The Grossness Continues

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I digress.

First, this happened. You should prolly get caught up on that first.

Are you with me now? Ok, good. So, yesterday, I was thinking to myself - "ya know, I've been popping these prescription-strength Ibuprofens every 6 hours for the past 5 days...maybe I should back off a little and just see how things go."

Horrible, horrible, HORRIBLE idea.

I'm taking the equivalent of 12 Ibuprofen a day. I guess that's kind of a lot. And - for once - I decided to think respectfully of my liver and innards. A little break from constant medication would be nice.

So, I'd like you to close your eyes for a moment. No wait, don't - because then you won't be able to fall down the rabbit hole fairy tale of pain I'm about to take you through.

Imagine that you take one of those gorgeous $40 Williams-Sonoma cheese graters. The really shiny kind. Let's say you shrink it down, real small, and have a tiny helper (an elf, if you will) carry it inside of your mouth and proceed to vigorously grate the roof of your mouth for minutes on end. 

Let's start there.

Then, let's say that this elf then goes down and repeats the procedure to the gum line just below your lower front teeth. 

Still with me? Do you need some Ibuprofen? YOU CAN'T HAVE ANY OF MINE.

Now, let's say that the elf recruits his or her much-larger buddy - say a giant of sorts - to come and punch you square in the face. 

Adding to this funness, let's say that the stitches on the roof of your mouth have now carved an irritated swath across your tongue. Kind of like a gentler Williams-Sonoma cheese grater. 

Basically - my entire mouth and jaw felt like one massive, oozing canker sore. 

It took almost an hour for the Ibuprofen I frantically took to take effect. In between crying, "I'm not ready for this!" and holding ice water in my mouth trying to dilute the pain, I questioned my ability to carry on with life.

I am only being slightly dramatic here.

No, but seriously - this shit is Pain. Ful. I don't think I realized the extent of it, because I've got more Ibuprofen in my system than Miley Cyrus has...well, just about anything short of nutrition. Plus I'm back to trying "solid" foods (beans, tiny bits of pita bread, sauteed spinach, and eggs - if you count those) and trying to get back on track with half-marathon training, so all of these things are really sort of pushing my system to the limit. 

I have an appointment to assess healing tomorrow. I can only hope that it comes with another prescription for 800mg Ibuprofen because I'm running dangerously low. And I just can't cope with the cheese-grated mouth.

Even if it is a really nice cheese grater from Williams-Sonoma.

Pinned

In this picture, the holes in my earlobes are from misguided youthful choices. But if you look in the very top of my ear, there's a square of beige tape. That's an acupuncture tack.

So, I've been going to acupuncture.

A new place, Mend, opened near my office in Hampden, and after hearing good things, I decided to try it out.

There are a few things about acupuncture to know before going:

1. Know WHY you want to go. Acupuncture is for a specific malady or issue. I'm told you can go for preventative purposes, but I think it still has to be for something in particular. I, myself, decided to try it because I am...how shall I put this....MILDLY EXTREMELY HIGH STRUNG. I decided to try acupuncture as a way of addressing my insomnia and MILDLY EXTREME HIGH STRINGINESS. 

2. The needles do not, usually, hurt. Sometimes it's like a mosquito sting, but only in certain places. While you're lying there, the area around the needles will sometimes itch a bit and some of mine do turn red for an hour or so after. But, other than that, there's no discomfort.

3. You don't have to DO anything.

The reason I state #3 is because, on my first visit, after a consultation, the acupuncturist put the various needles in me, and then told me to just lay back and relax. I asked her what I was supposed to do, and she said - Nothing. Just lie there, daydream, sleep, or bring some headphones or a book. Stay for at least 30 minutes. "The needles are doing all the work," she said.

I've now been 5 times, and I'm a total pro. I go, I get my needles for the day, and I zonk out on a ridiculously comfortable leather chair. For someone who can only nap for 10-20 minutes at a time, I completely pass out during acupuncture. Today, I napped for a record 40 minutes. Out cold. 

The acupuncture I go to is community acupuncture, meaning there are 7 chairs in the room and various other people napping and relaxing during their treatments. But it's very quiet, with soft music playing, and it smells really nice. The room is always just a little bit cool, perfect for napping, and there are deliciously soft blankets hanging on a rack if you need one. There's something strangely peaceful about napping in a room with strangers while full of pins. It's so relaxing. I can't explain why.

