The two banana peppers grew another inch in the last 24 hours, so I decided to go ahead and pick them. Thought I would show them off before I cut them up for tonight’s salad.

They taste so good!

Sunday night, while I was not sleeping due to the pain in my mouth and the stress of having to go to a dentist, I discovered Dental Fear Central. I spent most of the night reading it all and going through the forums discovering I am not the only one so terrified of dentists and dental work. I completely credit that site and all those other people’s stories for my being able to so calmly call the dentist the next morning and actually making it into the office. I didn’t feel like I was alone in the way I felt, and sometimes that means everything. As I sat there Monday waiting to hear what was next for me and my teeth (and trying not to freak out), I reminded myself of all the people who had posted on those forums … how scared they had been, how embarrassed they had been, and how they had pushed through it and things got so much better. Those stories really were my rock that day.

I wanted to point it out, because apparently there are a lot of people like myself who put things off too long out of fear and embarassment, and maybe one of them will run across the link and find it as useful and consoling as I did.

I plan to join the forums and join the conversations. While I am feeling so very positive about the upcoming surgery, because my rational brain knows that once it’s over my quality of life is going to improve so much, I am, of course, still freaking out about it all. It’d be nice to have a support group of people just like myself to just talk with about all the fears and thoughts racing through my less rational brain, and I also want to thank them all for giving me just the boost of courage I needed to get this ball rolling.

I also want to thank my friends, family, and blog readers who have been listening to me whine and cry for about a week now. Everyone has been so supportive and understanding. I feel a little silly now for not having admitted to any of you years ago my crushing fear of dental work. I had it in my head everyone would think it was stupid for someone who otherwise seems to be intelligent and at least somewhat “with it” to be afraid of something as mundane as dentistry. But no one has thought it was stupid. All of you have been just fabulous, and that really gives me courage and strength as well. So thank you.

There is sure to be more whining and crying for some weeks yet. We’ll all just have to get through this together, I guess. I swear, I am not going to try to bore you to tears with it all. I am going to try to be as open and free with my thoughts and feelings on what’s going on, not so much to ease my own nerves, but because maybe someone else will run across what I am posting and discover they aren’t alone either. It’s awful to feel scared, alone. I might still feel scared, but I don’t feel alone anymore. That feels pretty damn good.

Just wish my teeth were feeling pretty damn good. My plan to only take one Tylenol-3 a day in the evenings has not worked out so well today. After I got done with the shopping and some of the housework, my mouth felt like it was on fire. The ibuprofen wasn’t cutting it at all, so I took a pill, laid down on the bed, and then I got a lot of really restful sleep. Sleep is good.

A sneaky photo I took of the other people sitting in the dentist’s waiting room with me yesterday. Don’t they look like they are having fun?

OK, Tylenol-3 is some pretty good stuff. I took one as soon as I could, and within 15 minutes, I was able to move my jaw … and proceeded to drive Lin insane with my babbling. Within 30 minutes, I was my usual active and jovial self. At the one hour mark, I was pigging out on an extra-long cheese coney. Then … I became a calm and relaxed lump on the couch. It was wonderful.

It’s interesting that when it wore off completely a few hours ago, I woke up, because I had the bad side of my face smashed into a pillow, which made it hurt a little, but it’s as if having gotten a break from the intense pain, my body was able to reset its pain threshold. It doesn’t feel anywhere near as bad as it did just yesterday morning, though it still hurts like hell to move my jaw at all. I mean, I can still feel that all the pain is there, but my body seems to be processing it a little better. I think part of why it was getting so bad was that all the muscles in my face, neck and upper back were getting tightly wired, and they got a chance to relax for a while without that pain going on.

I feel fairly confident I will be able to stretch out my remaining 24 pills over the next two weeks without having to feel too much of the intense pain. Right now, regular ibuprofen is doing a decent enough job of cutting it down, so my plan is to only use the “good stuff” at night right before dinner, so I can eat and then fall asleep. That worked really well last night. That’ll leave me plenty of pills to use if it flares up again and I just can’t take it … or to stockpile for later use. Having a few strong painkillers in your medicine cabinet for emergencies is a good thing.

While I am still freaking out about the whole surgery thing, I’m feeling pretty excited too. Sure, being put under and having someone cutting around in my mouth for hours, and then coming home in a stupor with stitches in my mouth is going to be one of my own personal worst nightmares, but once it’s done and over, and once a few weeks have passed for the healing, the only thing I have to face after that is a few small fillings (any reconstruction work will have to wait on the budget — but my dental health, aside from current factors, was described as good), and even before any of them are done, my mouth is going to be pain-free. It’s sad to admit, but I can’t really remember what that’s like. I actually cried tears of joy when that pain killer zapped all the pain, because I knew that was what it was always going to feel like once this is all done … minus the wooziness, of course. Won’t that be wonderful!!!

Also, I am extremely proud of myself. I truly do have dental phobia. I really am terrified of the whole dental process owing to some truly horrific past experiences, and yet I managed to pick up the phone and get myself to a dentist all by myself, and then I managed to pick up the phone again and schedule my own surgery. I didn’t even cry or freak out on anyone! Not even a little! So I dealt with a couple of my biggest fears/mental issues all in the same day: talking to people I don’t know while under stress, going to a dentist, setting up something that terrifies me, and driving myself to a part of town I don’t know at all on major highways. And … I did it all with some amount of grace. It’s given me such a positive feeling about myself.

I haven’t conquered the dental phobia, and I doubt I ever will, but I have proven to myself that I can get through it. Besides, once all this nightmarish stuff is over, I’m not going to let it get that bad again. After surgery to have five teeth removed, a simple filling is going to seem like a walk in the park, right? Also, I seem to have found a dental clinic full of wonderful people who I won’t mind seeing when need be. Once I told them I was very scared, in pain, and totally embarrassed about the state of my teeth, every last one of them was incredibly gentle and understanding. They made me feel good to be there. I’m so glad to have found them.

Now the only thing that is really, really stressing me out is how we are going to pay for this whole mess. I didn’t even ask what kind of expense we could expect to see on June 3, or if they are going to want it all up front or be willing to give us a few months to pay it off. I know without asking it’s going to be more than we have to spend on it, but when you need a serious health issue dealt with, you do what you have to do and scrape it together somehow. Later this week I am going to call the surgeon’s office back and ask. I know they can’t give me an accurate estimate, since they haven’t seen my teeth yet and who knows what kinds of complications may happen, but I hope they will at least be able to give me some sort of ball-park idea of what we are in for on the bill … and whether we have to have it all at once. This is seriously stressing me out, but it has to be done. This just can’t wait any longer.

Well, I better get Lin up and moving. As soon as he’s out of the house, I need to go buy food. We are out of everything, and I want to pick up a few things I can eat for lunch without having to take a pain killer to do so. Then I need to get caught up on the housework too. Once I am done with that, I may very well take one of those Tylenol-3’s … just because it was so nice to not feel any pain. I wonder if it’s possible to do an gardening while tripping on codeine?