commotiocordis

Tonight's Psych, wherein Gus, Shawn, and Lassiter go on a road trip because Lassiter insisted that some friend of his hire them is pinging all my Gus/Shawn/Lassiter bells. Just in the setup. I'm hoping it will deliver. I also need a name for that pairing trio. I like the ring of Shasster, but the only difference between meshing Shawn and Lassiter (even though the accepted is Shassie and not Shassiter) and Shawn, Lassie, and Guster is the one I, so people could mistake it.

OMG, IT'S SHAGSTER. DONE. The Sha, the G-s, and the Ter. Now that it has a cool name, you must write more of it, fandom.

In other news, is it bad if I maybe have a tiny crush on the Target pharmacist? Not a crush so much as an appreciation that she's well-educated and kind of pretty and young and tall and really really nice and I would date that.

Was going to continue marathon posting, but figured that last one deserved a post of its own.

IS DENTIST FAIL TIEMZ.

Yet again, this dentist is going to have to fix/redo 90% of the work done by the last one. Some of which (yet again) are actually errors on the first one's part. Most recent dentist before yesterday's drilled stuff without filling it, as I've bitched about before. Natch, this guy's all "hahaha, noes" and thinks it's just decay. Umm, look at the goddamned x-ray, sir. Yeah, I've got way more cavities than I should have (most of it's just odd demineralization that I was supposed to be trying to prevent with special toothpaste and then just sort of stopped messing with somewhere along the line and using whatever was around), but those look like little brown spots. These holes look like. . . holes! They're perfectly circular drill holes that she didn't want to fill because she said they were too small for a filling to stick. They also don't have dark spots of decay around them (which is a surprise, actually, because I expected those to cavity up like nobody's business, being, you know, holes). So get your gremlin head out of your ass and believe me for once. That's the biggest thing. If I tell you something, let's proceed on the assumption that I KNOW MORE ABOUT MY BODY THAN YOU DO, kthxbai.

Gremlin. Should explain that. He looks like one. Like for serious. I was trying to find a picture, but the "meet the doctor" bit on his website is suspiciously "under construction". He has a very oval face, but oval in the wrong direction. Cartoonish. Probably it's just really really round, but he also has whiskers that add to the image. I half was tempted to splash some of the mouth-rinsing water on him and see if he would sprout clones and thus get through his queue of patients faster. Or call his wife and make sure she knew he wasn't allowed to eat after midnight. Because, you know, being a tooth-brushing-inclined type of man like I'm sure he is and how you can't eat after you've done so, the issue might not actually have ever come up.

So yes. Bazillions of, not really cavities, but decay spots that he wants to drill. Many of which are erosion bits on my front teeth, mostly in between them, that I'm very reluctant to let somebody mess with. Especially after hippylesbiandentist (what we will call drilling-not-filling-ma'am when we're not calling her that) didn't take the time to match the composite filling color to my teeth well enough and left me with too-white spots on my bottom teeth that show pretty badly.

Sidenote. Point of interest: the random question hit me out of the blue while typing this up--where do you find hard toothbrushes if nobody recommends them. Googled it, and there aren't a whole lot of hits, but I did land on a study of soft vs hard in enamel erosion that found that there was no significant difference in the amount of damage caused by the brushes. Course, a lot of the problem with the hard brushes is more the damage to the gums in either their failure to bend enough to get down in between the gum and the tooth or because you force them down in there and they cut you up, but that's interesting.

I mention this because, as probably has become evident by now, I have zero faith in any dentist by this point. This one was trying to tell me that saliva erodes your teeth because it's acidic. Or, you know, "saliva contains antimicrobial components, as well as minerals that can help rebuild tooth enamel after attack by acid-producing, decay-causing bacteria." Surgeon General > dentist. Also, the hygienist was trying to tell me that the second ingredient in diet soda was sugar. Seriously? Seriously?!

So I'm pretty sure I'm going to cancel this appointment I made for next week and find somebody else for a second opinion first. Because this is a lot of work they've decided I need now less than a year since the last bunch of such work, and I can't believe my teeth are that bad. Sure, I floss all of like never, but neither did my mom, and she's what, 30 years older than me and has had maybe 1/10th of the work done that I have? Really obviously have my dad's teeth, but he's also, you know, not 19, so I don't get why mine are this bad. Plus, I'm not crazy about this guy. Nice, but I suspect his (and definitely his hygienist's) dental knowledge.

