I don't remember too much of this weekend ...

But I have a good reason. Wednesday night was AWESOME. I could not believe how quickly things came back to me, and my attendings were really great when I would say, "I don't know" in answer to a question. As 7 AM drew near, we basically cleared the ER and had no patients waiting to be seen, so they let me go home 15 minutes early. As I walked across the skybridge to the parking garage, I watched the sun come up and realized that would be one of the great walks of my life. Walking down the aisle during my wedding and walking across the stage at graduation were both amazing, but during this walk, no one was paying attention to me or watching to see my reaction; it was a precious moment where I got to whisper thanks to God for helping me survive my first night as a doctor and love it!

I went home, ate some breakfast, and took a much anticipated shower. I climbed into my oh-so-comfortable bed and closed my eyes, expecting a wonderful long nap. I had to be back up at the hospital at 7 PM for another 12 hour shift, so I figured I'd have plenty of time to catch up on some sleep. Ha ha. How wrong I was! I'd barely dozed off when I began to feel that something wasn't right. Before long, the right side of my face was hurting so badly that I was in tears and writhing in agony.

To give a bit of history, I had some fillings done on "pre-cavities" in May. 1 week after the fillings (10 in all), my teeth began to hurt. I was convinced the pain would improve, and since it never stayed more than an hour or two, I wasn't too concerned. Thursday morning was entirely different. Both the top and bottom right side of my mouth were hurting so much that I couldn't sleep, and I didn't know what to do. I took a pretty strong painkiller, but it didn't touch it. I couldn't take anything too strong because I had to be back at the hospital at 7 PM, so I did my best to relax and to try to ignore the pain. I spent lots of time on the phone with my husband and with both of my parents trying to figure out what to do, and in the end, I got an appointment for 7:45 the next morning (45 minutes after I got off work) with a new dentist.

I ended up getting only 2 hours of sleep in 10-15 minute stretches on Thursday after being up all night Wednesday, and then I stayed up all night at work on Thursday. Diet Pepsi was definitely my friend that night. Thursday night I was pretty uncomfortable and even sent several text messages begging for prayer for relief so that I could focus on my job, and thankfully the pain never got quite as bad as it had during the day. I left the ER on Friday morning at 7 AM and drove straight to the dentist. It turns out that despite my obsessive brushing of my teeth since I was a kid and possibly because of the work that was done in May, I will still need FOUR root canals. I was in shock. The new dentist offered to do them that day, but the fillings I'd had done in May that started all the pain had actually used up all my insurance benefits that I had while still a student. The bill for the root canals? Well, the estimate was $7500. My new insurance for my job was scheduled to begin on Saturday, so for a fraction of that price, I could find a different dentist and get the root canals done. This dentist gave me some antibiotics and some painkillers, and I've decided to tough it out. I have an appointment next Friday with a dentist in my plan, and SO FAR my teeth have been doing okay.

My reason for not remembering most of the weekend is that I spent it catching up on my sleep. 2 hours of sleep is just not enough over a 48 hour period! I was so tired that I actually fell asleep on the phone as I was explaining the options to my husband on Friday morning, and once I actually got some relief from the pain, I was able to sleep for more than 10 minutes in one stretch.

I work 3 more night shifts this week and will actually leave from my last night shift on Thursday to go straight to the dentist Friday morning. Here's to hoping that everything works out and that I'm a tough girl until then! :) I'm seriously questioning how I'm going to be able to function on Friday morning; I already had a mild phobia of the dentist before May, and knowing that I will likely be having a root canal (or four) on Friday is a very scary prospect to me. Only my fear of continued pain will actually drive me into that chair!