Dental emergency

Oh FFS! Why the bloody hell does everything medical thing have to be some crisis for me? Anyway.....

Sleeping well, woke up middle of the night and OMG the fuckin pain. Was awake for 2 hours tossing and turning. Why the tooth went from pretty much OK to intense unbearable pain between the time I went to sleep and the early hours of the morning is a mystery. This is the tooth the dentist had put a full on proper filling in it after drilling out the old one, and giving the thing a chance to settle down. There had been a big chunk of tooth chipped off a while ago. And it had settled down, bugger all pain, the next step being to put a cap on it. The cap appt was tomorrow after work. However I didn't quite make it there, that appt overshadowed by today and canceled. 

In the night and the morning when I woke up after somehow falling back to sleep after the 2 hours of BS pain, I was on the verge of not going to work. Fuck it was really fuckin hurting. But hey it was only my head, not like I was physically impaired otherwise. And I'd had Monday off sick. So I went to work, got up, had coffee, fed the cat, and went to work.

Got there after the bus and all, and saw a notice on the wall next to the workers entrance about a union meeting in the cafeteria at 7am. WTF? I only get the early bus to get coffee before work, starting at 7:30. Today the bus was a bit late. By the time I'd gotten into the cafeteria it was 10 past 7. Bleary eyed I went to the cappuccino machine and blathered to the guy behind the counter that I wasn't even awake and WTF were they having a union meeting so early? By that time it was 7:15. I had well missed the vote. 

The vote was asking about what to do next; we are in negotiations for the next Enterprise Bargaining Agreement (EBA). Another 3 year one. We are unanimous to go on strike if the management doesn't give us an agreement worth signing. We have given them a big nudge by threatening a strike, and they have offered in response something more reasonable. But still unacceptable to us. They have offered a 3% wage rise over each of the next 3 years, but the inflation rate here is currently 3.8%. So we have to have that or we're in effect getting a wage cut in real terms. We're asking for 4.5%. Also because the old EBA ran out in Jan, we should have had our wage rise since then. We are asking for full back pay of the wage rise to Jan. The company was offering nothing of that, but with the threat of strike action has offered us 6 weeks back pay. Only 6 weeks is unacceptable. It must be full back pay. We (through the union) started negotiations well before Jan and it has been management fucking us around.

I listened to all this in agreement (got the balance off a workmate afterwards). Took a sip of my coffee. OMG the pain in my tooth! Whole side of my head was hurting! It felt like a terrible inner ear infection. Started sweating even though it was cool in the cafeteria. Decided then to ring the dentist in a bit from work. Fuck it was such intense pain. Recalled decades before when I was much younger and getting full on migraines. This pain was well up to that level. And I hadn't taken any painkillers at all. 

Rang on the mobile at 8am and got a 3pm appt. It's a private dentist that I've been going to since I got the thing through Medicare for the free dental. He was a bit reluctant to bulk bill at first (so I pay nothing) as the rates are so much less than what he normally charges. But he was happy to bulk bill me after I told him if he didn't I'd go elsewhere. The PLC (Positive Living Centre) had already given me the names ad addresses of local dentists who bulk billed. 

But anyway, so he knows me and we're very friendly, and fit me in. Told work I had to leave early. The immediate supervisor I could tell didn't believe me, like I was milking my sickness too much. That really pissed me off. After all the willpower and shit I went through to get myself back to work, and she's having a silent "I don't believe you" thing over the dentist. I told the dentist about it and the nurse there gave me a full on letter for work saying I had to go to an emergency dental appt. Fuck them.

So they took the x-ray and it showed  a full on abscess. The nerves infected, and under the roots puss. He drilled out the nerves, put antibiotic crap in, and put a temporary filling in; the first stage of a root canal. I go back next Friday for stage 2. 

This seems all trivial to me. Meh... whatever.... Even the pain seemed trivial. I was sort of proud of myself after it all though. I actually went to work, without any painkillers, and worked most of the day (until my appt was due) with an abscess. But really, meh..... WTF is this compared to my recent dances with death?