Plus plus, anybody that says "Wow, how am I going to do that one? I really have no idea," when referring to one of my cavities is not overly exciting me about his prowess. Though this one in question def. is my fault more or less--the more or less because it's in a really overlapped tooth spot, as I never got braces and I'm really crowded in the bottom, and thus it grew, but because of same crowdedness, I can see how it's going to be pretty damn hard to get in there and fill without destroying both teeth. On the bright side, destroying both teeth means he can fill it back up (though it's the canine and the one closer to the middle, so I'm thinking veneer and not fliling, maybe--that's not something I've looked into a whole lot as I just found out it was a possibility, but I'm interested) in such a way that they don't overlap and thus I wouldn't need braces, considering by the end of what he wants to do, it looks like some 70% of my exposed tooth surface will be composite filling material.


Also. Forgot this bit. Remember how I got the drill broken off in my root canal that I shouldn't have had to have, 'cept second ever dentist (who caught the 12 cavities that first ever dentist let grow, some to near-root-canal size, whilst giving me a clean bill of health over the years including at a visit just two months before all said cavities were found) screwed up and drilled too deep (yeah, she thought I didn't hear her when she said "uh oh" but I did) on the tooth that she had previously said wouldn't need one, and then broke a drill off inside? And then I had to go to a specialist way the fuck uptown four times whilst he dug and dug around in there trying to get it out? According to analysis of a suspiciously thicker looking white line in one of the canals of said tooth, THE DRILL IS STILL FUCKING IN THERE.

Gremlin dentist (yesterday's) was all "well, sometimes it's easier to explain to the patient that it's out rather than that they cleared out all around it and sealed it up and it's okay." First of all, sir, pretty sure that's why I went to the specialist and paid extra money--to get the goddamned thing out. Second of all, I'm not an imbecile nor a child. When somebody's going to be digging around in my mouth, I do my research first, plus both drill-breakage-dentist and the specialist explained my options to me.

And third of all. IT OBVIOUSLY IS NOT OKAY IF THE NEXT THING YOU'RE GOING TO TELL ME IS THAT THERE'S A MOTHERFUCKING SUSPICIOUS SHADOW AT THE BOTTOM OF THAT CANAL!!11one!!elevenhundredeleven!! For those who may not be conversant in root canal, that means bad. Means possible abscess, which would mean root canal failure, which would mean digging out all the shit they packed in there to seal it with and starting all over again.


Finally, when I brushed my teeth tonight, I was quite miffed that all the poking around in there appeared to have made me bleed more than I actually thought your entire gingival vasculature contained. And then I realized that it was probably because of the giant, gaping hole in my cheek that I'd bitten coming down the stairs minutes before. So there's that.

OMG, my mouth. Pain. It took them ages to get the temporary crown on/to fit, and my gums were screaming the entire time.

OMG, my wallet. Empty. The crown costs almost as much as the actual root canal? W. T. F.

Didn't end up going back to school, as my 1 hour appointment ended up being two as the receptionist that told me one evidently had no idea what she was talking about, and it wasn't worth driving back and parking and getting out, etc, all for only 15 minutes of my last class. And I was in pain (Still am. Kick in already, Advil!) and already had missed the pizza luncheon that I'd been saving calories all last week for, and more importantly (*cough*bullshit*cough*--nothing is more important than pizza when you've been looking forward to it for more than a week), the points I should have gotten for recruiting somebody to go with me to learn about the marketing program, which pissed me off.

I may not have mentioned (though I think I have) that they're redoing one of the highways in my city. Whatever, it's one I don't use. Except for but. They've screwed with the rest of them to take care of the overflow, as aforementioned highway will be closed for some two years. Gah. The one right by my house is now shoulder-less and with really tiny lanes. Which is scary enough when there's a truck beside you--the news was talking once that they have some tiny number of inches of clearance on each side now, the big 18-wheelers--but is completely terrifying when you're smashed between one of said trucks and somebody pulled over on the lack of shoulder. That is how my drive home went.

But I am home slightly earlier than normal, even for a day when I drive, which is nice. And enjoying a tuna melt (you know, in the sense that it hurts to breathe, much less chew around the left side of my mouth, but I was hungry enough that I decided to do it anyway). Except some facsimile of one, as I don't actually know what a tuna melt is and thus made a sandwich out of a piece of toast, a slightly melted slice of cheese, and some tuna salad, which just sounded about right for something called a tuna melt. The cheese was a waste, though, as I couldn't taste it on there after I lumped on the tuna, which was sad, if only because it was fat-free cheese, which isn't cheap.

*sigh*

Called into the endodontist today, and lo and behold, he actually called me back. I've got scrips for both antibiotics (because the gum was all swelly and gross) and uberhighstrength ibuprofen (which I wouldn't have wasted a copay on if I had been the one picking up what he called in, because there's nothing different from just taking two regular ones) that I've been choking (these are horsepills, I say) down since this afternoon.

