What It's Like In Dental Hell

I've been MIA for a long time. A month and a half to be exact. Please forgive me, I've been in dental hell. You can't convince me it's not a place..cause I've been there.

In the last month, I've had five procedures done. Before you give me grief about flossing and taking care of my teeth, let me assure you that I do. Obsessively. Apparently growing up poor meant that the dental care I did get was shoddy..at best. It was like Satan himself went to drill a little bit and unearthed a tidal wave of decay and pain under those flimsy fillings.

I wont bore you with the details of what I had done to my teeth. I will instead, bore you with the details of what I did to pass the time while I was out of commission. Besides cry....a lot.

1. I ate an abundance of mushy food. Got any good variations on the old mashed potato recipes? I do. About five hundred of them. If you ever have a mashed potato party, I'm the girl to call.

2. I read at least ten books, which would have been OK..except that one of them was The Fault in Our Stars. I cried so hard that I nearly hyperventilated. I know, I sure know how to have a good time! Kendrick found me in the bathtub in the fetal position with snot running down my face. I assured him I was just having an emotional meltdown and to leave me in my misery.

3. Laid awake in bed wondering if I would ever sleep for more than three hours at a clip. My life turned into a series of naps. I literally lost a month of my life..gone..poof.. sayonara.

4. I took enough ibuprofen to make my liver start to pack it's bloody belongings and threaten to leave my body. If you know me, you know that I NEVER take that stuff. This past month I was taking enough to become a spokeswoman for Motrin. We will just skim over the details of what it did to my digestive system. Let's just say that I could have also been a spokeswoman for Charmin.

5. I contemplated sneaking into the garage and finding pliers to yank my teeth out. I wish I was kidding. Some insane part of my brain was reasoning that it would be a split second of pain and then it would be over. Thankfully, logic reigned and my teeth are still intact.

6. I stayed in pajamas and only got dressed to go to the dentist. More people saw me without a bra than I'd like to admit. If you made the mistake of coming to my house in the last month, I'm sorry for the emotional trauma I've caused you. I owe you. My boobs owe you.

7. I decided to try a heftier pain killer. Aka, I got ridiculously stoned. It didn't help with the pain but it made me itch like I was a crackhead on a binge. That's a joy. Note to self, don't take those pills again unless I'm sitting in an oatmeal bath and loaded up on benadryl.

8. I tried every type of topical oral pain reliever that was ever made. Why? Because my husband was so worried about me that he made it a priority to go to every single drug store in a hundred mile radius to find something 'better'. It usually just resulted in me slurring my words and drooling..which then made him worry I was having a stroke.

9. I ignored a lot of phone calls. People began to worry that I had died and no one had told them. I got text messages asking where I was, was I OK, did I fall off the face of the earth? Most of the time I didn't respond. I felt like I was playing a role in a mystery. It was kind of a precursor to seeing who would show up at my funeral...without the actual dying part.

10. I allowed my family to eat fast food. It was like a dream come true for them. To be fair, I sat glowering at them like I was a jealous girlfriend. The thought of standing at the stove to cook was enough to make me weak in the knees..so they got lots of crap food, and I got to lay in bed without worrying that they were starving to death.

Fingers crossed, today was hopefully the last of the big procedures. Now I just need to heal and the nerves in my teeth (and my head) need to calm the hell down so I can drink a glass of cold water without feeling like lightening is coming out of nowhere and striking me in the face, like God himself has a personal vendetta against me and is smoting me with pain that made me wish I was just gonna give birth again.