Toothache of Death.

[rayinte]

When I was in my late teens, and my wisdom teeth started to make their presence felt, I was still under medical and dental coverage with the parents. I told them "Ow, wisdom teeth." They told me, essentially, "Ow, braces bills," as at the time both of my younger sisters were in braces.

An old phrase comes to mind; it goes something like "ounce of

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[pyropokedan]

There is much we have in common.

I recently lost my job at Hewlett Packard as a test operator for small format media (photo paper). I had saved up about 1200 dollars to survive and do some side projects before/while I looked for a job.

I started to work on my car with my cousin since we were both employed and I had some credit from my family I was taking advantage of. I learned a lot about my car and spent a lot of money on it. It was also a lot of work and a lot of time. I was planning to get a job right after I fixed it...

Anyways.

I was recently having dental pain, all 4 of my wisdom teeth had come in years prior and were impacted. Imagine my normal teeth being a straight line and the wisdom teeth at a 90 degrees against it. I'd have headaches/migraines occassionally from the pressure of the wisdom teeth against the other ones. It'd come and go and I'd take ibprofen to quell the pain. It worked normally, somtimes better than others.

It had became so bad about 2 months ago, it hurt to drink anything, eat anything. I was afraid to go to the dentist because I knew it would cost a lot of money. I decided to wait the pain out. I lost about 10 pounds within a week and a half. I tried everything to try to ease the pain. Drinking alcohol, taking ibprofen, using a codene based pain killer, vicodin. Nothing did the trick so I decided to ask to borrow money from my dad for my dental bills.

I had never been to a dentist before in my entire life. I knew I had cavaties along with my other problems. I decided to get everything done at once. My wisdom teeth cracked and damaged all of the neighboring teeth except 1. I had to have all 4 wisdom teeth pulled and 3 that had unrepairable damage caused by the wisdom teeth. It was a bit nerve wrecking but at least they were not frontal teeth and no one would notice them anyways.

After the teeth were removed I felt so much better. All of the pain was magically gone. I felt so good that night (and also a bit goofy from being knocked out), I went and saw indiana jones with gauze in my mouth. I can eat fine with the missing teeth, I can eat hot, and cold food again. After the dentist had allowed me to start eating solid foods (about 6 days after the surgery) I had a nice big chewy steak and I can now eat a big bowl full of grainy/oaty/crunchy cereal every morning.

The bill ended up costing 2,700 dollars. No insurance at all. I didn't have a job either. But in my mind it was money well spent because I feel so much better.

Then shortly after a month later my cat of 13 years got sick. I had to take her to an emergency vet and she had to stay over night two nights. She might have feline lymphoma. I didn't have enough money to get a proper diagnosis on it. That was another 2,000 dollars borrowed from my aunt (I racked up my credit with my dad) for the 2 day over night stay, testing, and medication.

But the good news is, I recently got a job back at Hewlett Packard as a graphic designer. It pays a lot more money than I was making previously and things are starting to look better for me.

Life is a fucking roller coaster.