Baldy's campaing - get your MP involved this Wednesday

If you go to Baldy's Blog you will see that Westminster are having a Bone Marrow donation drive this Wednesday in the Jubilee Room. MPs who are under 40 can sign up to be donors. Everyone can sign the petition which you can find here .

If you are a British citizen you can email your MP and ask him/her to attend. You can locate them through this
here

Go on - it took me 2 minutes, and that included the time to locate my MP from scratch.

Go me!

Today I went to Zürich Hauptbahnhof to get my boy a 4-week ticket. Great value - unlimited travel around the city, all for the grand total of CHF 81, approximately £40.00. The exciting bit for me was that I did it all in German. More importantly, as far as I am aware, it was grammatically correct German. I realise that this excitement may indicate a need to get out more, but still....

On the dental front, I think that root canal number two (the one completed on Monday) has failed. Why do I tink this? I am starting to get rather a lot of pain in my jaw. And it is the beginning of the weekend. Oh joy.

But just to remind myself how lucky I am, here is the link again to Adrian's blog and the link to the
bone marrow e-petition . I've been keeping up-to-date with his blog and he is having a hard time right now. Go on - help him realise his ambition to ensure that all 18 year olds get a talk about bone marrow donation and its importance. Sign the petition.

The never-ending story...

I have extended my appointment on Monday so that M can have a look at the other teeth that are playing up after he has finished root canal 3. I did a 'scientific' test today - got some very sweet cake and tried to put it on different bits of the area that is playing up. As far as I can tell, it is the surface of the tooth (or teeth - I really can't be certain). This points to a crack in the tooth/teeth, not standard sensivity. When I go on Monday I am going armed with some Nutella which I am going to ask M to apply to various bits of teeth - that should give a much better indication of where the pain is coming from. Necessity (desperation in this case) is the mother of invention, as they say.

And as M said to me today, he hoped my 'dental odyssey' comes to an end soon. Me too.

On a happier note, my boy arrives in Zürich this evening for about 6 weeks :0) so I am going to try to get a very positive frame of mind going and try to think about all the really great things that I have to be thankful about.

Edit: So there I am, having given myself a thorough talking to about being positve,when I break the last of the cereal/desert bowls with defeaning crash. As if that wasn't enough, about 10 minutes later I managed to spill an extremely hot cup of espresso all over my foot. Still lookinmg on the bright side though - could've gone over both feet ;0)

The story so far....

The second root canal treatment was finished today with no trauma. Hopefully that will work.

I am now having problems with the two upper teeth that were worked on a couple of months ago - M had found a secondary cavity under one of them. Everything seemed fine. Now I am having problems with sensitivity when I eat something sweet. It is severe and it feels like it is on the surface of the tooth. If it was near the root where there is some gum recession then sensitivity could be expected. This means that there is probably a crack in the tooth. I guess that means another root treatment... Same old, eh?

We spoke about the front tooth (the third root treatment). There is more of a chance that this will fail because of the hole in the tooth going through to the gum. If it fails an implant would be the best option. However....yep, there had to be a 'however'..

....here is the problem as I understand it. There are two types of bone material - standard bone behind, and some other kind in front. When a tooth is removed, the bone material behind isn't affected but some of the material at the front is removed. Because of the shape of my teeth there is an increased chance that 'too much' will be removed. In addition to this I don't have very much gum material. This means that it would be much harder to do a successful implant.

It just keeps getting worse, but I am trying to be optimistic. Well, no, I am trying not to get depressed about it all. M and I were talking about why I am having all of these problems. Maybe there is something 'special' about my root pulp - when something happens to tooth the pulp material is perhaps too sensitive. At the end of the day there doesn't seem to be any concrete explanation.

Montreux

Guess the cost of living in Montreux is more than I expected...

Turning Japanese

Anyone remember that song? Was it The Vapours?

Long story short, I really like some of the Japanese skirts/dresses that I have been seeing on the internet over the last year or so. Thanks to
Poshyarns for finding



this link to Amazon Japan. Of course, once I had placed the order I realised that there was a book that Roobeedoo uses for skirts that I wanted to order. Oh well, next time. I need to track that one down as well - I am sure I have a link for it somewhere, the question is just where.

I hope that this book will provide the spur I need to get the rest of my craft room organised. It is a complete tip. If this room is a mess, my mind will simply refuse to take on the challenge of a bit of tricky sewing/planning. Don't ask me why, but there it is.

On that note, off to sit on my backside and NOT tidy ;0)

Root canal the third!

That's right folks - I am clocking up one root canal per month!

The story so far.....I went along to see M at 9.00am today and he x-rayed the front tooth, the one which has been abused a bit over the years - bashed with a bottle when I was being careless, walked into doors, that sort of thing. Then he took another x-ray, since as he rightly said, he didn't want to make a mistake. Sadly, the first x-ray was not poor-quality, it was spot on.

Probably as a result of the 'little' traumas over the years, there was a problem with the pulp and it was causing tooth resorption . Basically, my tooth was dissolving itself from the inside out - nice, eh? If it wasn't treated there were two outcomes - firstly, a hole would eventually form which would allow bacteria into the tooth and an abscess would form. Alternatively (or possibly as well as, I guess), the tooth would be so weakened that it would simple snap off. Hmm, even....nicer....

So, root treatment it was.

'Now', said M.'I only have half an hour. There is only one canal in that tooth. Half an hour is plenty of time for me to remove the nerve pulp.Or you can make an appointment and come back next week.'

Talk about being between a rock and a hard place. There I was, no Number Guy, no sedative medication...what to do, what to do....? When the last root treatment was done I vowed to myself that I was not going to waver again. Although there was still a bit of a problem with the last lot of local anaesthetic, I honestly suffered much more in the end due to the fear and anxiety in the weeks leading up to it. So I took a deep breath, only cried a tiny bit, and let him get on with it.

Guess what? This time NO PAIN. Ok, one of the injections wasn't painless, but it wasn't awful. Because the bone in the upper jaw is porous it is much easier to achieve anaesthesia :0)

The down side is that when M was doing the procedure it became evident that a hole had already formed in the tooth. This is probably why I was in pain. This means that instead of having one entry to the tooth through which bacteria can enter, there will be two. When I go back next week he is going to fill this hole with a purified form of Portland Cement of all things.

I have to say I am still a bit shocked - went in for a check, came out an hour later having had a root canal. If it is like the other two, I know I can expect a shedload of pain over the next few days, but then it will go. Now I can enjoy the weekend without all of this hanging over me.

So all is good, but I feel like a rung out rag.