The bad news is my weight is up for the month and up more than March. The good news is…um…April was kind of a terrible month so maybe being up 1.1 pounds is not so bad. Also, I have been jumping up and down about 1.5 pounds lately, so it’s quite possible that tomorrow I’ll have actual weight loss showing.
Nonetheless, the fat stats:
April 1: 167.1 pounds April 30: 168.2 pounds (+1.1 pounds for the month)
Year to date: From 162.3 to 168.2 pounds (up 5.9 pounds)
And the body fat:
January 1: 18.5% (30.2 pounds of fat)
April 30: 19.5% (32.8 pounds of fat–up 2.8 pounds)
My goal for May is to stop inflating. To put it less ambiguously, my goal is actual weight loss. You know, where my weight goes down instead of the opposite of down.
Also, despite all evidence to the contrary, I remain donut-free.
I do not recommend waiting 30 years between visits to your dentist.
My partner Jeff called his dentist and got me an emergency appointment today at 12:30 p.m. so they could look at and determine what to do with my infected ex-tooth (extract with prejudice seemed the only real option).
I wasn’t totally sure if they would look today and excavate later, but it became clear early on that time and tide and infected ex-teeth wait for no man.
Fortunately, dentistry has improved a good bit in the last 30+ years.
The dentist and assistant were both friendly and explained everything, especially after I voiced my unfocused anxiety that had kept me away as an adult. The chair now moves up and down with the press of a button. I’m pretty sure the last time I sat in one it was operated with a foot pedal and brute force.
Directly in front of me was a flat panel screen showing images of what appeared to be some rural area in South America. The people had nicer teeth than me, which I supposed was the point. Then an image of a steer staring into the camera came up and I was confused. I later learned the images were from work my (new) dentist had done in Central America. I am unclear if he worked on the steer. It wasn’t smiling.
The dentist acknowledged that old dentistry was pretty primitive (I think of McCoy exclaiming about the medieval medical technology seen in 20th century Earth in Star Trek IV) and carefully explained everything he was doing or would do and how it was way better than the old days.
The first step was to take an x-ray of the affected area. I was asked after if I wanted to see it and declined, because how could it not be grossbuckets? I don’t want to see gross things that are inside me, even if they are about to become outside me.
If you don’t like descriptions of dental work, stop reading now or skip to the last paragraph.
First he used a cotton swab to apply some topical numbing gel to the area that would be frozen. This helps reduce possible pain while getting the freezing shot, and indeed, I felt very little of anything as my mouth was frozen. A promising start.
After giving it five minutes to set, the work began. The dentist reassured me that it would be quick and relatively painless, thanks to the infection. Yes, this seems weird. He explained that teeth normally set their roots into the bone and used the analogy of fence posts in cement. Very tough to get out. However, the infection around my ex-tooth’s roots had basically turned what would be cement into goop. The three individual root pieces would come out easily.
And the first two did, popping out with no sensation at all.
I got jabbed with some more freezing at this point, and I did feel a little pain, for which both the dentist and assistant profusely apologized. I actually felt bad mumbling a complaint.
I also realize how super-tense my body was and made an effort to relax. I closed my eyes and couldn’t think of anything to distract myself with, so I just kept them closed and focused on not making my body an unbending board.
The third root was a little trickier to get to. I heard sounds in my mouth I don’t like hearing. I tasted something gross. I’m not sure what it was, but they apologized again and suctioned it out.
The suction was very weird. They told me to clamp my mouth on it for maximum effectiveness, but when I did it felt like it wanted to pull out my insides. It didn’t hurt or anything, it was just strange. I want to say it sucked, but I’d never do that.
The third root came out and the dentist poked around a bit more, removing some of the infected tissue, to help speed healing. He advised me I would probably want to take the T3’s I’d be given, though the assistant offered that Advil could work, too, with the bonus of not messing with my stomach or mind.
I took the T3 when I got home.
The work was complete within half an hour or so and I left with gauze clenched on the left side of my mouth. It’s out now and I don’t think it’s bleeding, but I have more gauze just in case. The freezing has mostly worn off now, so the puffy face look has diminished.
I was told to eat soft food today and be careful with hot/cold food or beverages over the next few days. I can brush tonight, but not swirl anything around in my mouth. Using a straw is forbidden in the same way turning 31 was in Logan’s Run.
Now I wait for the pain as the numbing wears off, to see how effective the T3 is, and I anticipate the soft eggs or soup or whatever it is I’m having for dinner.
And I’ll be making an appointment for a regular check-up like I should have done 30+ years ago.
Overall, not exactly a delightful experience, but definitely not as bad as I’d expected.