The ear tacks are a new part of treatment - she put them in this afternoon, and you can wear them for up to two days. There's a tiny little acupuncture needle on the other side of the tape, and it just stays in your ears for prolonged treatment. 

Does it work? I think so. In the five weeks since I started, I'm sleeping better, my late-afternoon tension headaches have faded, and I definitely feel several degrees less MILDLY EXTREMELY HIGH STRUNG.

I have a few sessions left, and then will re-evaluate how the whole process worked. But, so far, at the very least, it's not doing any harm and I get to go and take an expensive nap in a nice smelling room full of peaceful strangers. 

Zen Dentistry

I'm pretty sure I am the only person in the world who finds the dentist's chair a calming, Zen place to be.

I attribute this fact to my refined Welsh genes which gave me a slender nose, skin that freckles charmingly in the sun, and a mouthful of peasant horse teeth. My parents, to whom I am eternally grateful, nipped what could have been a snarling orthodontic nightmare early on. In my bank of very early memories, none of them exist without some form of orthodontia. Arch expanders, rubber bands, retainers, extractions, adjustments, cranks, braces, and all manner of plastic and metal hardware existed in my mouth at one point or another for the sole purpose of completely rearranging what nature intended to be overcrowded and chockablock. Eventually, the 18-point pile-up that might have occurred in the frontal region of my jaw was straightened and refined into the fetching smile I sport today. Thanks, Mom and Dad, for putting the orthodontist's kids through college!

But a secondary result of all of this tugging and straightening is that I feel quite at home parked back in a dentist's chair with people poking around in my mouth. I was pulled out of school on a monthly-and sometimes weekly, depending on the status of the hardware- basis for afternoon appointments that involved smocked technicians scratching and rummaging around in my face.

I had a dentist's appointment this week; the first in a long, long time. (Part of the deal of returning to the 9-5 workforce is what I now recognize as the luxury of health insurance that includes dental.) I mean, a LONG time. An amount of time that might make a dentist, say, suck in a mouthful of air in a dual reaction: "OhmyGodDISGUSTING" and "Ca-CHING; JACKPOT!"

Also because there had been a serious stretch of time since anyone had stuck pointy metal objects between my teeth, I think the dentist was under the impression that I had some sort of raging phobia about general dentistry and went quite out of his way to insure my comfort.

"Now, we're just going to do X-rays right now. JUST X-RAYS! This won't hurt AT ALL!" he assured me. I somehow made it through the horrifying and life-threatening procedure of photographing my teeth and was rewarded with a toothbrush. A PURPLE toothbrush! Because I am a brave little soldier.

I almost wonder if he was slightly disappointed that I was cavity-free. A perusal of my X-rays revealed a mouthful of strong, sturdy European choppers with five-foot long roots. (Which only furthered my somewhat pervasive fear that my teeth are, in fact, abnormally large and horsey.) No cavities! Good for you! You've been brushing your teeth sometimes! And maybe flossing on that one night a week you force yourself to go to bed at 10pm so you can get something close to 8 hours of sleep! Hooray, aces!

"I'm going to clean your teeth now," he said. Good. It was early in the AM and I had only had time for half a cup of coffee, so this meant I could settle back in the chair, open my mouth, close my eyes, and embark on a nice little snooze. No more questions to answer about my previous dental history. Have at it, good doctor, and wake me when you're done.

Except he seemed to be under the misapprehension that I was bordering on a giant freak-out.

"I'm just going to use the Water Pik," he explained. "This is NOT A DRILL! I promise!"

Ok, fine, use a fire hose for all I care. I'm closing my eyes now, mmmmkay? Night niiiiiiigghhht.........

"This won't hurt AT ALL," he went on. "It will make a sort of loud noise, but it's NOT GOING TO HURT!"

OK. I HEARD YOU. GO FOR IT.

"Are you ok?" he asked.

"Yep, just fine."

