TheBanyanTree: What I did on my birthday

[Pam James]

I have missed hearing from you and enjoying your writing.  I would have
enjoyed this writing even more had it not been about teeth pain.... I just
can't....  childbirth was a snap in comparison!!  NOTHING is worse!!  I am
so sorry you had to endure that, and even worse, for your birthday!!

you rock!

On Thu, Jul 19, 2018 at 8:05 PM, <tobie at shpilchas.net> wrote:

> It’s Thursday, the 19th of July, 2018 and here’s the news.
>
>
> Dear folks of the tree,
>
>         My birthday was last Sunday, and a rousing one it was.  Before the
> 15th, I received an email from my best friend, titled, "It’s a day of
> special grace".  We’ve been the closest of closests for all our lives
> (well, since I was 14 and she was 15, brought together by a mutual crush on
> a sallow youth with a heart of coal).  When I was able to, I answered her
> with this.
>
>
> What I’m doing today:
>
>         Since Friday, I’ve been on another planet. I got up this morning
> to say happy birthday to a barely recognizable swollen bruised face.  I
> spent all night in the ER Friday/Saturday scaring the other people in the
> waiting room. Luckily I had an advocate with me who kept going up to the
> desk and threatening them that they’d best take me back there: "She’s got a
> raging infection in her head and is allergic to all antibiotics. If it
> spreads because you can’t see her fast enough ………… ".  The appropriate
> antibiotic for this is something that I took ten years ago and gave me
> Clostridium Difficile (note the word, "difficile", meaning it is difficult
> to make go away). So cross continental conferences with physicians were
> necessary to figure out what to do. The result is that I’m taking two toxic
> antibiotics to make sure I don’t get sick. Isn't there something wrong with
> this?  That conference did not happen at the ER. That happened when I was
> back home and had to consider what to do with the Rx they’d given me for
> Clindamycin.  The ER doc was not very inspiring. His answers were meant for
> someone who doesn’t ask questions.
>
>         It all started with what seemed like a repeat of a fairly recent
> syndrome where a tooth kind of bothered me only to stop bothering me a day
> later. I even had my dentist check it all out and was told everything was
> fine.  In this case it was my back left upper molar, which in my mouth I
> think is tooth #15, though I could be wrong.  So it bothered me a bit and I
> told myself, "well, this will go away in a day like it did before."  But it
> didn’t.  And then it got a mite better and I tried to forget about it.
> After all, my birthday was coming up, what self respecting deity would hale
> bad luck down upon me at this precise time in the year?  Evidently, I am
> not dealing with a self respecting deity.  This one is shameless.
> Wednesday night I didn’t sleep because it was so painful and I vowed to
> call the dentist as soon as they opened shop.  Which I did. They got me an
> appointment for 1:30 pm.  But by 9:00 it was clear that I wasn’t going to
> make it to 1:30.  They squeezed me in at 9:45.  The X ray made my dentist
> sad.  She referred me to an endodontist    and here comes the name:  Dr.
> Phuong Quang, and you may pronounce that:  Fong Quong.  Yes, that’s right!
>
>         So Thursday, I went to Phuong Quang.  She re X-rayed and told me,
> "This is severe."  She also pointed out a tooth one tooth away that looked
> like it was in the same condition but wasn’t presenting yet. "That one
> really needs to be done."  So she did a root canal Thursday between 11:30
> and 2:30.  It took a while.  She said it didn’t want to stop draining so
> she had to stuff it with antibiotics, close it up, make an appointment for
> two weeks from then at which time she’ll also do the other tooth.  When the
> anesthetic wore off, the pain was worse than when I’d gone in. By the next
> morning, I thought I’d go crazy. But there was a momentary lull. That
> happened during the precise moment that I’d returned to Dr. Quang to have
> her open the damn thing and drain it again. Well, MAAYBE it’s a little
> better.  I went home and my head exploded.  Called my doctors and the
> endodontist. Everyone told me to go to the ER.  And that’s where I realized
> one could easily go out of ones’ mind if put through enough pain for long
> enough.
>
>         It’s Sunday and I guess I should be happy birthdaying.  But it
> ain’t in me.  I haven’t eaten in three days and can’t fathom food. I think
> I caught up on some of the lost sleep last night.  But I’m in another
> world.  At least I’m not having to take awful pain meds right now.  I’m
> just watching the slow descent of the drainage pool at my left jawline.  I
> have JOWLS.  No, I have JOWL.  The people in the waiting room at the ER
> were so wonderful.  I don’t mean the doctors or nurses. I mean the other
> patients or those waiting for patients who’d been taken in.  I didn’t
> really see any of their faces because I was doubled over moaning.  A nurse
> had come out to comfort me by saying, "It’s just one of those nights. Some
> people have been waiting here for three hours. Just be patient." That
> didn’t help. I realized that in three hours, if it kept up, I would be: 1)
> dead  2) 5250  3) guilty of murder.   I looked at the nurse and said, "I
> don’t think I can make it."  They took me in shortly after that. I remember
> seeing a chair they wanted me to sit in. It had wheels.  I couldn’t make it
> to the chair.  It was anonymous people in the waiting room that swooped me
> up and supported me to get me into the chair. I think I must have burbled
> thank you as they wheeled me away.
>
>         Thank God for IV pain meds.  Isn’t it dangerous not to feel
> something that your body is telling you is deadly?  Nevertheless, the CT
> scan of my head showed the infection hadn’t spread to the bloodstream but
> was confined to …….. my head.  Poor Meyshe was so worried about me.  All
> that time, I kept thinking about how I’d left my 98 year old mother and my
> 31 year old autistic son at home without me caring for them while I went
> off to take care of myself. Who would take care of them if something bad
> happened? I mean to them.
>
>         Saturday morning I got home at 3:30 am and tried to get into bed.
> Not as easy as one would think. I was too muddled to arrange the sheets and
> blankets. I kept being afraid I was going to die during the night.
> Irrational, but perhaps useful in some atavistic way.  Don’t the lions come
> when you’re weakest? Or some other tribe with their clubs and teeth.  When
> I came out of my room at 9:00 or so, I called for Meyshe, just to show him
> I was back and still functioning as mom (little did he know).  He sounded
> rapturous.  "You’re home?!"       "YOU’RE HOME!!!!"  He rushed out of his
> room and hugged me — maybe too hard — but what the fuck.  How could any
> person on earth be so glad to see me?  It was very touching. It’s actually
> making me cry.  But then, I’m pretty emotional right about now.
>
>         I did have the energy to make menudo.  Tripe soup sounded like the
> very thing.  I hope I can eat it.
>
>
>
> I hope after reading this that you all feel specially lucky.  Isn’t it
> true that the worst of luck, the most wretched of daily journeys makes a
> terrific story later?  You just have to pay attention.  The thrills and
> reason for living are all around you and continue to startle in strange and
> beautiful ways.  This one was in the "strange" category.
>
>
> Love,
>
> Tobie
> Still alive at 71
>
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>
> "I'm Jewish.  I have OCD; and I'm not afraid to use it."    THS
>
>
> Tobie Shapiro
> mailto:tobie at shpilchas.net <mailto:tobie at shpilchas.net>
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