AH...EVENTS

 

Your vision after cataract surgery generally doesn't deteriorate over time. However, sometimes the lens capsule that holds the implant becomes cloudy. In such cases, the cloudy capsule can easily be treated with a laser to make it clear again.

Yesterday, after we dropped off my car to have a scraped fender repainted, Grandpère and I continued to the ophthalmologist's office in New Orleans, where I had tests and pictures taken to monitor macular degeneration, which - Thanks be God! - has not progressed since last year.  Then the doctor performed the laser procedure mentioned above to clear up cloudiness in my right eye.  Once the blurriness from the eye drops was gone, I could see an immediate improvement in the clarity of my vision.  What had been my bad eye was now the good eye, and I could see, after the fact, how cloudy my vision had been, and how cloudy the left eye still is.   In a month, I will have the left eye done.  All went well and without pain, but after the hours in the doctor's office and the various procedures, I felt worked over, and we still had to face the traffic before we made our way out of the city and back to Thibodaux.

We returned home after picking up my grandson from day camp; I picked up my laptop and went to my son's house to stay with my grandson until his father returned home from work.   When I reached home later in the evening, our landline phone service was out, so we went through all the procedures of unplugging each phone to check if one of our phones was the problem, but all seemed well there.  This morning, the phones were working again but with static on the line, so I called the repair service and gave my information to the automatic voice connected to no person, and someone is to check the line by Thursday.

The cleaning lady arrived early and began her work, followed by the termite inspector come to check for the little critters.  No termites were found.  As I was eating my toasted Italian bread for breakfast, I crunched down on something hard, which, when I took it out of my mouth, looked like a small stone, and I thought, "What the hell is a stone doing in my bread?"  Upon a closer look, and a strange feeling in my mouth, the "stone" turned out to be a piece of an upper molar.   My dentist will have a look this afternoon, and I'm sure I will need a crown.  Non-stop events take their toll in old age, but I realize life could be much, much worse...whine, whine, whine.  Sorry, sorry, sorry, but I had to do it.

The stained glass eye pictured above hangs in the doctor's office.

DOES NOVOCAINE AFFECT THE BRAIN?

Over the weekend, I discovered that one of my upper left molars was cracked. I left it alone and tried to remember not to chew on that side, because I was not in pain, and I didn't want to make an emergency visit to the dentist unless it was absolutely necessary. Yesterday, I made an appointment and went in this morning. My heart sank as the dentist said he may have to do a root canal, along with placement of a crown.

I've never had a root canal in my life, and I am such a baby about dental work, probably because, as a child, the dentist drilled and filled my cavities with NO NOVOCAINE! As soon as I sat in the chair, I tensed up and proceeded to take the white-knuckle, death grip on the arm of the chair. Then, as my long-time family dentist injected novocaine, let it take effect, began to poke around in my mouth, he spoke the anxiety-inducing words, "Oh-oh, I may have to do a root canal and a crown." I thought, "Oh shit! But if it must be, it must be."

Then I prayed, "Lord, be with me. Holy Mary, pray for me. All angels and saints, intercede for me." The dentist drilled a bit and pulled out the broken bit of tooth. Then he took an x-ray, drilled more, looked at the x-ray, and said I would need only the crown and no root canal. Yay!

"Thank you, Lord! Thank you, Holy Mary! Thank you, all angels and saints!" - not spoken aloud, because I couldn't talk with the drill working away in my mouth. Good news, indeed, that I would need less rather than more work, but the drilling to prepare the tooth for a crown, was an ordeal, at least for Baby Me. When the work was done and the temporary crown in place, I rose from the chair in great relief. The worst was over. The placement of the permanent crown would be quick and easy in comparison.

I felt a little woozy and wondered if novocaine affects the brain or if the wooziness was the result of the ordeal that every dental visit is for me, even just cleaning. I drove home carefully, thinking that as soon as I reached home, I'd crawl into bed and go to sleep. Fortunately, home is not far from the dentist's office. And here I am typing and not asleep.

UPDATE: I edited the post a bit, to remove repetitions and bad writing, done under the influence when I first posted.