"You sure? This won't hurt," he said, again. At this point, I was starting to wonder if, perhaps, whatever he was planning to do was, in fact, going to hurt and this was his disclaimer ahead of time. Or something to convince me, mentally, that it WASN'T hurting, I only THOUGHT it was hurting. It couldn't possibly hurt because he told me so many times that it wouldn't! I was starting to doubt this, a tiny bit.

"I'm going to get started here in a second," he said. Awesome. Settle back. Eyes closey. Hands foldy. Sleepy sleepy time. I figured I could get in a good twenty minutes while he was scraping a few years' worth of artsy-I'm-only-waiting-tables-and-freelancing-until-my-book-deal-comes-through crud off of my newly-insured teeth before I had to get up and go to work.

It didn't hurt. At all. I was just dozing off when he stopped. "You still doing ok?"

Yes. I'm fine. My eyes are closed because I am sleeping. Not because I am trying to shut you-and, by proxy, this nightmarish situation in which you are squirting water onto my delicate, sensitive teeth- out of my mind. I am actually trying to doze off. Don't worry- I sleep with my mouth open all the time; this is no problem for me. Unattractive, perhaps, but utterly convenient for you.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.............

"Where did you say you went to school?"

I didn't. Say anything. Because I am TRYING TO TAKE A NAP! Now. Sleepy time.....

"All done!"

Wait, what? I barely closed my eyes!

"Now, that wasn't too bad, was it?"

Yes! Yes it was! I don't even think I actually fell asleep, I just got my eyes barely closed and you woke me up and now I'm awake again! I DID NOT GET A NAP. WHAT IS THE POINT OF THE DENTIST IF I AM NOT LEAVING WELL-RESTED?

"That's a difference now, huh?!"

Huh? What? I am cranky! You woke me from my nap! Actually, you did not wake me because I did not actually fall anything close to asleep, I barely even shut my---oh. Oh. OOoooooooohhhhhhhh.

My teeth are so..........slick. And my mouth is so.......minty fresh. It's actually quite...well, it's quite refreshing!

I left the dentist, swiping my tongue across my newly sparkling choppers, feeling the squeaky clean of a plaque-free mouth. And, to make up for my lack of nap, I rewarded myself with a triple shot skim latte.

So my mouth was clean for approximately seven minutes before I had coffee breath again.

Oh, well. Maybe if I'd gotten a nap....

Things I Am Currently Adoring

1. Up in the Air. How very apt, expressive, and bittersweetly not surprising. I was OK with the non-surprises, however, because the writing was perfectly in tune. There wasn't a wrong note in the dialogue.

2. Avatar. Because I've been meaning to watch Pocahontas again. No, but seriously- it's worth the press it's getting for sheer spectacle. The story is predictable, the dialogue lame, but call me a sucker for a show pony when it comes to graphics and imaginative animation.

3. Going to see The Lovely Bones tomorrow night with Whack, Jackal and Nickle. I'm intrigued by what I've seen on previews so far, because it's quite an intellectual and imaginative separation from what I pictured while reading the book. As an avid fan of watching films made from books, I feel this could only work in its favor. Everyone knows that the film will never be the book (no matter how many times the Harry Potter or Twilight empires attempt), and I am fully supportive of the two being able to stand alone as substantial artistic pieces. I don't mind if the movie isn't like the book, or vice versa, if they're both compelling works.
4. My new Neti pot. I've long been a promoter of homeopathic means of healing and so, this winter, I'm putting my money where my nasal passages are and attempting to ward off the inevitable sinus infection that comes around every winter for me. The constant flux of temperature and humidity in February and March never fails to leave me without at least two weeks of complete misery, usually culminating in having to go to the doctor and weep for antibiotics, and this year I'm starting early in hopes of dodging it. We'll see. My first experience was weirdly satisfying and somehow quite cleansing, although this could be placebo effect of proactivity which a lot of homeopathy sometimes seems to be. And in order to make the whole thing sound more appealing, I can start saying that I've begun a practice of Jala-neti, which sounds so much more worldly and disciplined.


5. Reading. Unless I'm on vacation in the summer, I always read more in winter. It's cold, the blaring noise of the TV bothers me after awhile, and all I want to do is hunker down under a blanket with a good Malbec and demolish a pile of books. Currently reading/finishing: The Dive from Clausen's Pier and Revolutionary Road, and then about to start Waiter Rant and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.