Dental Tourism - La Cuenta Por Favor (Check Please)!

After much pondering and reflection on just what the hell to do about my teeth while I'm down here in Peru, I decided that I would utilize one of my remaining appointments to at least get the tooth that needed the onlay checked out, because my conclusion on that tooth wasn't totally confirmed yet. I know that my dentist in NY had said that the area around the existing (metal) filling on that tooth was turning gray. That sounded like a legitimate reason to have something fixed, because there was obviously something wrong.

So, I checked into my dentist here in Peru to talk about that tooth. He explained that over time, metal (almagam) fillings will eventually turn the area adjacent to it gray, since the filling itself is gray and, after reviewing the tooth again, could find no reason to have it fixed because the filling and the tooth were perfectly fine as is. Again, he didn't want to do work on me - that's a good sign!

So, five minutes after sitting down, I said "Great, that's all I needed to hear" and was basically ready to get up and leave. But he hadn't given me the "Thanks for coming in, maybe I'll see you again" look, message, etc. In fact, I heard a dental DRILL start and the assistant was suddenly standing next to me. And drilling on the aforementioned "root canal" tooth commenced. Okay, I'm not sure what the hell is happening here, but he had already started drilling so I just let it continue. I was thinking, what if he misunderstood and is starting the process to create the crown! And I'm leaving in a few days! Ack! It won't be done! What the hell have I gotten myself into! (De ja vu?). Then there was a pause and I could ask, unusually optimisticly, "Umm, are you just opening up the restoration to observe and confirm your earlier assessment?" Luckily, he was! He had told me during the first meeting that he was 80% sure that the tooth was fine, and that the only way to confirm it 100% was to open it up and take a look inside.

So I was totally cool with the fact he wanted to give me his 100% assessment, though it would have been nice to have a heads up! I guess that's a trade off when dealing with someone who's English is his second language. But I trust the guy, so I was cool with that. After probing him with questions after his drilling, he confirmed his earlier assessment that the four walls of the tooth are in great condition and no crown was needed!

So, he started the restoration (filling) for the tooth again and my mind was just thinking and analyzing the situation. First, I noticed that the tools (tooth picky things) were dark, not shiny stainless steel. Oh my god, they are RUSTY! Wait, can one of those tools be sanitized and still be rusty? I couldn't really think of a reason why not, and he was only touching tooth, afterall, not my gums. But I was mildly freaked out and kept trying to catch the angle of it to confirm the initial visual assessment. I just couldn't focus my eyes that close and figure it out. Finally, I did catch it and realized it was just dark colored - maybe tempered steel or something like that. NOT rusty.

As he continued the work and as I continued to analyze my situation, I noticed that he was pretty much usuing the same tools that my high-end orthodontist uses to zap the teeth with the infrared gun (or whatever it is) to harden the layers of the restoration. Big point for him on that. At two points of the restoration, he was talking on the cell phone that his assistant held to his ear without missing a beat in my mouth. This restoration was too easy for him! After all, his specialty is bite disorders, oral rehabilitation, and the mandible (lower jaw bone).

So after becoming comfortable with the restore, zap, restore, zap process of each layer, my mind drifted to the fact that I had only brought $40 with me that day and he accepts cash only. Crap! Would he let me come back later after visiting the bank? Crap! I didn't bring my insurance form! Maybe I could go to the bank and then print out the form at some nearby internet cafe. Yea, I'm pretty sure he would be cool with that.

Soon enough, he was finished. Previously, my tooth edge was sort of like a crater, where the outside edge was almost sharp and the restoration was more or less recessed a bit inside the tooth, which felt weird to me. And the tooth, due to the fact it was flat and didn't have the "cusp" (point to match the lower tooth). This guy not only restored it to the point it was before he drilled, he added the point to it to match my lower tooth! So now the tooth feels like a normal tooth, not an unusually flat, recessed tooth. Wow, sweet job!

