Feedback Monday :: Mustn’t Grumble

bulk :: 15st 5
booze :: yeah, yeah
painkillers :: loads
joints :: quite a few
healthy meals :: zero
films :: 1
visits to the dentist :: 3
days till deadline :: 4
panic level :: zero. I am nothing if not professional.
whinge level :: 4
crunching self-pity quotient :: 1
boundless optimism quotient :: 9

As I write, the anaesthetic is beginning to wear off and my bottom lip is beginning to throb gently. I have dental problems.

I am dentally ill.



Just before New Year, in Edinburgh, one of my teeth – lower east side – had a little breakdown. A shard gave up the ghost and came loose in my mouth. I was very alarmed. Horribly so, to the point of experiencing serious mortality flashes. Thankfully there was no pain. Back in London I popped along to the perennially cheerful dentist I pop along to on such occasions. He was glad there was no pain. I was glad too and we set a date to meet again soon and get all fixed up.

The tooth would be fixed over two visits while I waited for the inlay to arrive. Everything seemed to go well with the first visit, until two days after the treatment when I woke up in pain.

I hate pain.

I know, I know, everybody hates pain. I reckon even people who profess to actually like pain only really like it on their own terms. I bet there isn’t a masochist alive that relishes toothache.

So I started drinking whisky and taking painkillers. When the next morning it showed no signs of abating, I went back to the dentist. This time I was told that my nerve had become enraged. I can’t remember the word which was actually used, but believe me, it was enraged. It was absolutely livid. I was told I’d need root canal treatment and taken through the list of prices. I felt a little light-headed. I was then prescribed some antibiotics and told to come back next week, for my second scheduled appointment on Monday 2nd March.

Unfortunately, despite the antibiotics, the pain continued unabated. I put up with it over the weekend but Sunday was a nightmare which no amount of cannabis, whisky and Nurofen could palliate and I vowed to find emergency treatment somewhere today.

And so, a couple of hours ago, I returned from the dentist, having had half of the root canal treatment. I’ll have the other half next week.

At the moment I’ve got a bit of putty in my tooth, holding in place some antibiotic gauze or something. It’s been cleaned. Now the nerve has to be neutralised. Only not now, next week. The pain should apparently start to lessen if not tomorrow, then the day after.

So as I write, the lip throb has given way to a heavy tooth throb. It’s really annoying. It’s worse than reading a book written by Chris Moyles. In fact, it’s like reading one page of Moyles over and over and over again. It’s so boring. You know exactly what’s coming next, and there’s no poetry, no poetry at all.

I haven’t eaten since yesterday at about 4 and I don’t feel confident about eating on the putty pain area. So I’m thinking it might be time to break open the Madal Bal. I’m starving hungry though, so I might just buy some tomato soup instead. And chocolate.

Yes. I’m in no fit state to fast.

Oww.

It’s getting very bad again.

Just saying. Not grumbling. On the contrary, I feel like a proper writer now. Not only did my woman done leave me – obligatory blues riff – but the pain in my mouth allows me to pretend that I am Martin Amis and the whisky on my breath allows me to pretend that I am Ernest Hemingway and all the heartache, bitterness, pain and ceaseless whinging makes me worry that this book is not going to be the hilarious, heart-warming and life-affirming work of lasting worth that I want it to be, but a great festering pile of self-indulgent poo.

But on the whole, I’m feeling optimistic.

I turned over some of the soil in the back garden at the weekend and it looks good. Rich and wormy.

Just as soon as the deadline is met in four days' time, I’m going to start concentrating on enjoying the Spring, which means planting some vegetables and buying a kitten, getting my feet scraped and getting back into regular exercise.

I'm also looking forward to blogging again. I've got a couple of things to talk about, including a recent evening of unexpected celebration and a surprising account of a recent Sebastian Horsley outing.

Oh, and Keith's dad is doing well after a recent operation. So we thank fuck for that.

And we marvel at Keith's weird fishes:



Ooh, another piece of good news I heard last week was that therapy is tax deductible. I wish dentistry was. It’s not, is it?

Ugly Stuff No One Really Wants To Know

It was twelve days ago when I first pooped onto a piece of toilet paper, scooped a tiny piece of that poop onto a faecal sample stick and then popped and sealed it inside a small plastic tube. Then I put the tube in my bag and went to hospital. I headed for the testicle screening room first to make an appointment. But when I was told that I didn’t have to make an appointment, that I could just turn up any day before 9.30, I thought to hell with it, I'll come back on Monday morning, get my balls screened, my blood tested and hand in my poop at the same time.

But I didn’t do that because I was sidetracked and slightly lazy. Instead I didn’t return until yesterday, so basically, I walked around with a piece of my own poop in my bag for twelve days.

Morag found this to be the height of vileness. She was properly disgusted.

It was in a tube though. No biggy.

At the weekend Morag and I went to the wildlife photography exhibition at the National History Museum, where there is a bag search before entry. I opened my bag. The security guard performed a perfunctory check and was about to let me pass when the tube caught his eye. I don’t know what he thought it was but he lifted it slowly out of the bag.

‘It’s faecal matter,’ I said.

He placed it back in my bag.

We went in.

The wildlife photography exhibition is fantastic by the way. This one is my favourite.



So yesterday I went back to the hospital and a young lady moved what is apparently called a transducer over my testicles. Before she did this however, she covered the smooth head of the transducer in warm gel. Once the nurse gets going with the transducer, the effect upon the surface of the scrotum is a very pleasant one. In fact, you can quite easily convince yourself that that is not in fact a transducer floating wetly over your nether regions, but the warm wet tongue of a beautiful woman. This however, under the circumstances, is highly inadvisable, as genital engorgement at this point would just be embarrassing. Believe me.



Another good thing about the scrotal ultrasound is that you get your results immediately. This is particularly good if your results are negative, as mine were. Chatting to the nurse at the end, I asked her if she thought the pain could therefore be stress-related. She half-shrugged. She didn’t really know about stress. She knew about blood flow and epididymitis, the physical stuff. ‘Yeah, I guess,’ I said. ‘I suppose the psychological stuff is a whole different ball game.’

Unfortunately, I kind of mumbled this because we were both speaking at the same time, and the nurse didn’t hear. When I realised I’d inadvertently made a wonderful pun and that it had been wasted, I came really close to saying it again, but then I thought, no. That would be sad. I’d just blog it instead.

Ball game!

I also handed in my poop piece – although I had replaced the 12-day old sample with a fresh sample, you’ll be pleased to hear.

I didn’t get my blood test however, because there were too many people waiting and I had to rush across town to keep a dental appointment.

My dentist is very chipper. Almost annoyingly so. He happily explained that it would cost me around £350 to have the tooth that broke refilled and the rest cleaned. He was overjoyed.

Treatment starts next week.

That's it. No more grossness for a while.



But the upshots so far are good. No testicle tumours, no hideous unforeseen and hugely painful tooth furies.

So far, so good.

Fingers crossed.

We can get through this.



By the way, if you are male and you feel you might have a problem with your testicles (or let’s face it, even if you don’t), I recommend you pop along to your GP and hook yourself up with an ultrasound examination. It really does feel like a tongue.