what's cooking?

After 3 weeks of waiting for my permanent crown I was thrilled to think this foray into dental work would be over.  I'm not going to paint a pretty picture -pain, severe cold/hot sensitivity and impatience had me more than just cranky and fedup.

Told the dentist that when he came into my cubby.  Now mind you, I had never had dental issues in all my almost 66 years.  No one gave me any handy dandy hints of possible things that I needed to be aware of to call either!  Just: don't eat anything sticky/hard, don't chew on that side and you might have some cold sensitivity.

Okay.

He looked.  Guess what?  Didn't get my crown!  Nope.  Instead I was sent to a specialist for an emergency root canal!  Plus, an infection had started.  Now my jaw, neck and face had been in pain for three weeks, so I wasn't exactly thrilled about this little knot in my shoelace!

The specialist was very nice.  Because of my mood, I honestly don't even remember his name.  But given that I have very little of a hinge on the side of my mouth left left from my RA, he just kept thanking me for being so patient and helpful given the pain he knew I was in.

Two and a half hours later, I left looking like someone had punched my face, a headache that rivaled a migraine hours extremely numb.

It took 6 hours before I felt my face.  By then, I was wishing I was still numb.  The specialist said if I didn't feel almost normal in a week to call him.  Given how I looked and felt, I stayed indoors for two days.

Don't even think about what happened when I took the painkiller that first night!

As of today, my z-pack is done, still puffy but a lot less pain and I am able to drink cold water again!  I

My next goal is to take less than an hour to eat my oatmeal and get my crown so I can eat again, normally.

Oh yeah, since this started I haven't been allowed/able to eat raw veggies.  

Talk about adding insult to injury!