Yesterday my ex-tooth was causing me no end of misery in the form of a constant sharp pain in my upper jaw. It was the kind of thing where if you thought about it, if you concentrated on it, you could make it worse, get it to really start throbbing. Doing the opposite, focusing on getting into a Zen-like state of calm, would minimize it, but at best it would become a constant background thing, kind of like someone mowing the lawn outside your window, except they inexplicably do it for the entire day without taking breaks.
I was given two things to help with the ex-tooth. Tylenol 3 for the pain–remember, Tylenol 3 is not like the over-the-counter version. It’s a narcotic and enough of it can make you quite silly. The other was the antibiotic to combat the infection. I was given a T3 and an Alleve tablet before leaving the hospital, then took the antibiotics about half an hour later, after getting the prescription made.
Within half an hour of that, the pain was gone. Not just blunted, but essentially gone. The area around the ex-tooth is tender and sore, but the actual pain is gone. Today I’ve been continuing to take the antibiotics, but no T3s, and the pain is still gone.
It’s actually a little unnerving how effective the drugs have been. It makes me wonder how often they are used to similar effect for more nefarious purposes. Mostly I’m just glad we have medicine that can do this kind of stuff, because trying to distract myself from pain is something I can only manage about 50% of the time. I’m like a half-monk. One moment I’m in deep contemplation, the next I’m distracted by my own weird train of thought, like “Don’t think about the pain, you’ll only make it worse. Oh, I’m thinking about it right now, aren’t I? Yes, I told you not to do that. Right, I’ll stop. Okay, I’m thinking about kittens now, not the pain. You know, that constant ticking pain in my jaw. I mean kittens. Adorable kittens. I am not thinking about the pain I just described. I am full of lies.”
Anyway, Tylenol 3 and antibiotics are my new best friends this week.
It shouldn’t be convenient to live only a few blocks away from a hospital and its emergency room, because you should never have to go, making the convenience irrelevant. But life is nutty and ignoring the dentist because of irrational fear can have consequences.
As I am about to demonstrate.
About six years ago one of the teeth in my upper jaw cracked (oh, I should warn you, if you get squeamish about anything tooth-related, stop reading now and instead do a search on this blog for the tag “cats are funny people” and delight in the results). It wasn’t painful, it just happened. I don’t know why it cracked, other than maybe a family history of bad teeth–and my neglect in visiting a dentist regularly (or at all) as an adult. A few years after that the remaining tooth gave up and I became the owner of a toothless gap in my left upper jaw. Except it wasn’t really toothless, as the roots and a tiny bit of the exposed part of the tooth remained.
I avoided brushing this part–much like I avoided dentists–because it was generally pretty tender and an accidental brushing would leave it sore.
A few days ago it felt sore and I thought perhaps I had accidentally brushed it. Then I woke up yesterday and it was still sore and further, it felt more like a toothache, actual pain and all that. I took some Advil and Alleve. These had virtually no effect. The whole area around the ex-tooth was tender and seemed inflamed.
Weirdly (or more likely, because I’m a guy) when I woke up today and felt the same pain, I almost still went out for my run. It was sunny and mild, so I didn’t want to waste the opportunity. Sanity prevailed, however, so I promised myself to visit the emergency room first, then I could go for the run.
I did not go for the run.
Approximately an hour and a half after arriving at the emergency room, I left with:
confirmation that the ex-tooth was infected
orders to see a dentist in the next 24-48 hours (“No later than Monday” was stressed several times)
one Tylenol 3 and one Alleve (in my tummy, since a nurse handed them to me with a cup of water)
a prescription for Tylenol 3 and antibiotics
affirmation again that hospitals are a place you never want to be
Here is my visit, with timestamps where applicable:
3:50 p.m. I have arrived. I go to the check-in counter and have a hard time hearing the person talking through the glass. I am given a surprisingly hard to remove bracelet with my info on it and have a seat. I expect to wait awhile and am not disappointed.
There are a few people here, but their injuries or ailments are for the most part not immediately obvious. a guy wearing a Tool t-shirt is here with his partner and I assume he has an arm injury, as he only has his left arm in one of the sleeves. I can’t quite see the other arm. This is probably a good thing.
A nicely-dressed woman keeps walking in and out, talking on her phone and holding a tissue to her nose. She eventually goes back to the check-in desk and complains that her nose is bleeding again. She gets to cut in line and is ushered away. I’m not going to try a nosebleed. I can wait.
I try to ignore my ex-tooth, which is currently getting Straight A’s in pain-causing right now.
