A week of freedom!

It's always nice to finish work and turn off the computer.  It's something that I only do a couple of times a year as I need access to my desktop from home in case things go wrong.  But, when I am leaving for the week I prefer not to have the temptation of being able to access the office from home so I turn everything off.

It's been a very busy week making sure that there has been enough of a handover for my projects, and to try and ensure that things will go smoothly over the next week.

And I did something really daft :) There is a project that is supposed to go live in a couple of weeks.  However, it would be nice for the business if it was live earlier than that.  So...  I offered to do what I could to get it live early so that the business unit who wanted the project could benefit.

So my team has been working extremely hard, and I have been extremely stressed (and working too many hours when I should have been cleaning up the spare room for my parents!).  And...  We managed it - with a little luck it will be live a week early and just at the time when they need it.  I hope they appreciate the effort that went into getting it there a week early!

After I left the office I had a few appointments before shopping for the weekend.

First was with my optometrist, it's been 3 years since I last had my eyes checked (something I only realised when I had my sunglasses adjusted and asked them how long ago it was).  So they checked for glaucoma (no problems there) and did an automated check of my eyes.  +0.25 in one eye and 0.00 in the other.

I then had a chat with the guy doing the real exam about how I wear my glasses (when tired, stressed or with a headache) and he check the eyes closer.

And told me to leave the glasses alone in future as whatever there was with my eyes 10 years ago when I got my perscription is not there now.  And wearing them could actually cause me more problems by making my eyes lazy.  So now I have to try for a few months and see how it goes.  If I am getting regular headaches then I have to go back and have them double checked (no doubt with the droplets that relax the eye), otherwise I am fine for another 2 years.

Then I had my last session of laser for the summer.  When I started at the beginning of the year I brought a course of 6 sessions (I meant I had one session free) and this was the last one.  They have suggested that a break over the sunniest months is a good idea, and to be honest with what is left I am thinking of switching to electrolysis (which reading comments along the lines of 'I thought laser hurt until I started electolosys' recently on a few blogs isn't filling me with joy.  The results, sure, the idea of something that hurts more than the laser did today...  Not so much.

And, wow!, did it hurt today.  I had lots of one 2 ones, that were out in the open and I think I may have spent too much time in the sun.  And I forgot the paracetamol that I took to reduce the pain last time last time...  I had tears in my eyes before she started on the upper lip.

But looking in the mirror it's worth it!

Right, time to prepare for a long weekend...  Cleaning, introducing Stacy to my sister in law tomorrow evening and then fetching my parents from the air port.

I'll apologise in advance for my lack of on-line presence next week.  I don't know how often I'll have time to read...

Stace

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

4 days, 5 hours sleep! Or: A Temp Remedy for the GD

Or at least that is what it is starting feel like at the moment. I must have woken up in excuciating pain every 20 mins last night. It got that bad I moved to the spare room so that Mrs Stace could get some sleep as she had to get up for work.

Paracetammol isn't touching it anymore. The doctor has given me a different type of painkiller to gargle with alongside the paracetamol (how do you spell that?) to see if it helps. She doesn't want to do penecilin yet (fine with me if I can avoid it). So far today it's *better* but not good...

And having the pain for the last 4 days has definately blunted the GD in the short term. I am too focused on my tonsils. Not something I would reccomend though :)

Oddest thing... My doctor was ill so I had a replacement. Another person that now knows who I am. It was strange reading the last conversation (*that* conversation) I had with my doctor on the computer screen.

Update: I've just noticed that this is my 41st posting. I never thought I'd make it this far when I started.