So I was all done, now just to settle the bill. I asked him what the total was for this and he said $35. Holy scheisse! $35 to assess a tooth, drill out another, assess that tooth, and create an awesome restoration? I was amazing stoked and 100% sold on getting all future work done with this guy. It cost me over $200 (after insurance paid) to get a small restoration done a few weeks ago at my NY dentist. And, as I mentioned, insurance will pay for half of this bill, making the total cost $17.50 :o)

So as we walked around town, I thought about my NY dentist, in particular about whether their assessment jived with what this doctor told me and, as a result, whether or not I wanted to continue to get my teeth cleaned there. And I realized that their assessment wasn't necessarily wrong, they are just more aggressive about fixing the teeth and want to fix everything to the highest level to make sure there are no problems in the future. A crown would have definitely fixed my root canal pre-molar, no additional assessment or question necessary. An onlay would have gotten rid of the metal filling on my back tooth so that no discoloration would result. They weren't wrong, per se, but it would have been nice if they gave me the whole story rather than holding back alternatives and options. But in the future, I'm getting all serious work done here, and the doctor and my bank account are happy to hear that.

J. Riley, Erika's friend thought I paid too much for restoration :o) . I'll gladly "overpay" for the best dentist!

Dental Tourism

I arrived in Peru last week with grand expections: we could kill three birds with one stone by fitting in my friends' Ryan and Lili's wedding, Erika's mom's surgery, and of course the completing the latest chapter in my storied dental history all in the course of a week or four. Although I'm only five days into it, it looks like I might have introduced another bird to the story.

I had a dentist appointment on Wednesday night to attend right after I got off of my flight in order to ascertain the possibilities of getting my crown and onlay started by a highly respected dentist in Lima. It is a little bit unfair to expect that I could arrive at 10:00pm at night and have a dentist who doesn't even know what I (or my X-rays) look like to come to a quick conclusion on what needs to be done and, at the same time, for me to determine if it is indeed a dentist that I would trust with doing this work on . But I was pretty impressed already by the fact that he was willing to wait around until that hour to see me, even though he had a 3:15am flight the next day to Northern Peru to participate in a meeting or teach a course at the esteemed university there.

To preface this appointment, there were some reasons (other than financial, the primary reason) that I was exploring this option. I've started to question the integrity of my dentist after they told me that I needed to have a crown done because I had a tooth that had a root canal - two years ago. This same dentist is the one that told me that I needed the root canal done in the first place and was actually the dentist that had put the restoration on that tooth after the root canal. Why would it take them two years to tell me that I suddenly need a crown on a tooth that has been in the same condition since that time? Their excuse was that "teeth that have had root canals can be brittle and can break if you bite something hard". So why didn't they tell me that two years ago? I queried the other dentist in the office who usually does the work on my teeth and her synopsis was "Well, it's not really required since there is not impact with the tooth on the bottom, it's just recommended." Differing opinions in the same office make me want to get another opinion.

So the dentist in Lima spent a lot of time reviewing my x-rays that I brought along and poked around my mouth a little bit checking out the teeth that needed to be worked on. He was a younger guy than I had pictured and he was pretty quiet for most of the time, studying the various pictures of my jaw. But after about fifteen minutes, he sat in front of me and gave me his opinion of the situation. He said that the four walls of the tooth that had the root canal were healthy and strong and that very little of the tooth had been removed when the root canal was done, so he was 80% sure that nothing else was needed on that tooth. He could tell 100% by removing the restoration that covered that tooth, but he basically confirmed what my initial opinion was - that it wasn't needed. He said that having a root canal alone does not make a tooth brittle. What makes the tooth brittle is when a tooth has a lot of decay - or something along those lines. But he was very clear that a root canal alone does not require a tooth to have a crown and that my tooth was healthy and strong.

The second tooth he didn't talk to me much about, but just said that there was nothing that needed to be done other than the restoration that had already been performed. I was confused about that because I was supposed to get an onlay done on that tooth. Was he looking at the right tooth? What about the "gray" area around the existing (metal) filling that my dentist mentioned? He said that anything that needed to be done about that filling would be cosmetic only, but that there was no other problem. After the appointment, I was reading through my dentist's notes and they mentioned the tooth number, so I will go back to the dentist in Lima on Tuesday to just make sure I'm on the same page as he is.

