Weekly Rundown: Filling Time

This week was kind of a bad week because of The Filling.

Way back in January I went for a regular dentist appointment and was told that I had a tiny cavity. I was truly devastated. I had to have several fillings as a child, when I was around ten. Technically I did have a filling done back when I was about seventeen, though that wasn’t really a new filling; I went in for a check-up, my dentist noticed a filling was loose, touched it and it fell out. It was more of a replacement than a fresh filling.

I was kind of relieved that I couldn’t get this very little filling filled until March, because in January March is ages away. Unfortunately March kind of snuck up on me and last Tuesday I had to pay a visit to the dentist. I treated myself to an early finish from work because no one wants to go talk on phones after getting a filling done.

I am a baby when it comes to going to the dentist. I’m not ashamed to admit that. The dentist on the island is normally fine, but that still doesn’t make it any easier to go in when you know you’re going to have something potentially painful done in a region of your body that you can’t actually see very easily.

I can’t say that The Filling was an enjoyable experience. Let’s face it, it was never going to be fun. I had to get a couple of injections to numb the area which to be honest were kind of pointless. The injections themselves hurt quite a bit and the obvious side effect is that you can’t feel half your face, which is really fantastic.

I don’t know if it was just how I react to the anaesthetic or something but it made me really shaky and didn’t actually stop me from feeling what was going on with my tooth. I have a fairly high pain threshold and I suspect I would’ve felt less weird and shaky afterwards if they’d just done what needed to be done without the injections. The result was that I was shaky for about an hour afterwards, was really conscious of whether or not I was dribbling and couldn’t eat or drink properly for an hour and a half.

I’ll definitely have to mention this to the dentist next time I’m there, which is unfortunately not going to be too long because I’ve got to go back for x-rays in a fortnight because he needs to take a look at one of my antique fillings. It sounds like one of my twenty-year-old-plus fillings might need a touch up (a combination of vigorous tooth grinding and the fact that it’s twenty-years-old). I am slightly less than thrilled at this idea.

Especially as nearly a week after my trip to the dentist, part of my face is still tender. It’s not actually my tooth or my gum which is sore, bizarrely it’s my cheek, the bit just under my cheekbone; presumably from having my open wide and a man with virtually two hands inside my mouth. Not comfortable.

As well as the filling, I have a cold. My germy colleague assures me that she (and another colleague) are to blame, but we also had a fire drill at work this week which saw me shivering outside in a cardigan and summer shirt. I think the two things have conspired against me.

It does mean that I’m having to blog from my phone, so no pretty pictures in these posts, or the ones that I’ve scheduled for the next couple of afternoons. I’ve figured out how to transfer my blog post drafts from my laptop to my phone but I’ve not got the energy to try getting pictures to load up on it as well.

Now that this one is up I’m returning to snuggling on the sofa with my labrador, watching The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug commentary and playing around with my Finish This Book.