There is a young Asian guy with a trendy haircut. He looks completely fine.
To my left is a woman around my age or a bit older. She coughs in a loud, wet, unhealthy way. At one point someone comes up to her and says they need a blood sample, then proceeds to do it right there. I don’t remember them taking blood in emergency before. I am glad she’s at least one seat over.
A guy in his 30s shambles in slowly. He is wearing open-toe sandals, is unshaven and looks terrible, as if he hasn’t slept in two months. I can’t hear what he is saying at the check-in desk, but the tone and manner suggest ailment over injury. He then reaches down to the small trash bucket by his feet and sticks his head into it, barfing. I can tell he is trying to throw up quietly. I am not unappreciative. He’s given a bracelet and looks like he might sit next to me–still clutching the plastic trash bucket–but he decides to stand, then to just amble about. His wife and baby arrive a short time later. The baby looks like he is deciding whether or not to cry.
Eventually a staff member takes away the garbage can and gives him a plastic barf bag instead.
To my delight, the baby never cries.
4:20 p.m. I am called to Triage 2, which is…right beside the check-in desk. I get asked questions about allergies and such and am given a bracelet that reads GIVE PENICILLIN ONLY IF RASH OVER ENTIRE BODY IS DESIRED. I sit back down and wait some more.
4:27 p.m. Mr. Self-Treatment arrives at the check-in desk. In a firm and articulate voice he describes various symptoms–a heaviness on the chest, chronic tiredness, etc. and laments over how he has had to self-diagnose and treat himself, even in the presence of professional doctors. I never figured out what the distinction was with professional doctors. Maybe he originally sought treatment by actors who played doctors. He went on for a bit, spending equal time complaining about the system and then complaining about himself. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him. His vocal chords were very healthy.
4:32 p.m. I am finally moved to…the second waiting area. In a call-out to The wizard of Oz, you are told to “Follow the yellow brick line.” Okay, they leave out the “brick” part, but I remember this line from before. I follow it and then get confused because the end arrow is mostly peeled away and I’m not sure if I’ve actually reached the end. A kindly old woman confirms I have and also shows me where to put my chart, which is also in a yellow folder.
She seems smarter than me, for which I am grateful.
The second waiting area is more crowded, so I anticipate a long wait here. Some people are dressed in gowns or sitting in wheelchairs. Occasionally someone gets wheeled through on a stretcher. I look to my right and see I am sitting next to a Nellcor sensor. I don’t know what a Nellcor is.
I wait.
Several people get called but no one responds. This may work to my advantage.
4:55 p.m. I am finally brought into the exam room and explain my predicament. The doctor marvels over how I went so long with the tooth equivalent of a bomb in my mouth not going off. I admitted I knew a day of reckoning would come. A curtain is drawn in the middle of the room and it is clear someone is on the other side. I am glad I cannot see who or what is on the other side because I get an unpleasant vibe from it.
The visit with the doctor is done in about five minutes. She is very friendly and asks if I have any questions after explaining things. I get my first warning to see a dentist in 48 hours max. She warns that T3’s can cause constipation and affect decision-making, among other side effects. She warns against arguing with my partner or getting a haircut while under its effects. I like her.
I go back to the second waiting area and once again wait, as one does in these areas. After a short period of time a nurse comes in with my prescription and the T3/Alleve combo. At 5:15 p.m. I am heading out the way I came in, off to get the prescription filled at Save-On Foods, where I will also buy Goldfish crackers as a pick-me-up.
The pharmacist is like the doctor, friendly and informative. She advises me of one of the side effects of the antibiotics, which is diarrhea. She in unsure if the constipation from the T3s will cancel out the diarrhea from the antibiotics. I like to think they will.
I finish my shopping, come home and indulge in my new prescription drugs. The first T3 works amazingly well, almost completely masking the pain. I can take one more before bed (if needed). I’m feeling a little light-headed as I write this, which is one of the other side effects. I have no immediate plans to drive a bulldozer or other vehicle, so the neighborhood is safe. For now. I may suddenly decide driving a bulldozer is a totally excellent idea. I’ve never been on T3s before.
I need to decide if I want to find an emergency dentist tomorrow or wait until Monday and see if Jeff’s dentist can take me on as a new (emergency) patient. I’ll probably go with the former, as it seems time is of the proverbial essence.
I’m not looking forward to the dentist visit. I mean, who would? You’d need to eat a lot of T3s to think the dentist is fun. Because most of the tooth is gone, removing the rest will require excavating through the gums. I’d like to think dentistry is all lasers and painless now, but I suspect we’re not quite there yet. I’m hoping getting anesthetized is an option. I can deal with waking up all loopy afterward and then experiencing exquisite pain (provided I have my T3s).