So this was not the results I was expecting, but is that a bad thing? The dentist in Lima himself mentioned that he is used to seeing people with serious issues (if you've been to Peru and seen people's teeth, you'll understand), so does that mean he is accustomed to only looking for serious problems, wheras my dentist in NY is looking for little problems and fixing them before they become bigger problems? It seems like there are more questions now than there were before, so I will likely go back to NY and get a second opinion there as well before deciding what to do...

J. Riley, sigh.....

Rug Doctor Doo-lot

In the last post, I talked about how excited I was to get to weekend cleaning and putting the Rug Doctor into action. Well, the first part of my plan was successful: renting the Rug Doctor in the wee hours of Saturday morning to make sure I had enough time to clean the carpet and return it on Sunday. We came home from a movie and gluten-free pizza at Sean's at about 2:30am and picked up the unit at our local grocery store before dragging it home. But, unfortunately, there was no way I was going to vacuum half of my apartment at 3:00am, especially considering our thin walls. I imagine the neighbors would not be pleased about that.

So Saturday, at around 9:00am, I woke up and got into the action of it all. The plan was to vacuum half the apartment, take a two hour break for the Liverpool game, and then vacuum the other half of the apartment. Supposedly, the carpet is supposed to dry in like three hours. It turned out that I vacuumed almost the whole carpet before the game, but the carpet was still sopping wet when the game was over. However, the water that got sucked up was filthy dirty, super nasty, so I know that even if it didn't work as well as advertised, it was certainly doing something.

Later in the evening, the carpet STILL wasn't dry but since we were going to take the doctor back, I went ahead and did another round of vacuuming and, again, the water was super nasty. We spent extra time on the vacuuming part (as opposed to the watering/cleaning part) to try to get as much moisture as we could out of the rug and the next morning it was STILL wet.

My verdict on the Rug Doctor: It didn't work quite as well as advertised and it took way too long to dry, but the rug is definitely cleaner, as evidenced by exhibit A: my feet are clean after walking around barefoot all day on the carpet. So it was definitely worth the $42 I spent renting the unit. Next time, I just have to remember to spend that extra time on sucking up the moisture.

I certainly enjoyed my experience with that doctor, but didn't enjoy my experience with the next doctor: my dentist. There are three DMDs in the office that I visit to have my teeth cleaned, one of which I hate. At the last visit, she told me I grind my teeth and needed a mouth guard. Uhh, fact: I don't grind my teeth anymore, so don't sound so convinced before you know my medical history. She seems to take extra special joy and sounds excited when she finds the inevitable problems with my teeth. In fact, in this particular visit last week, I thought she was going to bust out the Don Perignon when she told me that I was going to need to come back in a few weeks to have some problems fixed. She told me I need a crown put on the tooth that I had a root canal on like three years ago. Hello? Why didn't someone tell me this before? In fact, this was the same office that told me I needed a root canal, it woulda been nice for them to mention or suggest that at the time. If it weren't for the hi-tech cleaning techniques and their DVD goggles that I get to wear when they fix my teeth (i.e. cavities, etc.) , I woulda left a long time ago.

But it gets better. Not only do I get to get a crown, but in addition I also need a cavity filling and a porcelain filling, or so the receptionist told me when I was about to check out. Uhh, what's the difference? A porcelain filling is another crown! TWO F'ING CROWNS and a filling. No wonder the DMD was acting like she was sniffing her laughing gas and so happy to see me. I guess there's no recession for her when people like me have to pay four-figure fees to get my teeth fixed. Next time, I'll stick with my regular DMD, thank you very much.

J. Riley, now that was a rant. I'm looking into dental services (crowns) in Peru, certainly will save significant cash with the same/better quality of service.

Dueling Yukeleles

Paul is a Renaissance man when it comes to tunes. Last year, he introduced me to the wonders of boot-stompin', PBR-drinkin', ass-kickin' redneck-hipster bluegrass music in the Hackensaw Boys. Yesterday, he introduced me to yet another off-the-wall, who-woulda-thunk-it's-so-awesome genre of music, the Ukelele Wah Wah event at the Blender Theater. Yes, the ukelele.

