The other side of the fence (part 2), a bit of grief and the endurance

Last Wednesday was the addendum, so to speak, for the implant I had placed back in August. Things up to that point were going really well; a follow up thrown in in October showed that everything was healing nicely. What was done last Wednesday was the attachment of what is called a "healing cap." Basically it's the dummy piece that will eventually be the attachment to where the permanent crown is going to go. It goes in place until the new crown is finished, which SHOULD be 2-3 weeks....after next Wednesday which is when the impression will be completed. The impression is a mold of my teeth/jaw so that the crown lab will have something good to go off of to make the permanent toofer. So last Wednesday, the cap went on and all was well. Up until early Saturday morning...

...woke up at 2AM. Well, my cats woke me up at 2AM because as usual they were hungry. They were nice enough to at least let me sleep until 2; normally Bear (my bigger of the two) tries to wake me up at 11:30, midnight, so on. So I woke up to feed them and noticed where the cap was hurt. Not just hurt a little, it really hurt. After I fed them I took some Tylenol and went back to bed, hoping the pain would be gone by the time I woke up. It wasn't, so I called the office and they wanted me to come in. X ray looked fine, sutures looked fine, cap looked fine, nothing looked scary or infected. Washed it out, gave me some prescription strength ibuprofen, called my surgeon. Surgeon wanted to see me on Wednesday, sent me on my way. Dealt with the pain as best as I could up until yesterday...

Yesterday arrived and to be honest I wasn't expecting much of anything to come of this. For the lack of sounding like a downer, I was expecting history to repeat itself in the sense of "well, we know you have this pain but we don't know what's causing it." Looks at the x-rays from Saturday, doesn't see anything, takes the sutures out, doesn't see anything. Takes the healing cap out and....sure enough, there was something there. Some material from the insertion had gotten stuck in it and in the space in my mouth where it was screwed on to. Gnarly, right? Let me tell you it coming out....quite possibly the most painful experience of my entire life. I've never had children yet so I don't know what that feels like. EMG's are pretty painful. Rolling my ankle was pretty painful. An infected root canal was pretty painful too. Not even a comparison. And the new cap going in....I can't even describe how painful it was. My eyes are watering as I write this, because I'm remembering that pain. And I can only hope and pray I never experience it again. Yesterday was sort of bad, but by the end of the day things started to settle a bit. Today, it's settling a little more. I just have to be careful with what I eat (AKA frosted mini wheats were probably not the best choice for breakfast this morning). Hopefully things will only continue to progress by the time next Wednesday rolls around.

This afternoon though came a different set of news. Our beloved family dog, Nala, crossed over into the Rainbow Bridge today. She was 12 years old. During my last visit home, her age was quite evident. She had gone blind in one eye, she hardly moved and her gait had significantly slowed. She also had a skin condition that caused her to itch, and one night when I was home she was excessively scratching. I didn't know what to do so I went out to comfort her, whispering to her "one day, this will all be over." I had a feeling that this past Christmas was going to be our last one with her. I'm heartbroken that she is no longer with us, but I'm relieved that her suffering has come to an end. I'll surely miss her tail thumping against the living room coffee table, her howling to Curly from the Three Stooges and the JG Wentworth commercials and her serenading us whenever we returned from leaving the house for the day. We had her from the time she was 6 weeks old, my senior year of high school which was in 2008. I remember holding her in my hand, accidentally peeing on my sister because she just couldn't quite make it outside to potty in time. I remember her pouncing on her toys and wrestling with our other dog Raven when she was still living. Those are the times I'll remember most.

I've found that after an emotional 2 days I'm quite worn out. Physically, that is. That, coupled with still healing from last week, I'm just very tired. I even slept in later than I usually do on my days off and still have felt fatigued most of the day. The news of Nala though I was not expecting. Being in so much pain yesterday I was not expecting. If I could go to bed right now I probably would. I guess this is normal. It feels normal, but all I do know is I'm looking very much forward to brighter days. And they have been coming; the pain is decreasing and Nala's pain has ended. The picture below is of Nala that my sister took. It's one of my favorites; she was about 2 years old at the time it was taken. I know she's in a better place. The house will sure be quieter though without her.


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