Sunday 7 June 2020

Pt 5. Plague."Dental Days."

  
 We were just getting used to our nice new kitchen tap and settling into an acceptable regimen, when my top right premolar, one of the few teeth I have left in that region, began to give me an occasional twinge of pain.  It mainly bothered me when I bit down on it, or exposed it to heat or cold, so with a little care I managed to cope with the discomfort without suffering too  much.  In fact, I recall that many months ago, I had informed my dentist  that the tooth was sensitive to heat and cold.    
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   "Ah, thank Goodness," said he, after the appropriate examination, including X-rays. "lt shows that the tooth is still alive!"  
   There was not much I could do about it anyway, since all the dental offices in the city were closed.  If one had a real dental emergency, it meant going down to the ER, a dungeon where one's life was at risk, if not from Coronavirus, then from one of the many malignant conditions that patrolled the hospital corridors and wards, attached to a human and hoping to find another one to serve as host for its offspring.
   Meanwhile, the Covid Toothache, tended to ease up, until the sun was over the yardarm.   Coincidentally and fortunately, that worsening of the pain happens to be around the very hour, that my very  great  friend, the inimitable Scot, and I decided years ago was the appropriate hour to imbibe.   Initially a fairly serious drink sedated the tooth nicely and between that and a couple of Tylenol I managed to keep the pain at bay. Then it started waking me up during the night and persisting through most of the day.  Since the pain had a throbbing character I thought I might just be developing an abscess, so I started myself on an antibiotic, in the hope that it would cool things down.  No such luck, things continued to deteriorate.  I really didn't want to call my dentist, because health care providers, particularly health care providers who work on the upper part of  respiratory tract are very high risk candidates for coronavirus as are grumpy old men like me, (and women too!).  But when the pain gets bad enough one will do almost anything to get rid of it.  (I have often wondered how I would stand up to torture before I started blubbering everything I know - and everything I didn't know too!)   I know my dentist well, we once worked in adjoining offices.  I used to wander into his office during our lunch hour to have my teeth fixed.  I phoned him and told him the story.
   "Sounds like you might be developing an abscess there."  He knew the tooth, because he has been poking around my mouth for twenty years.  "Let's start you on some Amoxil, an antibiotic might settle it down.   "Actually I started on some Amoxil the day before yesterday."  I told him the dosage.  
   "Double up on the dosage and I'll call you tomorrow."
   The next day it was no better.  "Continue the present dosage of the Amoxil and I will meet you at my office at eleven o'clock tomorrow morning.  I haven't seen a patient since the lock-down.  I'm going to phone my assistant and have her come in.  I have all the personal protective equipment so we will get all gowned up and you'll be the guinea-pig!"  
   Next morning I arrived at the office, happy to know I'd be coming to the end of this toothache one way or anther.  My dentist and his assistant were all as fully protected as it is possible to be in this era when the health care administridiots sent much of the protective equipment to China leaving our Canadian health care providers perilously endangered.  Unfortunately, Canadians seem unable to grasp just how dangerously flagitious their health care administrators are, right up to the Prime Minister.
  Back to my dentist.  Careful examination.  Dentist and assistant dressed up like Batman and Robin.  Cold ice test to make sure the nerve was still alive.  I assured him of that as soon as I got down from the ceiling!  He worked on me for an hour, while I tried to imagine what could be taking him so long.  In my youth it was simple.  Toothache, dental visit, extraction.  He cleaned up the periodontal abscess and sent me on my way, happily anesthetized and only slightly worried about how  it would feel once the anesthetic wore off.  It was surprisingly pain free.  He phoned me the following morning to see how I was doing.   We were both happy with the results!
  
    We are lucky to have a fairly spacious deck at the back of our town-house condominium..  Never much of a gardener,  I quite enjoy pottering around the modest lot that is populated mainly by perennials that don't need much care.  It is adjacent to the deck.  Just enough work there to feel one could cope with a little more!  The lock-down coincided with fairly decent weather for the time of the year in Canada, so it was possible to spend a fair amount of time outside.
   Beyond the deck and patch is Richmond Street, a main artery that is almost always busy.  I can watch the traffic bumper to bumper and listen to its roar as I sip my before dinner martini.   Now not a sound, not a car, it was eerie.  It reminded me of one of those post apocalyptic sci-fi movies where all forms of human life had been eradicated. But that didn't last long. The bikers soon discovered that they had a dead straight strip of road that normally reduced traffic to a crawl all to themselves. Richmond Street turned into a speed track, an unbearably noisy speed track that continued for a few nights until the police caught on and staked out the area! Over the next couple of weeks the traffic developed momentum and long before any relaxation in the lock-down rules was edging back to its normal density. At that stage everywhere was still closed except pharmacies and grocery stores, so I have no idea where they were rushing to. Maybe some just had to get out of the house and were going for a drive to nowhere.  Maybe, thought I, when I get tired of walking around the condo grounds, I might try that myself.  
   Early on, I decided that as well as planning some physical exercise I needed some mental exercise to prevent the brain from atrophying even more rapidly than it was already doing.  Blogging was equivalent to a walk around the block.  My wife, a formidable crossword solver - the New York Times Crossword is child's play to her-and I used to play scrabble.  We resolved to re-commence a daily scrabble game and do most days.  It certainly is a mental stimulant and it is interesting that even at our advanced ages regularly competing improves ones game.  Mind you, her crossword experience gave her a great advantage, she is familiar with arcane words I  have never heard of.
   As time went by our provisions were beginning to run a little low particularly some of the more essential bottled kind, so we decided it was time to plan a short shopping expedition.  Come back next week and I'll tell you all about that!  The plague continues!


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