Caterwauling

Wednesdays aren’t necessarily my favorite day at Ye Humble Employment Establishment. They’re not bad, but if I have to choose which day never goes according to plan, this has got to be it.

I’ve oft joked that I’d rather have a root canal than deal with my Wednesdays. And today, after visiting my new dentist and him promptly sending me across town with an X-ray and a referral to visit ANOTHER dentist, well, I got my wish — A FUCKING ROOT CANAL!!!

My second dentist (who was HAWTTT!!!!) had said how most people would rather be at work than seeing him. I said nope, not me — I’ve always posited that I’d rather be root-canalled than do my Wednesday work, and it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. And guess what? The dental work HURT LESS! HAH!

Of course, now trying to catch up on my work after my oral adventure is a pain in the ass, but trust me, I’ve had worse days!

(And no, D., this dentist wouldn’t let me be on top. Although visions of it kept me from screaming in my not-altogether-numbed state!)

You know you work with truly selfless, wonderful men when you declare that you are looking for something to hang yourself with and, without thinking, one goes to take off his tie to hand it to you. (To his credit, he realized after the fact what my intentions were and refused to help. Damn!) But doesn’t that say to you that your boys will do anything to help you, if only you just ask?

In other news, I have a dentist’s appointment today. Finally! I had written to cancel the appointment that the 1-800-Dentist people had set up, given that it wasn’t till the end of the week. Stupid me, I had ASSUMED the hotline people had conveyed to them that I was in so much pain, I could barely speak. Hah. Turns out, the original dentist contacted me back to say that they were very sorry to learn that I was in pain — they would NEVER have made me wait if they had known that. Further, they extended an invitation to get my ass over there ASAP for immediate treatment.

Note to the wise: Don’t call a hotline under the auspices of them actually helping you. I’d gone on the 1-800-Dentist Web site, and it had said if this is an emergency, call this number. But all they did was leave a fucking message somewhere for me and clearly didn’t convey the reason WHY I was looking for a dentist on that particular Sunday. Sheesh. And here I was thinking what an asshole the dentist must be to treat an emergency so carelessly. I’d been so pissed off that I just started calling all my colleagues’ dentists till I found the one with the closest appointment time. Which I could/should have just done in the first place! Gah!

So I finally got to plowing through some of the eleventy billion blog entries I missed in my nearly two-month absence from my routine, and one day I might actually answer all the kind e-mails that so many of you floated my way during my time of loss. I’ve read them all; I just don’t know what to say other than thank you for being here for me.

I have one e-mail I need to answer, one from the boy I met the day I came back from San Francisco in October and haven’t seen since. He’s left the door open for me, when I’m ready to actually have a conversation. I’m just so afraid I might never be able to have two calm, non-drama-filled moments to rub together again.

I have loads of photos to upload from my stay in Vegas, but Mom had asked me to take photos of my grandfather at his viewing. Meaning, I can’t upload without seeing them, so I don’t touch that camera anymore. I don’t want to see him like that, although him sort-of at peace beats the torture I remember the hospital leaving him in.

From my November trip to Las Vegas, I’d brought home a special souvenir for my grandfather. But I never got to give it to him. Mom and I were actually collecting all kind of things for him, to make the house cozy and cute for his arrival back home. And now, there’s not even a house anymore — that goes away within mere weeks.

I’m trying to figure out how to move without breaking my lease. I am trying to find out if my building has any openings, as I do not want to step outside of the city (i.e., back to Virginia or, god forbid, Maryland), nor do I want to incur any additional moving fees (i.e., lease-breaking issues). I’m exhausted just thinking about the drama to come!

I made three dentists’ appointments for this week. I canceled the one where the people seemed most competent/friendly, not to mention they asked the right questions and were so very helpful. It turned out that they weren’t in my dental plan’s network, so I went with one that the worthless-in-an-emergency 1-800-Dentist found for me. I didn’t have a great feeling about it, but seriously, hitting myself in the jaw with a sledgehammer at this point would be a viable alternative to the current pain. (Hitting someone else would feel better, however, as long as I get to pick the victim!)

