23 May 2008

The Tooth Problem... Continues...

So, 4 weeks after my initial visit to the Dr Pain's office in town, I get to drive the extremely painful and boring and fall asleep at the wheel trip to Bismarck, grand metropolis of North Dakota.

Appointment cost of $45 later, and $44.05 to top off the tank on the way home, I am root canal-less. Yes! YAY! no problem, right? Well, no. I wasted my DHs and mine afternoon (my baby's last in Kindy) driving across hell to see a man who dresses like a gas station attendant, poke and prod and make my teeth (which finally DIDN'T) HURT again, only to be told (and this is a good thing LOL) I didn't need a root canal. BUT, I do need a filling, ASAP, then if there is still trouble, I can make that "short" trip to "town" to get a root canal done. Then again, it's better to have the expert in this procedure say "NO you don't need this." and send me on my way than the dentist locally to have tried it herself and made things worse.

So, here I sit, tooth hurting on and off, again, but with an appointment to go see the original dentist on Tuesday for a nice juicy filling on my back molar. Have I mentioned that I'd much rather give birth again than to endure 5 minutes in the dental seat of torture? I let both the local gal and the endo in Bismarck know my feelings. :D Bad Mom! BAD!

Of course, the assistant is making small talk as I sit in tears waiting for this exam yesterday... "How long you been here?" I say "This time?" "Oh you came back." Not that we really had a choice. I was nice about it and said how we were probably where we needed to be with my son's autism and a good free education. Plus, Bismarck has all the cool food! Ruby Tuesday, Cracker Barrel and yesterday's meal of choice prior to the appointment... RED LOBSTER. I had to crack up (and should have said something - maybe I can email them LOL) when they bring out the little board with "Today's fresh catch" choices. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm... I do know that at one time this was an area underwater (should remained so!) and probably had lots of seafood, but it's not today. So, me thinks "fresh" catch was "fresh frozen" to make the trek to the great white north of ND.

Speaking of the fact this once was ocean... coming north out of Bismarck are some really cool land formations. I need to remember to stop and take pictures next time I am sleeping on the way to/from Bismarck. Mini volcanoes like dot the landscape west of Highway 83. It looks like an old ocean floor bottom! So, I did find something neat to look at, briefly, in ND. We venture to Montana next weekend, but not enough time to do much siteseeing... maybe I'll find more. Might have to stop at the Dino museum that's in Dickinson and only open like 2 months of the year. If I didn't blog about that, I might have to give a brief story on that fall fiasco. At least we didn't DRIVE ALL THE WAY THERE, to find out it was closed. Talk about having been even more upset that there is nothing here to do. :)

Well, off to find some advil/ibuprofen to get rid of this ache. I have a feeling me and the grease monkey will be meeting up later this summer. I wonder if he could just schedule several days of root canals in minot, use someone's office, and just do it here. When gas reaches $5, I don't know that I'll be able to afford another trip to freaking civilization.

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