Circuit Breaker

I submit to yet another round of dental experts for my dental woes. From dentist, to oral surgeon, to home. I blunder into the house to grab my next fix of Ibrupofen.
“Ah! Didn’t go so well then? How can you swallow those things without water?”
“Practice.”
“So what’s the conclusion? Actually, don’t tell me until I’ve sat down.” He nips into the sitting room to flop on the sofa. I stand over him with an expression. “Ooo does it hurt that bad?” He sits back upright again to hide his head in his hands, “o.k. I’m ready.”
“Well the oral surgeon was cock a hoop.”
“Oh?”
“Implants are a super success, nothing to worry about there.”
“Great! So what’s up really?”
“I’m not sure. I’ll have to go back to the dentist. He had all kinds of theories but I can only remember the most interesting one.”
“Which was?”
“Something about nerves and spasms and splints. I wasn’t really listening.”
“Must have been a bit of a shock?”
“Yes. So although it’s ongoing agony, it’s also short term easily fixed agony.”
“Well that’s good to know.”
“So are they going to put a splint on your teeth?”
“Er…..I’m not sure. He thought I might have had a muscle spasm during surgery, so my bite’s off. Something to do with pre-programming the muscles……maybe it was re-programming the muscles? I didn’t know that you could teach muscles to do anything anyway.”
“Re-programming………”
“Yes……odd isn’t it………”
“You’re going to be re-programmed……..........…do you think they take requests?”
“!”

Circuit Breaker

https://alien-in-a-foreign-field.blogspot.com/2008/11/circuit-breaker.html

California Dreaming

I present myself in the "dental office" together with my heavy heart and a fake cheesy grin. I decide not to think about the "teeth nightmare."

Instead I study a group of recipes so that I can figure out if any of them will make cardoon acceptable to my "children’s palettes."

I’m in two minds about signing up for the "weekly organic box" of vegetables. On the one hand this presents the opportunity to grab a little healthy nutrition, support local growers, reduce our carbon footprint, get in touch with nature. On the other hand I have a fridge full of rotting produce to transfer to the compost heap. The death nell comes as they call my name. I submit to the summons.

I greet the dental surgeon agreeably and we exchange niceties whilst he prods my jaw with two 12 inch long Q-tips. He pauses, knuckles on hips, my moment of salvation, “I don’t normally bore people with my dreams but I need to tell you about my dream last night!” I burble.
“Nooo you’re dreaming about me now?”
“Yes, you are my own personal nightmare.”
“Oh come on!”
“Well, it went like this………I came to your office and you said “hi Madeline, whilst you were asleep I did another x-ray and do you know what? Something incredible has happened! Although your jaw rejected the implants, now it’s accepted them and all the bones have grown back. You are a medical miracle. I’ve never seen anything like it. I’m going to write you up in the medical journal….’…….so if you’d like to do the decent thing and tell me that my dream has come true, that would just be all fine and dandy.”
“Fine and dandy?”
“Yup.”
“Well……I must say, it does look as if the bone has in-filled.”
“In-filled? You mean grown back! I am a medical miracle!”
“Well not exactly a medical miracle.”
“Ooo but I am. First I was a reject and now I’m a bone grower!”
“Er well, that is what was supposed to happen in the first place.”
“I know, but it didn’t and now it has, so now I am a medical miracle.”
“Geez Madeline.”
“It’s true. You just need to say it out loud so that I can hear it.”
“Well I can’t really because it’s more of a spontaneous reversal.”
“Write it down then so that I can read it, no….....that’s too permanent, you’ll just have to say it, I won’t tell anyone…….......honest!”
“Madeline!”
“Yes?”
“I want you to go home now and bite something, just for me.”

Now I think that is something I might do!






Meanwhile, in my other "life" it might be fair to say that perhaps "maternal anxiety" is in part caused, or exacerbated by the challenges of autism?

California Dreaming

https://alien-in-a-foreign-field.blogspot.com/2008/04/california-dreaming.html

No Bravery Awards around here

I leave the dentist in a flurry with my brand new retainer in my hot little hand, or rather my mouth, which isn’t particularly hot.

