Blink and it’s like four days passed… I’m still here, but the pain comes and goes. A friend has suggested that it might be what they call a ‘dry socket’… she had this when her wisdom teeth were removed. What happens is the gums don’t fully close where the tooth was, leaving a bit of the bone exposed. Then any time some food or whatever gets into the socket, it touches that exposed bone and causes pain. If it’s there for a long time it can lead to infection. So I have to talk to the dentist again this week and ask if this could be what I’m experiencing.

When something gets in there, the pain starts within a minute or so, then in about 10 or 15 minutes the pain has spread to include my ear, and then it continues to spread till it’s encompased the entire side of my head. Then it just stays like that, till I can get the bit of food out – which can take a long time, the only way to remove it is by doing lots and lots of rinsing with water.

It takes all the joy out of eating.

Anyhow, so I’ve been trying to keep my mind off that with other distractions. I don’t remember if I ever officially stated in the blob that I had no intentions of learning to do coding for the Nintendo DS, but I definately officially had no intentions to learn how to do coding for the Nintendo DS.

Unsurprisingly, 3 months later, I’m learning to do coding for the Nintendo DS. Nothing pretty or fancy – I’m no gamer, I’m terrible at playing games and have no interest in trying to make them. But simple things, exploring the technology and whatnot, making it do things, making stuff happen. That’s where I’m at.

Test Inputs Screenshot

So I wrote a simple utility that tests all the inputs (i.e. buttons and touchscreen) and does a few funky things, plays sounds and moves a ’sprite’ around, utilizes the two screens, and so on and so forth. The screenshot makes it look very lame and boring, but I had lots of fun making it, and it kept my mind off the pain and hunger for a few days.

There’s already lots of other little utilities that do the same thing as this, but this one is mine and does things my way. Aside from doing the obvious, it also has some fun little things that it can do, by pressing the right keys.

It was also a good primer for moving on to try doing some other things with it. Maybe like graphics – I understand people enjoy graphics, these days.

So that’s about where it’s at, right now.

Cheers.

Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring ring – Tinitus!

Ok, it’s not as catchy as the Bananaphone song… but I’ve got a wicked case of the Ringing Dizzies this morning.

Doesn’t make sense though, I’ve been taking my meds like a good girl, I got into a new routine that helps me not forget. Except over the last few days it’s like they’ve just totally stopped working. Or maybe they were secretly replaced with sugar pills or something. It’s like the codeine last week, it was great the first day, then it just stopped having any effect.

Aside from the intense dizziness and ringing in my ears, the depression has come back hard recently. Things I enjoyed doing last week have lost their appeal. Food I liked to eat is now bland and uninspiring. I can’t sleep. My motivation and what little energy I had, has drained away. The only thing that hasn’t faded or dulled is pain.

Pain where my last wisdom tooth was recently removed. Headaches. Back pain. Pain is the only constant. To steal a line from HHGTTG, “I hurt, therefore I am.”

For now I’m still going through the motions. Trying to do things that were fun, desperately hoping to find some of the enjoyment that was there before. Eating because of hunger, but hoping that it will taste good or be enjoyable. It doesn’t work though, whatever I try, food, activities, etc. just leaves me tired and disappointed. I just want to lay down somewhere dark and quiet.. like a wounded animal, let me hide just undisturbed for a while, and I’ll either get better and re-emerge, or I won’t.

Good: Blair’s Death Rain potato chips. The spiciest, hottest chips there are.

Bad: Getting a piece of the spiciest chips in the world jammed into the hole in your gums where your wisdom tooth was recently removed.

Worse: Continuing to eat the chips anyways.

Good: Codeine. Not just good, it’s f-ing great.

Bad: Quickly developing a resistance to codeine.

Worse: Running out of codeine.

It’s the sounds that are the worst, I think.

I had two wisdom teeth pulled out this morning – top and bottom, right side. It was about 90% pain-free. There were a few moments of pain, not including the needles – they always hurt. Aside from the physical discomfort though, it really is the sounds.

Like a crunching, cracking, crushing sound. I was paying a little more attention, and I’m pretty sure that he twists as he starts to pull. I think the crunching sounds might be when the bond breaks between the tooth and the bone it’s growing out of. Or maybe it’s the tooth getting crushed by the pliers? Either way, the sound is nasty.

Anyhow, that was earlier. Now there’s just an aching sensation.

So my anti-flu-shot plan seems to have backfired on me. Being the only one in the world to not get a flu shot, and therefore being protected by having everyone else around me protected… it seems that some crafty individual(s) have thwarted my plans, either by avoiding the flu-shots themselves or finding a way to introduce the virus without themselves being affected.

However it happened, I’ve spent the weekend in agony, from about midnight Friday when it struck very suddenly, through to now when I’m just able to stay sitting up for any length of time before being overcome with dizziness. Literally every inch of my body has been in terrible pain, from the top of my head down to my toes, with the one ironic exception of my throat – no sore throat. Well except for when I was busy doubled-over ‘blowing chunks’, which I did a great deal in the first 24 hours. I couldn’t even keep juice or ginger-ale down, couldn’t even take pills. So far the only thing that has gone in without coming back out is water.

So..will I have a flu shot next year? Meh, probably not. I still don’t like needles, and I still don’t trust flu shots. And hopefully, I’ll be feeling better by then and will have forgotten just how intensely awful I’m feeling right now.

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It’s a euphamism of course.

They hardly ever say “This will hurt” or “Prepare for some suffering.”

It’s always stuff like “There may be a little pinch” or “Just some pressure” or “You might experience some discomfort.”

I can’t say for sure if blunt truth would be better, but I can say, I don’t really like the euphamisms. It feels a little too close to lying.

Anyhow, I’m in pain, feeling grumpy, suffering, and don’t want to go to work although I have to. I suppose that’s one way to define “experiencing discomfort.”

Well, I survived the weekend. First, I found a combination of drugs that got the pain down to managable levels, and as a side-bonus it was pretty good at knocking me out so I could get some sleep. Two Tylenol-3 pills and three Robax Platinum pills seemed to do the trick. I didn’t take them all at the same time, but with about an hour in between the first two and the last three. The combination of acetominophen, caffein, codein, ibuprofen, and muscle relaxant seemed to do the trick.

Then Saturday I saw the dentist. It was a freaky and stressful situation. I’m not scared of dentists, I’m scared of dentistry, and even then, I’m only scared of it when it is going on in my mouth. It doesn’t phase me that other people get dental work done. And dentists themselves aren’t frightening, when you meet them on the street or whatever. It’s only when they’ve got both hands in your mouth, half a pound of stainless steel in your mouth, pipes and tubes and sharp pokey things… well you get the picture.

So the tooth that had betrayed me and was causing all this pain was ultimately removed. In accordance with Canadian biohazard & medical waste processes, the tooth will be ground to a fine powder and sprinkled over a crossroads under the next full moon, by the seventh son of a seventh son.

The seething unbearable pain is now reduced to a much milder, bearable level (and hopefully that too will fade to nothing in the near future.) I still have to take the antibiotics though, and they’re giving me grumblies in my tumblie. However, I am proud of myself for the fact that I did go and see a dentist, that I was able to make rational decisions while I was there, and followed through with things. If you’re a normal person then this may not seem like much, but if you have any kind of dental phobia, you’ll understand this was an achievement.

I’m fairly certain that other things went on during the weekend but can’t really remember anything specific at the moment. That could be a result of the various cocktails of drugs in my system. I know my desk looks like a little pharmacy, with all the pill bottles. I did take some photos yesterday but haven’t had a chance to review them, if there are any decent ones I’ll post them up tonight.