I mean, I had everything.

I had everything besides, you know, a comfort blanket or something. Welcome to the Only Child Diaries podcast. I'm your host, racy Wallace. Have you ever felt like you didn't receive the how-to brochure on life, that you didn't get enough guidance about major life issues? So did I. You don't have to be an only child to feel this way. In my podcast, we'll explore some of the best ways to better navigate adulting, while doing so with humor and light. Welcome everyone to the Only Child Diaries podcast podcast.

Today, I'm going to talk to you about dental work. Yes, again Now. One of my first episodes was about dental anxiety, which is something that I've struggled with for a long time, and recently one of my episodes I told you about my upcoming root canal. Well, this week I had that root canal and I want to share some more insights about that experience and about what I've learned from that experience. I went on this past Monday and I was as prepared as I could possibly be. The special dentist that was going to perform the root canal had excellent reviews. You couldn't find someone who had better reviews. You couldn't find someone who had better reviews. I read every review online that I could find about him. I found someone in my regular dentist's office who had visited with her sister and she also had glowing things to say about this guy and while, yes, I did have some really significant anxiety about the whole thing, I felt better knowing that at least he was one of the best right. Okay, he was one of the best right, okay.

So I took my Xanax, which is something that I've never done before. I don't generally take anxiety medication. I did once before, a long time ago. I was going through, I guess, a stressful time and my doctor at that particular point in my life had prescribed Ativan and I don't remember much about it, but I do remember that it didn't really seem to help that much. It turned into a negative experience for me, so I stopped taking it. But I had never taken Xanax. I read about it online, being the overachiever that I am, and I knew that it would probably stay in my system for a while more than just four or five hours, maybe 12 to 24. So I would feel sluggish, but it would help.

I took a sort of a test run dose one night and I felt a little loopy and I felt sort of dulled, but I didn't feel weird or anything. So I felt like, okay, this will be all right. I got a friend to drive us. Bill doesn't drive a lot anymore, he didn't feel really confident driving. So one of my friends drove us to the office graciously and we went graciously and we went, and so my husband came in with me.

I had my headphones so I could listen to music during the procedure, which is, you know, you could turn up the music so loud that you would go deaf and, let's face it, you can still hear the drilling. But it was something to focus on besides the classical music that was there. And I also brought one of my friends suggested bringing a plush, one of my plush Snoopy dolls, my plush, you know, peanut Snoopy. So I did that so I could just kind of hold on to him. I mean, so I did that so I could, I could just kind of hold onto him. I mean I had everything. I had everything besides, you know, a comfort blanket or something, and you know the actual procedure.

I was there about an hour and a half. I was pretty stressed out. Half I was pretty stressed out. I took half of the Xanax before we left the house. I guess the adrenaline kicked in because I didn't really feel really that dulled anymore. So I took another half when we were there and I felt like I could have taken two more full tablets and it really wouldn't have helped. But anyway, I got through that.

He started drilling. Actually, they explained the process to me. They had a whole binder. I don't know if this is a good thing or not, but they had a whole binder of illustrations on how they would do the procedure. I don't think that was a good idea because it just ended up stressing me out more to see and hear what they would actually do to my tooth.

Anyway, um, if you've never had a root canal, I don't want to. I don't want to intimidate you, but uh it, there's nothing. There's nothing pleasant about it, except that it you know it doesn't last long. I mean he was quick, it didn't last you. It didn't last hours. I mean it was maybe I don't know 10 minutes, but it was pretty significant. I felt like I was a manhole cover and he was putting a jackhammer on me is what it felt like. I was numbed up, I had a lot of Novocaine and stuff, so I didn't feel anything. I was crying during the drilling part. Bill said well, I didn't hear it because there's too much noise in the room, but I mean, there weren't active tears falling down my face, but let's face it, I was crying.

Anyway, when we left, the dentist said let me know if you have any pain or you have throbbing. And I thought, okay, well, sure, you know, no problem. The next day I felt a little tender. The Novocaine had obviously worn off and it felt a little bit more uncomfortable than I would have expected. But given how much they had done to my tooth, I expected that. But that night and the next morning I was in a significant amount of pain. So I called the doctor and he called me back and he said well, you're gonna need antibiotics. Great, that's great.