All in all, I’d have preferred a better weekend. If it turns out I won the $26 million Lotto 6/49 jackpot tonight, I will come back to amend the preceding statement.
Although it doesn’t feel like it, March actually saw my ballooning waistline stabilize, with a margin-of-error weight gain of 0.1 pounds. I’m now up 4.8 pounds for the year, down from 5.2 pounds last month.
I remain donut-free.
I am trying to run more, but not doing well there.
I tried going cold turkey on snacks and ended up wanting to eat whole turkeys. I’m trying to ease off now instead.
If I work at it I may see actual weight loss by the end of April.
The fatty stats:
March 1: 167 pounds March 31: 167.1 pounds (+0.1 pounds for the month)
Year to date: From 162.3 to 167.1 pounds (up 4.8 pounds)
And the body fat:
January 1: 18.5% (30.2 pounds of fat)
March 31: 19.2% (32.1 pounds of fat–up 1.9 pounds)
I can’t remember the last time I had a corn dog. It was probably at a fair when I was in my teens, so about three hundred years ago. But when I think about them, they just seem weird. You take a wiener and coat it in a thick layer of fried cornmeal. It’s just an odd thing to decide to turn into a dish. I can’t even remember if I liked them. I kind of want to try one again but there’s no easy way other than buying an entire box of them in the grocer freezer. Then I’d have to figure out what to do with the rest of them. Donate them to orphans? Turn them into fertilizer? Science experiments?
But maybe this is a case where it’s better to let sleeping (corn) dogs lie.
Also, I categorized this post under Health, though I’m not entirely sure it qualifies.
The Fitbit One is a step tracker that, unlike most, does not strap onto your wrist. It comes with a clip but I always kept it in the watch pocket of my jeans where it tracked faithfully.
I am using the past tense because my Fitbit One is now dead, murdered by washing. To be more precise, when I did my last load of laundry this past Friday I forgot to take the Fitbit out of that watch pocket and realized this with five minutes left in the wash cycle. It came out dead and remains dead. It is tracking in technology Heaven now.
I’ve actually done this once before and the Fitbit One not only survived, it gave me a bonus 1400 steps from tumbling around inside the washer for 45 minutes. The difference this time is the button on it had collapsed into the unit and while it still worked fine after the button collapse, tracking just as it always has, I suspect that this created a gap for water to get in and zap everything to heck and back.
I looked into replacing my deceased device, but apparently Fitbit quietly stopped making the One awhile back. Local stores don’t stock it. The closest replacement is the Fitbit Zip, which only tracks steps and is shaped a bit like a watch, sans strap. But I have my Apple watch now for tracking and it’s on my wrist where it more easily guilts me into meeting my goals (see here for more), so I think I’ll just stick to the one device.
I feel a bit silly killing the Fitbit One like this, but I appreciate the slight de-cluttering of the technology in my life.
There is no positive way to spin these (fat) figures, but I will offer a few caveats:
I was sick for the last week of the month and did no exercise, ate about the same and was generally slothful during this time
um, that’s about it. I was going to say I had fewer days this month to lose weight, but I also had fewer days to gain weight, but I managed the latter handily
On the bright side, I did manage to remain donut-free and reduced my general snack intake. I obviously did not eliminate it, as the numbers below attest. I did slow the rate of weight gain, which will be a nice precursor to actual weight loss…this month. Yes, this month. March is Weight Loss Month. Slim is in. Svelte is the new black.
February 1: 164.9 pounds February 28: 167.5 pounds (+2.2 pounds for the month)
Year to date: From 162.3 to 167.5 pounds (up 5.2 pounds)
And the body fat:
January 1: 18.5% (30.2 pounds of fat)
February 28: 19% (32 pounds of fat–up 1.8 pounds)
This one bugs me because it just seems so random and out of the blue. Friday I was fine, Friday night I was sick.
This same sequence happened where I felt fine all day Friday and in the evening my throat had that telltale scratchiness. Unlike then, this one doesn’t seem random at all because I have been surrounded by other sick people lately, including several at work. I powered through a two-day workshop on Monday and Tuesday as it was too late to reschedule, but to my dismay actually felt worse instead of better on Tuesday. Today, upon waking early in the morning I could feel the cold nestled deep in my chest like the chest burster from Alien and opted to stay home. I like to think this is me being generous and saving fellow co-workers, among others, from experiencing the same mild agony of sneezing, running nose, sore throat and so on, but it’s really me just wanting to curl up and nap and imagine how wonderful it is to feel healthy and how can I possibly take it for granted again after being so sick? Which I will inevitably do, because that’s just the way our brains work.