But before I get into that, let's break down yesterday a little bit. My first day sans-wife and yes I did, in fact, make the bed :-O !! My apartment is slowly, but surely, disintegrating into disrepair but I gotta get some credit for making the bed! I think the only time I made the bed prior to Erika's arrival was after I washed the sheets and blankets (which was an annual event).

Anyway, after work I had an orthodontist appointment. Ohhh...the orthodontist. As some may know, my talented tongue has been wreaking havoc on my buckteeth and basically reverting my bite to something like it was prior to two years, two surgeries, and thousands of bucks, i.e. "tearing, not biting a sandwich" as one orthodontist in my past described it. Last time I was at the ortho, he decided that I should try a new torture device called a "Positioner", which would make small changes to my bite. My mouth was modeled, diagnostics were performed, and out popped my appliance, which I received last night.

I was in suspicious mood, so I queried my ortho about this device. As in, why am I using it. The skies opened, a ray of light shown down, angels were singing, and he told me, and I'm paraphrasing, that he did research into finding a better solution than a retainer to deal with the massive changes that my jaw has been through and the fact that I have an "aggressive tongue" (watch out Erika). He busted out a model of my jaws (created with the molds) both before and after using this Positioner. Basically, they take my current bite, they make changes to the model to create the "Paul Newman" bite, and then they build this Positioner to ease your teeth into position.

Now the Positioner is no cakewalk. It is, essentially, like a tooth-molded mouthguard. In fact, the pamphlet even says that you can use this for contact sports. I have to "chew" in this thing four hours a day for a few weeks/months and wear it at night in order to move my teeth to the new position. It's extremely drooly, but the good news is that it has a wintermint (borrowing that from Tom's of Maine) flavor too it, so it's not nasty like my old retainer.

But it totally makes sense when you see it. A lot of my work involves writing emails, so I can sit here all day and workout my jaw muscles on this thing. And it is already working after just one day, so I have high hopes for this device and don't be surprised if Paul Newman arrives the next time you see me.

So last night, Paul and I went to go see the Yukelele music festival, headlined by a Japanese/Hawaiian guy named Jake Shimabukuro. Before he was on stage, we got to listen to a pretty cool, suave, Hawaiian sounding band with the slide guitar and yukele and a hip-hop band featuring the yukelele, a beat-boxer, a bass guitar, and an awkward fourth-guy whose role in the band did not seem critical. He wasn't sure what to do with his hands, so he stuck them in his pockets and sang a few chords (looking at the words on his sheet) occassionaly. I figured he must be the trust-fund kid who's dad sponsored the band, since he was so useless.

But Jake Shimabukuro? I can't describe him, so just watch.


We also heard from Michael Jackson ("Thriller"), The Beatles, and even Johan Sebastian Bach! Amazing!

J. Riley, my teeth have already moved and are SORE. That's good news, though....

Flavor of the Week

This week I had my quad-annual retainer checkup at my orthodontist. In a show of confidence of my teeth, or lack thereof, I found out that He's going to try a new device that sounds like it's a mouthguard-type thing that will slowly move my teeth to the perfect location, since they are already falling out of alignment, as they have since I got the braces off. I am less than thrilled by this idea, although I don't object to getting my teeth in the right spot. I mean, having a retainer with a bridge across it is hard enough to communicate with, I can only imagine what it's going to be like with this new contraption, especially since I'm supposed to continue wearing it all day and night like I do with my retainer. But I'll give it a try since I don't have to pay for it. I'm starting to feel not just like a guinea pig, but like a guinea pig butterflied on a grill in a place like Peru with these teeth of mine!

Some of you know that I like to try out new ingredients in my kitchen sometimes. First there was quinoa, black rice, and other interesting graines that no one else has heard of. Well, lately I've been using a yummy, spicy, pepper-paste laden with various North African spices called harissa, which can be found in stores like Whole Foods, if you look REALLY hard. I had to find someone that fit the "Whole Foods Geek" mold - you know, the guys who know pretty much everything in the store - in order to find it. Here's a couple super-tasty recipes that I've made using this stuff:

• Harissa spaghetti
• Moroccan chicken
  

The latter, especially, is an awesome meal with a huge variety of flavors and textures!

