the first time.
My mum got me these two wonderful herbal warmer thingies, basically two big cloth pads stuffed with peppermint and lemongrass and all sorts of other aromatic herbs, the things were just a variation on the hot water bottle, they did the same job, but made me smell like a christmas pot pourri selection too (they smell really nice actually).
Although I didn't notice any lessening of the pain when applied, I did notice a sharp increase when removed. So I'm not sure whether they were a placebo or whatever but they seemed to help, and with all these dental problems, I was laying down on the sofa with it like a kid clutching a teddy, grateful for any help I could get.
Time rolled around though, time for more codeine. I prepared my burger too, and once the codeine kicked in I ate my burger, thoroughly enjoying the first thing I'd had to eat in well over 24 hours (excluding the biltong that started this bloody mess!), and I rolled over on my side and sank into blessed, glorious, perfect sleep!!!
First thing I did when I woke up was to get a drink of water, get my co codamol and antibiotics down me, and compared to how I felt this morning, I feel great. Yes, the pain is still there under the surface, but at the minute, I'm on top of it, and compared to this morning, I'm in a fantastic mood! :)
Long may it continue!
Update: 11:42 PM. about 2 hours ago, following my dentist's advice, I supplemented the co-codamol I took when I woke up with an ibuprofen. The result of this combination was to make me not only drowsy, but high as a kite. Having spent the last 2 hours feeling like a kid who has eaten all the red smarties, I now (again, in keeping with the advice the dentist has given me) have taken another two (on schedule - 2 every 4 hours) to (in my dentist's words) "keep my codeine levels constant".
The downside to this is that I now feel completely stoned, very drowsy and slightly euphoric. Yes, it's a lot better than being in the pain I was in before, but I still like being in control of all my er, faculties.
To simulate the effects of a day of codeine + one ibuprofen, simply go without sleep for 48 hours, and then drink 3 cans of lager.
I'm gonna have a shower and stuff and go to bed soon, but I can't do that while my mum's arsing about doing whatever she's doing.
Still, I'm gonna sit about and concentrate on not falling asleep :).
Laters.
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