My hope is that I will feel peppy enough to return to work tomorrow. My fear is that I will rank a smidgen too low on the peppy scale and be faced with choosing between a) feeling like poop but going in anyway and risk spreading my illness around or b) staying home, feeling guilty about how I feel like poop but knowing I could probably shuffle, zombie-like, through the work day somehow, especially if I loaded up on handy cold remedies first.
Today, though, the level of guilt I felt in staying home was a big fat zero. I also had very strange dreams in the morning when I’d normally be up that included:
some strange medieval setting that was a quasi-musical with a knight lamenting in song about always having to fight
another person lamenting about something where he repeated the same word three times but I can’t recall the word now, dang it
the scenery was this weird pastoral plain that felt like it was at the top of a mountain, with giant redwood-like trees that didn’t render properly until you got right next to them. Yes, it was like being in a video game with poor drawing distance.
I think there may have been fighting, but it was bloodless from what I can remember
there were other dreams that were sufficiently weird that I can only remember them being sufficiently weird
All that and I did not take NyQuil first, as I’d run out a day earlier. I’m getting more tonight and look forward to what my subconscious will present to me.
And I hope I feel at least better tomorrow. Seeing the activity rings on my watch go unfilled makes me sad.
Friday during lunch the college closed early due to snow and everyone got to start the weekend early. I was home by 2:30 p/m/ and safely tucked inside from all the snow. Yay.
Friday evening I felt that telltale tickle in my throat that said “Yep, you’re getting sick–probably that thing that knocked out a co-worker for a few days.”
Late Friday the tickle becomes more of a barb and I seek solace in a bottle of NyQuil. It mostly works.
I think about going to the Canada Games Pool on Saturday. It’s not that bad, I think. I can do it. I go to the store and earn about half my exercise goal (30 minutes) on the watch Activity app. That wasn’t so bad, I think, though the urge to nab has arisen suddenly.
I have a nice bubble bath. I nap. I do not go to the pool.
Today I wake up and the barb is gone or at least sufficiently buried to no longer feel like a bar. My sinuses are stuffed but it’s hard to tell if it’s from my ongoing sinus issues or due to this cold or whatever it is. I again muse over going for a workout. As a bonus, most of the snow has already melted away and the sun is out.
I have another bubble bath. I nap once more.
I do not work out. I give up on meeting my activity goals. Whatever streak I have is ended and I hear a little imaginary sad trombone play.
And now just past 7 p.m. I fight the urge to go to bed early, my strength ebbing away as I type. It’s too early, I think. I need to write. Or read. Or explore my vast Steam backlog. I can’t go to bed, not just because of a little cold.
Tonight I did an elliptical workout at the Canada Games Pool and it was a good, sweaty half hour in which I burned 336 calories. The bonus, as always, is being able to look down at a bevy of people with actual swimmers builds. One guy was helping with a young children’s swimming lesson and at first I thought he was sucking in his stomach. But he wasn’t. It was just so flat that it actually curved in instead of out.
My stomach does not curve in.
Also I ate a bowl of Chocolate Cheerios today. They were delicious.
As I watched ol’ inwardly curved stomach guy teach small children how not to drown (a skill I still have yet to fully master) I thought about how well my weight loss is going in this early part of 2018–I’m at 167.2 pounds and 18.9% body fat, both up from this time last year and up from pretty much all of last year–and consider the balance between exercise and snacking.
I am still exercising. This is good.
I am still snacking. This is not as good.
I am exercising less regularly. This is not really good. When combined with the snacking, the results are obvious: fat, and plenty of it.
The solution, then, is to cut down on my snacking. I lost about 40 pounds by changing my diet in 2008. Maybe I can do the same for the 10 year anniversary, Except I don’t want to lose 40 pounds because I’m still 20 pounds lighter than 2008 me, so a 40 pound loss would result in me being “tumbled down the street by a strong gust of wind” light.
But can I reduce my snacking? I’ve remained donut-free so far, but I’ve pretty much just turned to donut substitutes. Maybe reduction isn’t the answer and elimination is.
And so I pledge here on this blog and to the several people that accidentally stumble across it from time to time, perhaps hoping to find some tasty creole recipes, to go 100% snack-free.
Starting on Saturday.
Why Saturday? It’s a run day and I tend to eat less on run days. Also there are still snacks about so I need tomorrow to figure out what to do with them, even if it means shoving them into my mouth. But no more after Saturday.
I will report back on my inwardly curved stomach progress some time in March.