J. Riley, I added some new blogs that I read to the bar on the right.....

Finally I Have a Social Life!

I've been madly irresponsible with this blog lately, and it's about time I start carving 15 minutes out of my week to update people before I lose my fan base! Of course, if you're using Google Reader, I'm probably just another person on your list and any of my posts are just a bonus to you. But I digress....

So, a couple things. First of all, the weather here has been just amazing lately, except for a few thunderstorms and some rain. Today was probably the hottest day of the year, the second time I've felt my back wet while walking home from the office - ahhh, summertime is almost here! Time to ditch the backpack and leave the laptop at work. Rather than putting my bathing suit on and heading to Central Park to sunbathe afterwork like most people (errr...like most people I am checking out on my way home from work ;o), I've taken a liking to running sans shirt. I am actually surprised that more people don't do it, it's quite liberating. I'm sure most people who happen to see me flash by them shirk in horror when they see me (or at least are temporarily blinded), but I figure that if I can't get tan this way (or at least skin cancer), I can't get tan anyway (and will probably still get skin cancer).

Last weekend was pretty busy, I went mini-golfing with my volunteer group and barely escaped the impending rain, but still had a lot of fun. As is typical lately, I had a flurry of cancellations a day or two before the event. I am fine-tuning my organizational skills and procedures to prevent this, but I guess sometimes there are things you just can't prevent. Last summer it was kids not showing up, but I'd rather have few volunteers and more kids, as has been the case lately.

After golfing, I ate a ginormous hamburger from a greasy diner that I've never tried before by my house. One of the kids had eaten a burger at the mini-golf course and I was salivating all over the ground watching him eat it, so I stuffed myself silly with one before I met up with Alan and Andrea for the rest of the day. We rode down to the Brooklyn Bridge and (gasp) actually enjoyed doing something people all over the world come here to do, walk across it. We hit up a chocolate place for Andrea and then got some awesome ice cream at the Brooklyn Ice Cream factory, sitting next to the stormy water and getting fat. Awesome.

Being in Brooklyn, we could have gone anywhere in the city afterwards but decided to hit up the old stand-by neighborhood downtown, the East Village. We stopped at a very nice place (which we need to try brunch at) called the NoLita House for happy hour (2-for-1, 7 days a week!), waiting for our appetites to pick up. Well, really Alan and I since Andrea is "practicing" being pregnant and not drinking anymore :o/ . I wasn't convinced.

With our whistles whetted and our appetites lubricated, we headed to a noodle place that we'd all read about called Momofuku Noodle House for a simple noodle dinner at a tiny place with a single bar-style table right down the middle of the room with people lined on either side eating their noodles. It was alright, but I think I wanted Alan's spicy kimchi bowl rather than my "mystery pork" dish (I suspect there was pork throat in there, since I saw it on other dishes), but it was a cool place nonetheless.

On the verge of throwing up from gluttonous feasting that day, we went to another chocolate place so Andrea could get a melted-bar of hot-chocolate (que richo!) while I contemplated the best place to vomit within a proximity limit of six feet. I had "that taste" in my mouth before deciding that it probably wasn't the best thing to do in public and distracted myself with people watching instead.

With the English Premier League finished, I was stuck watching Spanish La Liga soccer on Sunday morning before taking a jog and then entertaining Melissa while I was doing chores around the house like laundry and waiting to meet up with my family's good friends Frank and Sally. They came to town to see their daughter and generously offered to take me out to dinner anywhere I wanted. I guess they didn't know what they were getting themselves into with an offer like that, so I whipped open my plethora of guides before remembering that I'd always wanted to go to WD-50 but it was a little too trendy and creative for an average night in the LES, my neighborhood away from neighborhood. It is well known for it's inventive tastes and I thought they would enjoy something a bit different than the norm. Somehow I managed to get reservations the day of and it was good eats-on! Wow, this place was like a palette amusement park between the quinoa with...some...taste, shredded brussel sproats with apples, tagine-spiced lamb broth, scallops, apricot cous-cous, etc. etc. etc. It wasn't a lot of food, but it was very interesting. The desserts left something to be desired with more style than substance, but they were good conversation pieces, if nothing else.

