#19

After an entire year of fixing what the bad dentist did to my molar, I FINALLY have a nice, new crown on the tooth I have officially come to call #19. Funny thing is that they sent me home with my teeth molds and the old temporary crown. So, if anything happens to the one in my mouth, I'll bring all that mess back and they have to make me another one. Let's hope THAT doesn't happen. This was too much mulah to spend on one tooth.

Let's see what was done to my tooth over time:

• broken due to weakness from cavity and pressure from wisdom teeth. (December 2005)
• incompletely filled by 1st dentist (December 2005)
• left for a year to get worse (I didn't want to go back to him anyway... he was NOT a customer-satisfaction type of guy, so I was without a dentist for a whole year)
• new set of panoramic x-rays (January 2006)
• filled with medicated filling by new dentist (& permanent, by the way!) (January 2006)
• filled with normal filling to see if it could stay that way (February-ish 2006)
• root canal (6 months ago)
• drilled down to a nub and a temporary crown attached (6 weeks ago)
• permanent crown attached (today!)

I can't even think right now of how much this cost me... yikes.

Anyway, I also meant to say in my last post that I finally grew the required length of hair to donate to Locks of Love. So I took myself in all my red-headed, tangled glory and had it whacked two weekends before Christmas. I donated 10 inches of hair and had an additional 2-3 cut off for styling. My hair hasn't been this short since 6th grade!

I feel - SO - much better now. I was getting incredibly irritated with my long hair. For some reason, it was getting more and more unmanageable by the day. Plus, I really wanted a shorter style anyway, so having it get longer and longer was a pain. The ONLY thing that kept me from cutting it off six inches ago was the fact that I was donating it.

I actually ate normal food today as well. Since I've been sick, I couldn't bring myself to eat anything of substance. I think I got my nutrition from Nyquil and Sprite. I finally discovered the joy of Saltine Crackers and Popsicles the day before I tried to go back to work.

Oh yeah - in December, while I was on vacation in Pigeon Forge, TN, I dropped my iPod Mini into a bubbly jacuzzi tub and left it there, without knowledge, for about 20-30 minutes.

Needless to say, it's toast.

FYI: Electronics and vibrating water vessels do not mix.