A long day

 Today was the filling and the scan for the new mouthguard.

The appointment was at 4. I didn't love that but the way my schedule is going it was the only time. I figured I'd have a wait - I got there about 15 minutes early (there's road construction on the way, and there's never a way of knowing how bad it will be). They took me back right away but then I sat in the chair in the "opertory" for close to 20 minutes. (the work more extensive than checkups is done in individual rooms, perhaps for privacy, perhaps because some of us do squeal when we're getting the injections). 

This was the first dental work beyond checkups I'd had done in some 10 years, so I was apprehensive. Also the LAST stuff I had done were crown preps, which are worse (especially as they were on the top of my mouth - if you've had a crown prep done on an upper rear molar, you know how they have to site the injections and it's NOT fun). I was really anxious beforehand.

I was offered laughing gas, but I suspect that would make it WORSE for me, and also, I had no one to drive me home. So I toughed it out through the unpleasant novacaine injection (the worst part). The dentist did offer to try without novacaine but I said no - I didn't want him to have to stop if I had pain, and I didn't want to risk flinching while the drill was in my mouth.

(My mouth JUST finally - at just past 9 pm - totally unfroze. And I'm gonna be sore tomorrow, but I think that's more holding my mouth open for the scanning for the night guard)

The cavities themselves were small; at least he didn't have to drill for long. And the bonding agent is unpleasant; it has a strong solvent odor that makes me gag a little. But finally it was done. 

And then the scanning for the mouthguard. I thought it would be easy, like getting one of those whole-head x-rays. But instead, there's a large wand - basically a small digital scanner on a handle - they have to run over all the surfaces of your teeth. I think that's why I hurt now - I have a small jaw and it's hard to have large instruments in my mouth. And the tech had to scan a couple times because my mouth waters and you need dry teeth for the scan - she had to keep doing the "blow air on and wipe down with dry gauze" but finally got a good scan between the several tries.

I will say the last time it was worse - trays of sticky goop like denture paste that they jammed onto my teeth and made me gag, especially the impressions of the top teeth. But this wasn't as easy as I imagined it.

The bad news is I have to wait until July to pick it up; that was the first "non cancellation" appointment they had (but they said they'd call me if an earlier one came open.

I didn't do a lot else today. I had to eat dinner very slowly - I had a bean patty I made the other night but I had to mash it up small to eat it. I did grab the "wild plants" I was doing for lab tomorrow - some Erigeron annus out of my yard, and some blackberry and branches off the yaupon holly. And going back to campus, I took my long pole pruner because I'd seen mistletoe on one of the post oaks and thought maybe I could grab a piece (these all being plants we'd talked about in class in the past 2 weeks). 

It was hard to get - I had to make the pole as long as I could, and holding my arms over my head makes me dizzy at the best of times. But I succeeded even if I still had novacaine mouth:

I don't even know how much this matters but I feel pushed to do that sort of thing.