Realized in church this evening that the tooth of doom, that which has been causing the agony requiring the aforementioned medicines, is cracked all the way through. I was remarking on how it was scary that it felt like when you have a loose tooth that's barely hanging on when I pushed it with my tongue and noticed that it actually was loose.

So, to the receptionist that blew me off twice and doesn't seem to understand the concept of neither pain nor emergency (3 weeks was the soonest appointment I could get--and originally she was trying to make me wait 5), the dentists that screwed it up in the first place, and everybody who just generally seems to assume that since I'm not a dentist, I don't know my own mouth?

Screw you.

I'm looking into finding a lawyer, assholes, since with this, the bills are going to skyrocket yet again for the extraction that I'm assuming is going to ensue (and all the previous ones are once again worth nothing, as the root canal has obviously failed).

I've got to convince my parents to go along with the lawyering up thing first, though. Since I'm on their insurance and they've been paying, idk if I've got sufficient cause to bring anything up by myself save stupid distress charges and such, which I don't really hold with. They were quite reticent at first, but when the final bill comes for the extraction and such, they'll come around, methinks. I get the feeling Mum's in if I'll set things up, especially since I showed them how we can consult with a couple people for free first.

Oh, and by the by. Dentistry insurance problems? Solved. Or at least, I've identified the problems. Getting our money back is a different story. Turns out the statements that dentist one (two) had sent haven't been updated at all since they sent a new (5 months late and frakked up, resulting in, as it stands, us being billed for two co-pays for the same consultation visit) version of the first appointment's billing to the insurance (originally, they only billed for one of the four billable bits from that day and had tacked on the fees for the rest onto our account, when--if they had been billed--they would have been covered by the insurance) when we originally had been being billed for the entire thing. That knocks off a good hundred or so that the dentist's billing company's weird statement had us down for. Plus she billed me twice for the same tooth (which may or may not stick, as it was the three fillings she started and then the root canal that she ended up doing on it--still, fillings never completed, tooth billed for two procedures, thus I'd call that insurance fraud), one of said billings being for the root canal which we were told we wouldn't have to pay for, etc., etc.

All mathed out, if the root canal charge is withdrawn and the double copay fixed, just counting the "estimated fees" we've already paid for everything, she owes us back $86.50. Take out the getting billed for the three fillings that never happened and turned into the root canal from hell, that goes up to $123.70 in cashy money.

Billing from the endodontist is much, much less complicated. I don't remember exactly how much they said we've got left to pay, but I know it's nowhere near $100 off of what it should be, math-wise. (I think there might be an odd $30, but I'll have to check the balance on that next time I go--which is the really frustrating aspect of it all: not until January 3rd. I thought this was a two visit maximum to the new guy, but January'll be #4.)

Though here's the question that my parents say the answer should be no to, but I'm more skeptical. If the dentist bills for outrageous amounts of money, and the insurance that they're in-network for will only accept a slightly more reasonable amount to cover (or cover 70% of or whatever), do I have to cover not only the 30% left of what the insurance recognizes but also the difference between what was billed and what the insurance will acknowledge? Because then all my maths are off. That doesn't seem right at all, but if one were to just go by the statements that dentist one (two) [Ahh, the drill-breaker. You know who I mean.], that's very much what one would think looking at the numbers they're saying I have to pay.

Ahh, book I read most of for that economics term paper. Thank you, sir. I would not be as skeptical of this insurance mess (though it's obviously still a mess and would have gotten figured out eventually even if I didn't go all "I'm putting off doing my AII stuff, let me spend a couple of hours comparing forms, looking up coverages, and making spreadsheets!" because it's too much money to let fly) if I hadn't read about all the crap that gets pulled and that you're never supposed to go with what the billing company throws at you the first time around because it's more likely than not incorrect.

The nausea from my restarting the birth control? Overwhelming. I was sick all morning today, and then randomly (which had never happened before) also sick all evening. Except for then I was all OMG, DILEMMA. I couldn't figure out whether the huge increase in nausea in the evening was because of the pill or because as I'd been nauseated all day to various degrees, all day I hadn't eaten more than a bowl of oatmeal in the afternoon.

So I was afraid to cook something because thinking about food is making me nauseated enough by itself, but I was afraid not to just in case it is something like low blood sugar which I can fix, because this is frakking miserable. It may have been this severe before, but never this long-running. I'm pretty sure it's due to the combination of the amoxicillin for the root canal (which--along with my mouth in general from holding it open--hurts, btw, because I had an appointment on Tuesday where they drilled out the old filling, poked around a bit, and then temp-filled it back up and then refused to give me any pain medication) and the birth control, because there's no other explanation for the night nausea, as the bc usually only makes me sick about 8 hours after I take it (maybe earlier, but before that I'm prolly asleep still).

