Swollen

Well, um, yeah, this weekend was both good and bad. The biggest issue is that on Saturday afternoon/night my face started swelling up. Yup, my jaw line on the right side of my face was all puffy and hurt. I have a tooth that I’ve known was bad for some time, but now it decided to manifest itself in a big old swell. I was dreading this day. This meant that yesterday I was completely swollen, completely tired and defeated and I just lied on the couch the entire day. I’m not going to lie, it hurt. Hurt more than I care to admit. Plus I look like a chipmunk or rather I told Chris I feel like Buzz Light year because I have a totally box-y face.

I don’t have dental insurance. It’s one of those things when you make such a limited salary that you have to give up. It’s our damned health care system at its best. Anyhow, I know its stupid and I’m going to get some, but getting some means having a 6 month waiting period for any major services. I don’t think this can wait 6 months. Regardless, having the insurance and having it in place to be preventative in all future services is a good thing, actually a horrible oversight on my part as my face is now testament to that.

Anyhow, I cried yesterday. It hurt. I called my mom who is a dental assistant and ended up at her office at 7:30 AM this morning. The doctor took x-rays and looked and it and basically I can’t even have the 2 teeth removed because they are all deeply rooted, etc, and I’d have to go to an oral surgeon which is more money. He can do root canal therapy and crowns, and the estimate is $4,676.00 Yup. Like I have that kind of money. I understand it needs to be done. Believe me, my face knows it. I did get a prescription for penicillin to take the swelling away. I immediately ran and got that filled and took my first course of it. It’s not fun having a swollen face. At least the pain has subsided. It’s just swollen and uncomfortable. I’m in the middle of trying to determine what I’m going to do. I don’t think this is going to wait 6 months. I also know that I don’t have $4,700 to pay. I don’t even have a credit card. I might be able to work out making a larger payment and then monthly payments but even so it seems like a lot of money.

I called Chris and I cried. I make $20,000 a year and can’t afford dental insurance and then my face swells up and I’m in pain and now you tell me it’s going to cost me $4,700 to fix it? Sure shit I want it fixed. I’ve known for a long time that it wasn’t right but I also knew this is what was going to happen. I just cried. I want to make things right. I want to be preventative in the future because I don’t want this to happen again. This is another repercussion of poor choices earlier in my life coming back to bite me in the ass. I am going to get insurance, wait the 6 months and then get any other future problems taken care of so that they don’t escalate into root canals and crowns. But that doesn’t help me much now with the giant problems I have.

And what happens if I can’t afford the $4,700, which I really can’t? I’m supposed to keep badly infected teeth in my mouth untreated so that I can keep swelling up and have it affect my overall health? That is what is happening. It is slowly sucking the life out of the rest of me and the rest of my general health. I just don’t know. Seriously, don’t know what I’m going to do.

The food/and or exercise this weekend was not that great. Shocking. I did run on Friday night which was good. Took off Saturday as I ran around and did some errands and then my aforementioned face swelling occurred and then despite it I went to the Halloween party at my cousins on Saturday night. DRUNKEN times, and yeah, I did get drunk. Was out until about 1 AM and then came home, puked up later in the night and then iced my face over and over. I had intended to run yesterday; all I could do was lye on the couch and force myself to get up to pee. That was exercise enough for me. Seriously.

Now I’m heart broken and defeated and not sure what I’m going to do, staring at myself in a mirror with a swollen ass face. No fun. Hoping the penicillin kicks in, which it will I know. I just want to feel better because this Saturday I’m going to Vegas. In 6 days I’m getting on a plane and yeah, I need to be excited about that. Right now I don’t have the desire or energy to be excited about anything. I’m just sad about my face situation. I know I will snap out of it. Overall I’m not a depressed person; I’m a happy person and want to snap back. I just need to figure out how to deal with this first.