A little bit of pain...

Well it seems I owe my nephew an applogy...  Yesterday at work I called my dentist to make an emergency appointment for Monday afternoon.  I picked Monday as it wasn't that bad that I needed immediate attention, but at the same point it needed looking at.

Throughtout the day it was getting worse, and I was really starting to lose concentration and getting exhausted from the constant pain when I moved my head, swallowed or just the constant dull, throbbing pain that had moved to a tooth where I had a filling last year.

At about two I had had enough, I popped some paracetamol and called the dentist a second time to get an appointment as soon as possible.  Unfortunately my dentist does not work on a Friday afternoon, but had a colleague that had some time if I could get there quickly.  I made the appointment, let my boss know that I was leaving and ran to try and make the next intercity train back home (running with a throbbing tooth is really no fun thing!)

I managed to just make the train, and called Mrs Stace (who was thankfully working from home yesterday).  I had an issue in getting to the dentist quickly.  I work 30 miles from home as the crow flies and as Mrs Stace was at home she had the car so that she could do the weekly shop instead of me.  This meant I had to use public transport to get home.  Now, the Dutch public transport system is fantastic - but even so it means that you are reliant on their timetable - and it adds a lot of time to your journey.  So...  I called Mrs Stace and asked her to pick me up from Schiphol Airport (the last stop of the Intercity) and take me to the dentist (a further 20 miles from home) in order to get there in the time agreed with the dentist.

She picked me up and we made it in plenty of time.  Actually we made in in enough time to read through 'The Gruffalo' in the waiting room.  We brought this for our neice and nephew on our last trip to the UK and wanted to know how it was translated to Dutch (we read the English version to our neice and nephew - they are not going to have a language problem when it comes to their English lessons at school I think...  My neice is only 5 and can already count to 10 in English - actually she has been doing it for a year or more, and is constantly asking for translations from Dutch to English from Mrs Stace and myself)

In the dentist chair I started to panic (I am not a good patient! I am terrified), and had to work hard to calm down.  She prodded and poked and found the problem.  Seems I had chipped some of the filling somehow and the nerve was exposed, and very sensitive. A quick x-ray later and she had the confirmation that the filling needed to be removed and replaced.  She offered a temporary solution of using a liquid to close off the nerve for the coming months - but as it would just be delaying the inivetable I decided to have it replaced whilst I was there and already in a panic.

I won't go into detail of the procedure, but she was fantastic at her job.  She did everything she could to keep me calm and talked me though the entire procedure and checked with me every step of the way to make sure that I was not going into too much of a panic.  Stopping and helping me relax at the most painful points.

Last night I was exhausted from the day - why is it a simple tooth ache can take it out of you so much?  We went to bed early (for a Friday) and I was asleep almost as soon we as turned the lights out.

On a different note...  I do appriciate that the issues of my day are insignificant compared to what has happened in Japan in the last 24 hours or so.  The images shown were too horrifying for words - the sheer power of nature is...  Well it's indescribable.  My heart goes out to those affected.

Stace