I realized, though, in canceling what I viewed as the better care, I am just like my grandfather. I remember him since the time I was young coming home from hospital and/or doctor’s visits to the fuckheads at the VA Hospital, chagrined and disappointed and downright disgusted by the lack of care and the fact that his issues always went unaddressed.

I had asked him many times why he went there when they didn’t treat him well. “It’s free, Punkin’,” he would say to me. He didn’t want to put the family in debt over getting “real” medical care, so he took their shoddy excuse of care without a word of complaint.

So when I feel guilt (and believe me I do) that we didn’t rescue him from the VA before they killed him, I have to remind myself that a lifetime of poor care culminated the only way it could, I guess. They fucked him up for life throughout the past half-century, they left every issue untreated and they tortured him till he finally couldn’t take it anymore.

I did end up making myself an appointment with a provider I felt good about AND who takes my insurance, so I’m at least moving in the right direction. I was actually sitting in a meeting today and absolutely fell apart with pain — I couldn’t even continue it. I tried to pop some pills but my mouth hurt too much for me to even swallow — I ended up spewing water everywhere.

(Which, BTW, a bottle filled with ice-cold water? Brilliant, I say. I have had to explain to way too many people why I have an Aquafina bottle attached to my neck, but hell, the curious stares are a small price to pay for a moment of numbness.)

I’m hoping they can just yank out my damn wisdom teeth while I’m there. I remember the last time I had wisdom teeth removed (on the other side of my mouth). The dentist literally had to crawl up on top of me and shove them out of my head.

There I was, lying upside-down with a military man pinning me down and shoving instruments into my mouth — sounds a lot like one of my better dates in recent memory. I wonder if this new one can do extractions with ME on top for a change?!?!

I had gone into my office yesterday under the auspices of, oh, catching up from being gone for so long, but all I ended up doing was cleaning a little bit. The office had gone unused so it was dusty and dust + Goddess does not a happy nose make.

So anyway, I came in this morning to find, on my clean little glass table, a Christmas tree!

My comrade/colleague/buddy had brought it in and plugged it into the extension cord I happened to have under it — I knew exactly who was responsible for it and went and hugged him immediately. He said his wife had given it to him for me — they’d been so sad to hear me declare that I was having no Christmas and they said everybody deserves a Christmas.

Today was the first time my tears flowed freely, but were full of joy instead of sadness.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. …

I’m so pleased to report that I bear resemblance to a “South Park” character, “Mr. Mackey.” Seems that not only is the right side of my head swollen with my famous eye-twitching and -watering self, but the left side is swollen due to a tooth infection. Awesome.

I called 1-800-Dentist so they could, say, find me a dentist who could handle an emergency (given that I was up all night with the ache and after I mixed Nyquil, Vicodin, Tylenol PM and ibuprofen I finally got to sleep, only for the asshole upstairs to start pounding at some ungodly hour. Gah), only to get nowhere. They e-mailed a customer satisfaction survey. I deleted it.

I got the name of nobody who can help me (on a Sunday of course), so I said fine, I’ll live another night — give me someone who can see me Monday. They just need to take my insurance and be on the same street I work on. (It’s not hard — the street spans six communities and has a bajillion medical practices on it.) Well, they found me someone clear on the other side of town who doesn’t open till noon.

Um, the hell?

So I said fine, get me someone near my house. Which, they did, I’ll give them that. They don’t open till 9 a.m., but whatever — it’s a start.

Now, this doesn’t mean I have an appointment or anything — I’m just told to expect a courtesy call from them and if I don’t get it to call them myself.

Um, what part of emergency have we addressed here?

So I went into my insurance provider’s Web site, and ran the dental office’s information. No luck, no coverage. You know, I’d said that if I could get quick service, I’d deal with the out-of-network shit. But I would have done better to hold a staple gun to my temple open up the farging Yellow Pages and take my chances … AND get someone on the street I requested.

I’d had great intentions on doing some work today, but with the amount of prescription drugs I have in my freezer that are now in my body, I’m afraid of what my articles would sound like. Lord knows it would make the dialogue to the aforementioned cartoon sound clean by comparison!