No, it's not the long distance race, nor the chocolate bar I'm referring to in the title, but the film. Yes, I had visions of Laurence Olivier flashing through my head last night as I went through two hours of hell at the Dentist. For those of you of nervous disposition, look away now - but I feel compelled to get this down in writing to remind myself of what actually happened.
I arrived in good time, just before 7 pm in the evening - but, realistically this is probably the middle of the night in my body clock time, so I was pretty tired, which probably didn't help matters. Normally, extraction of a tooth involves a bit of pushing and pulling for a few minutes, with a few nasty cracks thrown in for good measure, but this particular extraction took over half an hour! When it was eventually out, I asked him what the problem had been and he said he had tried to be very careful with the extraction and had done it on a "socket preservation" basis. He threw in the fact that dentists in London charge £700 to patients to extract teeth by this method, rather than the normal way!
He wanted to maintain as much good bone integrity as possible, particularly given that my CT scans had clearly shown the abscess had already eaten a hole in the bone in my gums. After the tooth came out he went back in to the cavity with his tools and pulled out what looked like a little red globule - this was the "Eureka" moment for him. This, he said, was the abscess that was eating away at my bone.
Mentally, at this stage I was thinking - phew, that's the nasty stuff out of the way at last. How little did I know. The next stage lasted almost an hour and involved a variety of increasingly larger gauge tools that poked, drilled, hammered and crunched at my gums. I had received a couple of anaesthetic jabs prior to the extraction, but, by now, they were wearing off and the constant hammering away was getting pretty painful. Twice I had to ask for additional anaesthetic, although I was trying to grin and bear it as much as possible.
He finally got the size and shape of the hole he wanted and inserted the main anchor for my implant. We went downstairs to X-ray it, to check it was in properly, and it was at this point I noticed how long it was - almost up to my nasal cavity.
My gums, which had been cut and peeled back for the insertion of the anchor, now had to be stitched up by hand - this was, however, probably the least painful part of the operation. A quick tidy-up and then the crown of the tooth and its protective, holding shield were due to be placed on my gums. He took one look at me however, and, seeing my distress, half suggested we should leave this for now - would I mind having an ugly gap in my teeth for a week? I was barely in a fit state to make a rational decision, but I thought it best to take the hint and leave it for now - I don't think I fancied anything else touching my sore and tender gums and jaw just then anyway.
They were preparing to send me on my way and he then handed me an array of things to take - a week's course of penicillin, regular antiseptic mouthwashes and some heavy duty pain killers. The latter (co-codamol) has to be taken every 6 hours, but he suggested that I also needed to take ibuprofen half way between doses of co-codamol. I guess he realised by now how much pain I was going to be in when the anaesthetics fully wore off.
My usual dentist - not the Oral surgeon who had put the implant in - then appeared, and she could see I was a little distressed. She offered to arrange for a cab to take me home - she said I could leave my car in their car park at the back of the Practice. I decided it was best to just drive home however - I had thought of calling Jo and/or Ross to come and get me, but the thought of waiting another half hour in that hell-hole just put me off.
I got home safely - but to a silent house - nobody awake to welcome or comfort me. Oh well, off to bed then, let's see how long I can sleep. The answer was about 4 hours before the pain became so much I had to get up and take some more pain killers. This seemed to do the trick and I got another 3 hours sleep in before getting up for the day.
I wondered about whether to go to work or not - particularly as it had to be Fraserburgh today - but I decided I had been away too long and should make every effort to get there. So here I am, blogging away in the Broch. So now you want to see the photographs, don't you? Which one do you prefer - outside at the car as I left to go to work, or at lunchtime in my office?
I seem to have been through hell medically in the last few years - I used to think of myself as very fortunate - healthy and fit, seldom seeing a medic - but look at me now - it's just one thing after another - and it's expensive too!
There - that's better - I've got it out of my system now!
One interesting visitor to our canning plant in Fraserburgh was a guy from a film company. Apparently they're planning to make a film that includes scenes in a fish canning plant, and he wanted to look over ours, as they're considering building a replica at Pinewood Studios for the filming. We understand Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter may be involved, so Michael spent some time with the guy trying to persuade him to film it on location when our factory closes for the summer shutdown. Wouldn't that be something - Johnny Depp in the Broch!
Last one for today is the memento Kelly got from our Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb - a different view from the one I've got:
