I Did It
I had a crown that had a hole in it and I was NOT looking forward to replacing it. At all. But I went into the dentist this morning and they took off the old crown. There was a small cavity underneath it, which they quickly removed. They built it all up again, and then took an impression of both the inside and the outside, and then made me a temporary crown and put it on.
It hurt doing it, for all the doctor did a great job of applying the novocaine, to the point where I couldn't feel my tongue or that side of my mouth; but now it hurts a lot less than I thought it would. They adjusted everything beautifully, and for all that they tore up my gums pretty good getting it in and clearing out all the old stuff, the tooth itself doesn't hurt as much as it used to or nearly as much as it did when the old, badly made crown was put in place. I suspect that the cavity was starting to affect it a little, and having it covered up well, now, makes it happier.
... that really reassured me. Like the dentist checking my bite when he built up the stub, several times during the process, to make sure that the new crown wouldn't impact my upper teeth to the point where they'd have to put another hole into it to make my bite work.
The assistant took a second impression when the first one wasn't good enough for her. She didn't let it slide. Both the dentist and the assistant were utterly assured about what had to happen, when it had to happen and what had to be done in every instance. This wasn't true of the dentist that made the faulty crown. He kind of fumbled through it, so I was really subtly reassured on every level by how competent they were. It also didn't hurt that they charged me nearly 450 dollars less than their initial estimate, because the work they had to do wasn't quite as extensive as the worst case scenario.
That was a very nice surprise.
But the whole process was pretty traumatic in some ways, and I just made my way home and slept for a little, and then distracted myself with TF2 and some games as my mental processes weren't online for anything more extensive.
I usually start out badly, cold and unable to hit anything, and then I gradually get better, and then I usually have a hot streak where I do really well for a while. Today, I decided to just start out trying to aim on one of the various target maps. There's a new map called Airway, that's solely for target practice, and I spent some time there before hopping onto a payload where I got dominated right and left. But I ended up being on a couple of winning teams, and managed to both push the cart through bottlenecks and to stop the cart at one of the bottlenecks by being a demoman instead of my usual pyro/heavy/engie mixup.
I really do love the Scottish Resistance, the ability to set charges and blow them only when I aim at them is something I love. It takes more thinking to set up, but it throws so many sticky bombs, and they blow when I want them to, which I love.
Then I went onto a Harvest king of the hill map that I just loved. It was intensely fought, and the people on it were all trying so hard on both sides. I really do love king of the hill more than the others, and I still don't know why. But it was just a lot of fun, I just ran around as my pyro the whole time, and I ended up on the MVP list at the end of a game we won. That was good enough for me. *laughs* I should take a screenshot of my pyro with his bandana and Cremator's Conscience 'good' and 'bad' pyros on his chest. I thought I'd gotten one good run as a replay, but I'd hit the button too late and only got the next life, which was not nearly so spectacular.
I'm still learning how to do movies, both as replays of game play and in Source Filmmaker. There's a very nice set of tutorials on youtube for the free software, and it's been very enlightening. I've been working through them steadily, about one a day. I also found a gorgeous Japanese Temple map that was made by someone for fun, and it makes me think about the possibilities.
John came home and I was still numb, so I just made myself some soup and fried a few buns from last night. I'd made pork and vegetable bao last night, and the leftover yeast dough went into soft buns that are just wonderful fried crisp on each side. I had a little trouble eating them with my numb mouth, but it wasn't that painful, so I asked John to go ahead and make the dinner of steak, potatoes, and salad he was willing to make, and I ended up being able to eat a little of everything. So I'm recovering pretty well.
It hurt doing it, for all the doctor did a great job of applying the novocaine, to the point where I couldn't feel my tongue or that side of my mouth; but now it hurts a lot less than I thought it would. They adjusted everything beautifully, and for all that they tore up my gums pretty good getting it in and clearing out all the old stuff, the tooth itself doesn't hurt as much as it used to or nearly as much as it did when the old, badly made crown was put in place. I suspect that the cavity was starting to affect it a little, and having it covered up well, now, makes it happier.
... that really reassured me. Like the dentist checking my bite when he built up the stub, several times during the process, to make sure that the new crown wouldn't impact my upper teeth to the point where they'd have to put another hole into it to make my bite work.
The assistant took a second impression when the first one wasn't good enough for her. She didn't let it slide. Both the dentist and the assistant were utterly assured about what had to happen, when it had to happen and what had to be done in every instance. This wasn't true of the dentist that made the faulty crown. He kind of fumbled through it, so I was really subtly reassured on every level by how competent they were. It also didn't hurt that they charged me nearly 450 dollars less than their initial estimate, because the work they had to do wasn't quite as extensive as the worst case scenario.
That was a very nice surprise.
But the whole process was pretty traumatic in some ways, and I just made my way home and slept for a little, and then distracted myself with TF2 and some games as my mental processes weren't online for anything more extensive.
I usually start out badly, cold and unable to hit anything, and then I gradually get better, and then I usually have a hot streak where I do really well for a while. Today, I decided to just start out trying to aim on one of the various target maps. There's a new map called Airway, that's solely for target practice, and I spent some time there before hopping onto a payload where I got dominated right and left. But I ended up being on a couple of winning teams, and managed to both push the cart through bottlenecks and to stop the cart at one of the bottlenecks by being a demoman instead of my usual pyro/heavy/engie mixup.
I really do love the Scottish Resistance, the ability to set charges and blow them only when I aim at them is something I love. It takes more thinking to set up, but it throws so many sticky bombs, and they blow when I want them to, which I love.
Then I went onto a Harvest king of the hill map that I just loved. It was intensely fought, and the people on it were all trying so hard on both sides. I really do love king of the hill more than the others, and I still don't know why. But it was just a lot of fun, I just ran around as my pyro the whole time, and I ended up on the MVP list at the end of a game we won. That was good enough for me. *laughs* I should take a screenshot of my pyro with his bandana and Cremator's Conscience 'good' and 'bad' pyros on his chest. I thought I'd gotten one good run as a replay, but I'd hit the button too late and only got the next life, which was not nearly so spectacular.
I'm still learning how to do movies, both as replays of game play and in Source Filmmaker. There's a very nice set of tutorials on youtube for the free software, and it's been very enlightening. I've been working through them steadily, about one a day. I also found a gorgeous Japanese Temple map that was made by someone for fun, and it makes me think about the possibilities.
John came home and I was still numb, so I just made myself some soup and fried a few buns from last night. I'd made pork and vegetable bao last night, and the leftover yeast dough went into soft buns that are just wonderful fried crisp on each side. I had a little trouble eating them with my numb mouth, but it wasn't that painful, so I asked John to go ahead and make the dinner of steak, potatoes, and salad he was willing to make, and I ended up being able to eat a little of everything. So I'm recovering pretty well.