Being in the neighborhood, we capped the night at Teany's tea shop of course and tried out the latest teanychino (candied apple teanychino!) and now Teany has a few more massive fans to go along with my parents!

Like all good things, the night had to come to an end however and I had to head home to make my nightly phone call before getting ready for the busy week. I had a root canal to wrap up on Thursday but, more importantly, had the Champions League Final on Wednesday. I wasn't sure how to leave work early two days in a row, so I made up a story how they had to create a mold of the hole in my tooth on Wednesday and then Thursday they would put the custom porcelain crown in and though I doubt my boss bought it, he didn't care. He probably wouldn't have cared if I said I was leaving to go to a bar to watch my team, but I didn't want him to think I'm not dedicated to my job (I'm not, really ;o).

I got lucky though when my dentist said they had an opening an hour and a half before the game started, so I got my filling (no crown necesito!), jumped in a cab and hauled but down to the Liverpool bar, only to find out that it was already at capacity!! Arggghhh...I could hear them singing inside and everything. With my Liverpool scarf wrapped around my neck, I hopped back in the cab to go to a bigger place, the "overflow" bar. It was also packed and I saw so many people wearing red running towards bars around town, it was great. Liverpool has the best fans in the world, there's little doubt about that. So I joined the throngs of people at Slainte, a big Irish bar with lots of flat-screen TVs and hundreds of fans. There was singing, drinking, cheering, jeering, and lots of Scouse accents in the bar, it was an awesome atmosphere. Too bad we didn't win, I'd probably still be there singing You'll Never Walk Alone, their theme song and famous Kop classic. Next year, boys, we'll be back....

J. Riley, BTW, I'm growing a beard just for the hell of it. I like the nasty beards that the stylish Brits have at my work and you don't see many shaggy people here in the UES. Once you can see it (stupid blonde/red hair cross-pollenations), maybe I'll take a picture.

Drilling For Oil

Or so it seemed my endontist was doing today when I went in to get my $1600 root canal :o|. Thank god for insurance, it's still going to take a nice chunk out of my savings, but at least it won't be the whole thing. And in return for said chunk of change? A nice, hollow bicuspid that they filled with some chemicals and that will probably start killing me in the next hour once all the ibuprofen that I took earlier wear off. On top of that, I can't eat on that side (my prefered side, by the way) of my mouth for over a week, when I get to go back to my dentist to get a crown on top of the hole.

The root canal was surprisingly not a big deal, other than the fact that it's so freaking expensive (I'd consider flossing if I were you) and that I still have to go in for more pain when they put the massive filling (crown) in. He did inject my gums with several shots of novocaine, which is probably why there was no pain. As an added benefit, the little microscope thing that he looked through to drill out my tooth had just enough of a reflection for me to get an idea of all the stuff (like chlorine/bleach, cotton, and some medicine stuff) that he was pouring into the hollow, nerveless tooth. Exciting, I know! I need to focus on no more cavaties, especially deep ones that kill nerves and require root canals :o| .

J. Riley, I somehow need to get this crown done on the same day as the Liverpool game so that I can get the crown and then head to the pub to watch the Champion's League final right afterwards! Boss might get suspicious if I disappear two days in a row after lunch for "fillings"....

No More Braces!!

The braces are off!!!

Done and Done - Almost

Braces are coming off in four weeks - I'm almost done, people!!

Monster Mouth - WARNING

I got new pictures of my mouth:












J. Riley, the last one is a little out of focus, but you get the idea.

Welcome to My Blog

Before I started orthodontics (what a mess), just over a year ago:

Just before my operation:

Things to note: The center line of my upper jaw and lower jaw are almost a full tooth-width off; My upper and lower teeth still don't meet in the front; Those metal things are the daggers that I refer to (the rubber bands connected to those after the surgery).