What should have been a quick one minute ‘pick up the retainer’ visit with three children in tow, turned into a ‘lets just see how you’re healing and poke around a bit’ ordeal. [translation = certain cowardly people need to be mentally prepared before permitting access to a dental professional ]

I carry enough dental paraphanlia to set up my own Walgreens. [translation = Chemist] My brain has managed to absorb all essential information to maintain the wellbeing of the temporary implants, with one exception.
“Use this extra special, very expensive, super duper rinse to prevent infection.” She waggled a tiny little blue sachet before my un-bifocaled eyes.
“I can’t get to chemist today, what should I use instead?”
“Oh, just use the salt water rinse.” [translation = tap water with a bit of salt added]
“What about the risk of infection?”
“Oh you’ll be just fine.”

This is the mini conversation that runs back and forth through my empty head as I concentrate upon containment of small people in the car for the return journey. Super duper versus salt water? Who wins? The bank balance or the health bank? Junior chants in the back seat, just to remind me, “swish not spit, swish not spit, swish not spit.” I am uncertain how he managed to overhear this piece of dental advice, but he mimicks the dentist’s dulcet tones to perfection. [translation = echolalia] Since my mental health is very valuable to me, I could do without the constant dental reminders.

Another ditty fights for attention. This ditty is worse than the one that it is latched on to; ‘it will bleed but don’t worry.’ This worrying ditty causes severe mental anguish to my rapidly dwindling brain capacity. [translation = if I could just shrink it to the size of a pickled walnut, then there wouldn’t be enough room for such thoughts]

It is not until much later, [translation = child free] that I set about the task at hand. [translation = clean the area of the dental implants] I clutch my baby soft dental brush in my hot little hot. [translation = not particularly little but definitely hot now] I place myself in front of the mirror and do mental gymnastics to prepare my poor little eyes for the carnage in my mouth. I have a brilliant idea and remove the bifocals to cloud the view. I am too squeamish to peek. I decide that this equivalent to asking my right hand to chop my left hand with a meat cleaver. [translation = a] I am right handed and b]I am a coward] I debate whether sunglasses might help? I drop the brush in the sink and run off to do something more interesting instead.

The evening twilight has turned to murky blackness by the time I have finished the laundry, washing up, slicked the floor and attended to the door handles in every room in the house. I stand in the middle of the kitchen determining whether to clean the oven, wash all the windows or rewash the floor with a nail brush? Spouse appears. “Ready for bed then?”
“Almost.”
“You’ve done it then?”
“Ooo yes, almost done, completely everything, nearly,” I reply with my honest face beaming.
“And the teeth?” [translation = implants]
“Just getting there, almost, nearly.”
“Don’t want to get an infection do we?” he beams merrily. I am sorely tempted to stick my baby soft toothbrush somewhere that I shouldn’t.
“Oh yes, absolutely, of course.” I examine the garbage disposal unit. There must be loads of mucky stuff down there that could do with a good clean out. It would only take me a few minutes. I could have it sparkling in under half an hour. I discover that spouse is reading my brain.
“That’ll wait until tomorrow you know?”
“What will?”
“Cleaning the garbage disposal unit, and anyway, household appliances don’t get infections, at least not ones that can be cleared up with antibiotics!” I pull a face, how can I be so transparent? [translation = demoted from ‘woman of mystery’]
“Shall I wait for you?” [translation = stand close by in an excessively irritating manner and watch]
“No, no. You go on up. I’ll be there directly.”
“I don’t mind waiting,….in case……..er…..you feel a bit……um…..”
“Faint?”
“Yes, that’s the word, faint, in case you feel faint, or are faint, or you know….fall over.” I pause, wondering if I should take precautionary measures? [translation = clean underwear in case the paramedics come to call] Is it nine, nine, nine or nine, nine, one? [translation = emergency services on either side of the pond]
I try not to visualize myself and my spouse, in the smallest toilet on the planet, where one of us faints, so that we lie in a tangled mess on the floor, clutching a blood stained baby soft toothbrush.
“I’ll be back in a minute! Wait right there!” I call over my shoulder.
“Where are you going?”
“Pop your cell phone in your pocket, I need to nip off and nab some new knickers now!”

There again, I think I have more than enough drama in the rest of my life over "here."

No Bravery Awards around here

https://alien-in-a-foreign-field.blogspot.com/2007/08/no-bravery-awards-around-here.html