But I did. Choked down half of one of those big rectangular crackers, and have now moved on to trying a bit of protein in the form of a scrambled fakey-egg type thing.

Unfortunately, it appears to not have been low blood sugar. The nausea has subsided a bit (but that may be because by now, the night wave has been going on for 4.5 hours), but it's nowhere near gone. So there is now half of a microwaved fakey-egg thing in a bowl next to me, because I don't know if it's worth trying to force the rest of it down when it's obviously not helping and just typing about the prospect of it is making me ill.

I'm almost to the point of trying to find a doctor I can call right now for a script for Compazine or some such (even though the Minimed presenting doctor talked about how that was one of the medicines that can induce Parkinsonian symptoms, LOL), because I've got homework to do and sleep I should be getting and I can't concentrate (or really do anything but sit here with my hands over my face) when every time I move my head even a little, I have to internally debate whether I need to run to the bathroom because I'm going to throw up or not.

Edit: Now that I think about it, I should add migraine to the list of possibilities. I've only really ever had one really bad one (I'm more of a tension/hay fever/cluster headache kind of girl), but I seem to remember the nausea being like this. I don't have the tunnel vision that usually comes with them, though, nor an actually headache, so idk. Added to the differential anyway.

Edit again: Gah. As I expected, nothing's open but the ER, and I'm not going to bother them for dumb nausea, especially since it's gotten tolerable I'm not constantly feeling like I'm urgently going to vomit anymore unless I make the mistake of moving any part of my body. Though during my searching, interestingly enough, I found that in July one of those urgent care centers is going to be opening only a bit more than a 1/2 mile walk from my house. Were it 8 months later and 6 hours earlier, I'd be golden.

As it stands, I really can't see going to school in the morning having been this sick for this many hours (we're up to five now, not even counting the couple in the morning) all night. But I have to, as I already missed one day in this four-day week, and like I griped about then, am already at least one day over the semester limit to still get credit without makeups.

IDK. I'm prolly going to go wake my mother up (which I hate to do, because she's got to get up even earlier than I do) to see if maybe there's something in the house left over that could help with the nausea. This is not cool.

AND. Has just remembered that I need to take another amoxicillin something like nowish (or earlier). Yeah. That's going to happen.

Edit again again (because this is turning into an all-night saga, as sitting on the couch with the laptop is something I can actually do--or maybe because moving away from the laptop is looking like it's going to make me hurl): So I did actually get up for a moment, and asked my mother, and she pointed me to this Trimethobenzamide stuff in the very back of one of the medicine cabinets. God knows how old it is, but I remember taking it once before, so I figured I'd try it. It was in the wrong prescription bottle, though, so I googled it to make sure this was the stuff I wanted. Tis the stuff I wanted, but, erm, evidently this stuff was banned by the FDA in April for not working.

That's not enough of a deterrent for me, though, because if there's even the slightest chance of this working, I'm trying it. I'm just trying to make sure that there wasn't another reason attached that they're not reporting, just in case it causes hair loss or cancer or something. Aparece que no, it's just the not working.

So yes. I'm going to take this, then prolly go lie down (my bedroom's closer to the toilet anyway, if the path is a little more treacherous due to the fact that I've got piles of clothes on the floor in my room still from the last time I was trying to sort things out/clean up. LOL, hopefully saga end for the night.

Movie that made me join the junior high cheerleading squad way back when? Bring it On. I requested all three of them from the libarary and rewatched the first a bit ago.

I loved all the dancy and flippy bits and Eliza Dushku. But then, the cheerleading thing at school turned out to be all "Rah, rah," so I quit. Turns out that if I had stayed on longer, we might have gotten there (it split off into cheerleading and poms, the latter of which does the dancy stuff and the former which does. . . the rah-rah stuff, and I admit, our poms are often pretty cool to watch), but I had no patience. Plus, I was more gymnastic-y than anything, so neither of them really fit, though I find dancing fun.

The next to BiO movies aren't going to be anywhere near as good, though, as there's no Eliza. I only got them on the off chance that there's lots of impressive flippage, because that stuff rocks my socks.


Dentist appointment tomorrow today. Is worried, like always. This is dentist #4, the endodontist that I've never been to. Much pity for my father, though, as he called in to the (totally different) dentist with a toothache a couple of days ago and spent all afternoon today getting two root canals. Though it evens out, because I asked him "So, when do you have to go back?" and he answered "I don't. I'm done." One-visit root canal? Not fair.

Definitely have moved into the freaking portion of the waiting to go to the dentist.

Anybody want to donate me a molar?