J. Riley, I look forward to the post-surgery pictures!

Clean Bill of Health

I had my first official appointment with my orthodontist today and he gave me a big thumbs up - very minor adjustments are all that are left to be done. I got to see the pictures from when I first came in and the pictures right before my surgery. He'll take more pictures when I'm totally done and I'll post the progression of the past year and a half on the blog. Good news is that I don't have any rubber bands still because he wants me to heal up before he changes anything. The bad news is that the rubber-band holders (aka mouth daggers) are going to stay in until my next appointment - in January! Unfortunate, but oh well. I did pay off the remaining debt on my account though, which is exciting. I gotta rack up my miles so I can book my tickets for the Vas / Mohos wedding!

J. Riley, here's a pic of my crooked, swollen face from Saturday night

How Tuesday Feels

Feeling pretty much the same these days. The stitches come out tomorrow so I should be getting an update from him on how I'm doing. I've eaten semi-solids a few times and things don't feel right in there yet so I haven't pushed it. Or maybe they do feel right, I guess I wouldn't know :) !! Ortho appointment is next week. I was thinking about it and I have a feeling he will be the one who gives me rubber bands on my teeth to move my jaws forward/back for the tweaking. I'm not really looking forward to that, but we'll see what happens. My chin and pallete are still numb but I'm starting to have dull pains in my chin at night so maybe that means the nerves are starting to reconnect in there. My lips have finally recovered for the most part, though they aren't very enthusiastic about stretching still.

J. Riley, I'm using the new Blogger Beta, which let's me add labels like those below to each post! You other bloggers should make the switch too.

The Week in Review

On Tuesday, I had a meeting with my surgeon to have my fresh flesh wounds checked out and to get my dreaded stint taken out from behind the teeth on the upper jaw. That thing pretty much prevented me from eating anything that wasn't through a straw. It also made my voice indecipherable, made it difficult to brush my teeth, left a foul taste in my mouth, and made my lower teeth sore.

Much to my surprise, he actually took the four rubberbands (one of them had fallen off) off and said that he'd take the stint out the following week. I had lost sleep over getting this stupid thing taken out and I wasn't about to let him get away with that. I begged him to take it out and after some careful instructions about what I could and couldn't do, he somewhat begrudginly took it out. Ahh....freedom. My mouth felt liberated (again) and now I just had to deal with the canker sores, lips that were still extremely chapped and bleed occasionally, and sores outside the corner of my mouth that were extensions of the original lip wounds. But I still can't believe that all the rubber bands and everything else are gone from my mouth after less than a week! What happened to the six weeks of misery???

We had lunch with Susannah later that afternoon and my taste buds were delighted with pecorino-cheese mashed potatoes and some assorted squash soup. It was very nice to be a part of conversations again and I was feeling very good, though tired after a while outdoors.

On the way home, we stopped at Pier 1 and my mom got me a little table that goes next to my futon. It's got four cushons on the inside that can be used for sitting on and a glass top. It's got kind of a North African look to it, which is pretty sweet. I resisted my mom's desires to get things for my apartment for a whole week, but she eventually won the battle - and then some! She re-arranged the paintings and pictures on my walls and then we even re-arranged the layout of my apartment just enough to make it feel more space-efficient and different. I have to admit that Susannah's very nice apartment layout had significant influence on the new layout. To add to the splendor, I took advantage of a fire-sale in my neighbor's apartment to buy a cedar-chest/table that needs to be shortened a little bit but I still feel was a great buy. Now, if I can just get the stank of cigars and god-knows what else from my sketchy neighbors off of it....

Feeling very good this week, I decided to go back to work two days early and save the two vacation days I'd planned on using. My mom was leaving in the morning, so it would work out well, or so I thought. Unfortunately, I am not sure why, but I could not sleep at night. I didn't go to sleep until about 2:00am and then woke up again at 4:00 and fell asleep sometime around 4:45 after email my manager and letting him know that I wasn't going to be coming in after all. I figure it's better not to push things, especially with my lips still on fire at night and the wounds around my mouth growing by the day.

J. Riley, let's hope that I can get some better sleep tonight!