Another Tale of Woe

I had no time to write yesterday.  When my mother got up, she was crazy with pain.  So she said.  At eight, she called the dentist's office.  They said she could come in at one, but she screamed that she was in pain, so they took her right away.  I didn't have time to finish my coffee.  

The dentist took her back for X-Rays.  Then they called me in.  He had the X-Rays up on a screen.  He said that she had an infection in her gums and pointed to a fistula.  Given that she had osteoporosis and was on Prolia, he didn't want to pull the tooth himself.  His office made an appointment with on oral surgeon that afternoon.  

I filled out the mountain of paperwork about my mother's health, and within the hour, she was in the dentist's chair.  When the doc came in, he looked at the X-Rays that had been sent over, asked my mother to open her mouth, looked around, then asked questions.  

"There is a lot of good news here," he said.  My mother had only been on the Prolia for five months, and he explained why that worked.  He could extract the tooth.  My mother kept yelling out that she was only there for her tooth.  She was hallucinating that we were in the same office where she got the Prolia injection that made her sick.  

"This is the same place that sent me to the hospital," she kept insisting.  

"No it isn't."

"Yes it is."

She couldn't hear what the doc was saying, but she picked up some words here and there.  

"You're going to give me an injection?" she barked.

He tried yelling to her to get her to understand.  

"I just want to take the antibiotics and get rid of the infection," she said.  

"We can't get rid of the infection without removing the tooth.  If we don't remove the tooth, the infection will come back."

We were lucky, I thought, in that they could take my mother on Wednesday afternoon.  Local anesthetic,  approximately thirty minutes.  My mother, however, was barking.  She didn't want to have the tooth removed.  

I could understand.  They probably won't be able to do an implant to replace it.  They would have to do a bone graft, and with her osteoporosis and the Prolia, the surgeon was skeptical that it would take.  The dentist that morning said he might be able to make a bridge with her incisor, but it would not be very strong.  It would only be cosmetic. 

After dinner, I put on a soccer match and fell asleep on the couch.  When I woke up, my mother came back into the room.  

"I've made up my mind," she said.  "I'm not going to have the tooth pulled.  I'm just going to take antibiotics and get rid of the infection."

She had been in a state of madness all day.  Much of it, she made no sense.  Now. . . I regret to say. . . it broke me.  I reacted badly.  My entire system was breaking down.  This life is killing me, and I don't think I'm being metaphorical.  I asked her where she was going to get the antibiotics.  

"The dentist," she said.  

"They aren't going to give them to you.  So what are you going to do, get them fron the street?"

O.K.  I said more than that, but I am not proud enough to put them here.  Leave it by saying the conversation took me deeper into the hole I've fallen.  I could feel myself spinning in the darkness.  

In the morning, she told me she thought she was dying.  She needed the dentist immediately.  After seeing two, she decided she had a better idea.  I wanted to give her the car keys and call an Uber.  

Here's a fun part of the day.  I can't back up a car for shit.  I hit everything, trash cans, mail boxes, trees, and yesterday at the dentist's office, I backed into a car.  Three people including the nurse from the dentist's office were standing outside and saw/heard me hit.  I got out expecting the worst, but neither car was damaged.  Still, I couldn't just leave.  The nurse went in to see whose car it was.  She was in a chair getting rinsed, but she would come out in a bit, the nurse said.  We waited.  

The woman came out, looked at the bumper, and said, "O.K."  

That, my friends, was the best part of my day.  

I need to have my Xterra towed into the repair shop today.  Tomorrow, I take my mother for an 11:30 appointment.  Those things will take up the few hours of free time I have in the day.  

So, in summary, that is why I didn't give you another fun tale of woe yesterday.  Things just keep getting better and better.  

But there are the photos, right?  I've gone back into the archives of images I've never shown.  Bike Week.  That was my one day out of town in the last two years.  What a day.  I must say, I was very productive.