So there was some question among the people that I know about why didn't he give you antibiotics when you left? If you had infection in there anyway? I don't know, but I am allergic to almost every antibiotic known to mankind. I don't know what his reasoning was. I'm not going to question it, because the antibiotic that he ended up prescribing for me is clindamycin, and I've had a lot of trouble with a lot of antibiotics.

This one is something that they give you if you have to pre-medicate for your dental appointments. I've never had any trouble with it. It doesn't upset my stomach. It seems easy enough. But if you take a full course of it it can have some significant side effects, and one of them is that you can get C diff, which, if you're not familiar with C diff, it's a really bad infection that is highly contagious and it's something with I guess it's with the colon. Bill had it at one point and he got really sick because he had been on a lot of antibiotics and I won't go into further detail but if you are interested you can look that up. It's C and then space and then D-I-F-F, so C-d diff.

So I've been taking a probiotic. I'm not sure that there's much else that I can do, but I have been in a lot of pain. He also gave me prednisone a course of prednisone steroids, so he didn't give me any pain meds. Now I had saved my Percocet from my knee replacement. Now I had saved my Percocet from my knee replacement but I told myself that I'd probably never take that again because it caused me so many problems. But I saved it in case of an emergency because it's so hard to get pain meds now. I mean, you have to nearly be dead to get something to treat your pain. So I would say that my pain level was on a nine at the worst and it was just incomprehensible to really it was just constant pain, and I was taking ibuprofen and Tylenol extra strength. It wasn't really touching it and you get to a point where you have been in pain consistently, where you're ready to just tear your hair out. So I took a half a Percocet, which would end up putting me to sleep. But sleep's better than pain, right? So anyway, that's what that is. Now.

The point of all this is that you shouldn't be afraid of having a root canal because hopefully in the end everything's going to come out fine. I'm not going to be in any pain. I had a little discomfort this morning, but this is day. Well, it's a week. It's a week later now that I'm recording this and I can brush my tooth without it hurting. I can eat really soft food on that side. I have to go back in three more weeks. He's going to put I guess he put a temporary filling in where he drilled. So he's going to put a permanent filling in and then I guess I have to go back to my other dentist and replace the crown, so it's not just one visit. But I started thinking about this and feeling like this really sucks, which it does. But I really have no one to blame but myself and I'm going to take responsibility for this, because I mean and I'm not going to be too hard on myself either but because of my dental anxiety, years ago I stopped going to the dentist and subsequently what happened was that this tooth somehow, somewhere in there, got a cavity that went really deep.

I never saw it. I would always look in my mouth and look at my teeth, and if I had seen a big cavity, I think I would have gone to the dentist, but I didn't see anything. I think it started materializing below the surface or something, and this is the molar that broke. And, yes, then I did go to the dentist and I did do what I had to do, but the dentist told me that the cavity had gone really deep and he did what he could, and then he put the crown on, but he said, down the line, you might have some trouble. You might have some trouble. And so I could have alleviated all this if I had kept up with my regular maintenance and my regular dental appointments.

And so note to self a lesson learned you got to keep up with what you got to keep up with and it may be not be the most pleasant thing at the time, but down the road it's going to help you out. It really is, and it's going to cut out any of these horrible, horrible, horrible experiences. I mean, I was just not even able to concentrate or think, and I have to admit that this week was also the election and, being the liberals that we are, my husband and I were depressed. I mean, we live in a very liberal state, we live in a liberal area, but we're disappointed in the election and we're concerned about the state of affairs for our friends who are some of the different populations, the gay and lesbian populations, the immigrant populations, marginalized people. We feel concerned about everything. Working in a non nonprofit, all these years working for nonprofit causes, it's really hard to be fully anything but liberal on these policies.

It's been a week, but it's definitely been a week filled with physical pain, which is no fun. But lesson learned take care of yourself. What do you have to do that you've been putting off? Doctor-wise, dentist-wise, otherwise. That's my question to you. So, with that question to you. So with that, I will leave you for this week. Happy Veterans Day. Thank you all to the veterans for your service to our country, and next week, well, we'll tackle another topic together. I hope you'll join me. If you like this episode, please follow the Only Child Diaries podcast on Apple Podcasts or other platforms you might listen on and consider rating Only Child Diaries and writing a review. It helps others to find us. Please share it with a friend you think might like it as well. Visit my Instagram page Only Child Diaries or Facebook Only Child Diaries Podcast. Thanks for listening. I'm I'm.