Tag Archives: Me

A tooth for a tooth.

I try to keep things as broadly interesting as possible here, whether I’m reviewing books or movies or writing about writing. Today, though, I’m going to tell you a story about a tooth. You may find it worth your while or you may not, but it’s on my mind and I have to put this somewhere before I go nutzoid.

The last time I went in for a dental cleaning, I was told that one of my teeth was chipped. They didn’t tell me which one, exactly, only that it was back there a ways. The dentist asked me if I’d been grinding my teeth, to which I told her no, I didn’t think so. And that was that.

A couple of months later my tongue was roving around in my mouth the way it’s wont to do and I encountered a sharp edge on one of my molars. I immediately thought back to the chipped tooth and I thought maybe it had splintered more and what I was feeling was a shard of tooth. I made an appointment to go in and they saw me almost immediately.

Anyway, they had me sitting around for an hour and even took an x-ray, and finally the dentist saw me. She poked around back there and said, “That’s just the natural outcropping of the tooth. I’ll bring it down a little.”

Now understand that I didn’t get exactly what “bring it down a little” would entail, but she’s the dentist and she knows stuff about teeth, so I wasn’t too worried. It’s only when she brought out a tool and started grinding the edge off that I freaked out a little bit, though I didn’t say anything at the time.

The edge is now gone, and in its place is a little rough patch where the grinder did its work. I keep feeling it with my tongue and every time I do, I get upset all over again.

You see, I have a strange relationship with my teeth. Growing up I had braces twice and I had them again as an adult. I also underwent an excruciating jaw surgery that involved having my jaw broken and reset, a surgery that gave me permanent nerve damage in my face and mouth. In all more than $40,000 has been spent on my mouth, not including the regular dentist visits. You might say that my teeth are the most valuable part of me.

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The eyes have it.

Today I went in for my first eye examination in six years. Yes, I know I’m supposed to have it done every year, but a new prescription invariably means new glasses and new glasses mean extra expense and who needs that? So I let it slide.

I had a couple of concerns going in. One was the fact that I’ve discovered something new and fun about my eyes: when I’m reading fine print through my glasses, I can’t actually make out the letters. Only by removing my glasses can I focus properly on the teeny-tiny figures. This made me think one thing: bifocals, and bifocals are for old people! I’m not old!

My second concern was an area of damage in the white of one of my eyes. Because of prolonged exposure to intense sunlight in my native state of Texas, I got ultraviolet radiation damage to my right eye. It’s presented itself as a tiny cyst that for the most part doesn’t bother me at all, but sometimes becomes irritated and red.

Anyway, I told the ophthalmologist about my problems and she went about inspecting my eyes for cancer or whatever it is that doctors look for when they shine bright lights directly into your brain for what seems like hours at a time. They tell you not to look at the sun, but apparently it’s perfectly all right to pipe blinding artificial light into your eyes.

First things first: the reading issue. It turns out that I may be developing a bit of farsightedness as I get older. I still have myopia (yay me!), so what’s basically happening is that I’m losing the distance and the nearness. The sweet spot for my vision now seems to be about eight inches from my face, which doesn’t seem like a good thing, especially if I lose much more of my nearer vision.

Do I need bifocals? The good news is that I don’t need bifocals. At least, not yet. The doctor told me that I’d likely need them in the next couple of years. Maybe a little longer if my eyes don’t deteriorate as quickly as she expects, but bifocals are going to happen to me sooner or later.

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Sicko

I’m sick. I don’t like it.

Most people don’t like being sick, though I’m sure there are some who do (twisted bastards). My biggest problem when I get sick is that I don’t do the right things to hasten recovery, so I tend to get sick for long periods of time. When you get sick, I was always told, the things to do were: 1) get lots of rest, and 2) drink lots of fluid. I can’t even seem to do that properly, or at least consistently.

Saturday I woke up extremely early — four o’clock in the morning, for those who don’t watch my Twitter feed carefully — and felt like absolute garbage. I had taken a new medication to help me sleep, which failed utterly and also had the side effect of giving me horrid dry-mouth. It also seemed to have affected my sinuses (or so I thought) because I had a terrible sore throat. I was congested and one of my ears was so clogged up I could barely hear out of it.

So what did I do with my day? Stay in bed and drink plenty of orange juice? No, I went out with my son to bowling, took an excursion to the library, went out for lunch and then, later in the day, had a rich meal at a Mexican restaurant. Basically I was active during large chunks of the day and I definitely didn’t get the rest and liquids I needed. Is it any surprise that I still felt bad on Sunday?

Now truth be told, I was feeling slightly better Sunday. I slept late and felt cruddy when I woke up, but at least I had slept and the sore throat hadn’t returned. Because I had learned my lesson, or so I thought, I didn’t go to the grocery store with my wife and confined myself to bed for the day, eating little and drinking steadily.

By evening I wasn’t feeling half-bad. Still sick, for sure, but not at death’s door. My ear had even become mostly unclogged, restoring some of my hearing. To celebrate, I ate a big, rich meal of pizza and followed it up with dessert. Why? Because I’m an idiot.

Now it’s Monday morning. I feel rotten all over again, and if the pattern holds, I will start to feel better as the day progresses until I feel just good enough to do something stupid that will prolong my suffering. I know this will happen, and yet I am as powerless to stop it as I am powerless to stop the sun coming up.

There was a time when I took better care of myself. Ironically it was when I was much younger and my body could stand more abuse. Maybe this is my way of reminding myself again and again that I am not 22 years old and I should stop acting/eating/drinking like one. I only wish I would hurry up and learn the lesson so I can stop being sick, because being sick really blows.

Exercise? No, thank you.

I’m willing lay odds that the most common New Year’s resolution has to do with getting in shape/losing weight. I didn’t make any resolutions this year (I never do), but I am working on my general fitness and weight issues.

Now let’s be clear: I’m not a two-ton behemoth, but I am carrying around about 40 pounds of excess weight that’s not doing my heart any favors. Since last year I’ve peeled off a goodly chunk of fat, partly due to alterations in the medications I take and partly because I’ve been eating better and exercising. I joined a gym around October of last year and I’ve been going semi-regularly. I don’t do weights, or anything like that, but I do sweat it out on the treadmill for about a half an hour.

Here’s the thing: I really hate exercising. I’ve always hated exercising, even when I was young and skinny. Gym class was always my nemesis, what with all the push-ups and sit-ups and other various ups. I never liked running. I never liked playing sports. Generally I was content to sit around eating Cheetos and playing Dungeons & Dragons well into my teen years.

When I hit my twenties, my metabolism began to shift. It was subtle at first, just a couple of extra pounds, but by the time I’d progressed deep into my thirties I was getting up there. I fretted about it, of course, but I didn’t actually change any of my habits; I continued to eat the way I’d always eaten and I avoided exercise like it was the draft.

The thing is, once you’re 40, you start thinking about physical fitness differently. Death no longer seems like an abstraction, but rather something that could strike at any minute. If you’re fit, you’re likely to progress into your 60s without much trouble, but if you’re not… troubled waters lie ahead.

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