Ouch! - But still not smoking!

So today I went to the County Health Department Dentist to see if he could make me feel any better. He didn't. He scared me. He wasn't clean shaven. His solution to my problem would have been to pull my tooth. He didn't feel confident that he could do a root canal on it because the nerve is so calcified.

I am not ready to lose a tooth. I can't afford a "flipper" to replace it. I can't afford a root canal. I'm screwed.

The County Dentist agreed to give me some antibiotics, pain meds, and referrals to two private dental practices. I paid $44 for the visit and high-tailed it out of there.

First stop was Walgreen's, where I was told I would receive a discount on my prescriptions. It would have been about $20 for the drugs, but I opted to go to Target. I didn't go to Target right away, though.

I went to see my usual dentist to tell him what had happened. I had a copy of my X-ray, so Dr. Tom looked at it. He confirmed what the County Dentist said almost verbatim, so I know the guy's not a quack. Thing is, I still can't afford the root canal, and Dr. Tom seemed unwilling to work with me on the price. Times are tough all over. Dr. Tom suggested that I go to an area Dental College and see if they will do the work for me at a good price.

So I called the Dental School, but there's a whole process that will have to be started tomorrow morning between 8:30am and 9:30am. We'll have to see what happens.

My plan is to try to save the tooth because I just can't handle starting on a journey that I've been expecting to happen, but not quite this soon; becoming a toothless, white-trash wonder.

I've known that this was a probable eventuality for me considering my financial circumstances and insurances' reluctance to cover dentures, etc. Well, I was thinking maybe by the time I was in my middle sixties. I was not thinking that I would be facing this decision at 51. I'm seriously bummed.

It's vanity, though. It's just vanity. Or is it? How can I work in an office with missing teeth? Who will hire me? They won't hire me now, so what makes me think that anyone will hire me if what looks I have are spoiled by missing teeth? Makes me want to cry again.

So that's that. I've got antibiotics and pain meds from Target. I've done some long over-due grocery shopping, and now I'm blogging about my experience. BB has offered to go in halvsies on my replacement tooth. Yes, that made me laugh and cry all at once. It's called a "flipper." Whatever.

This is my first day of not smoking in quite a while, and I'm handling this day pretty well, actually. Have only wanted a cigarette twice that I can recall. Kind of a knee jerk thing when I was sitting at the computer. Other than that, the patch is working very well.

The patch is working so well today and worked so well yesterday that I went ahead and bought the whole series of patches for quitting. I've got six weeks worth of the first level and then one box each of levels two and three. All in all, the patches cost 1/3 the price of the number of cigarettes that would get me through the same time period. Besides, they were on sale at $15 off each box, so Whoo-Hoo! I'm set.

So, I'm going to pray, visualize, and meditate on my tooth. With the help of "the powers that be", I'm going to focus on healing my tooth; so that, I don't have to have all this dental work done now. We'll see what happens.

I'm also going to seriously start praying, visualizing, and meditating on some other much more important things in my life. I like the not smoking thing. It seems like just one more step on my path towards a better life. We'll see if I'm right. I choose to believe that I am. My life and my childrens' lives are all about weathering the storm and pulling through these days. We are stronger than we know. It's still quite a trial. I have to choose to believe that we will all pull through it. I have to believe that justice will prevail. If I don't believe these things, what's the point of going on? The heartbreak would and will be almost too much to bear.

For now, though; what I really know is that I don't want to be a toothless wonder. I mean, I like the character in the movie, but I don't want to become Toothless. Besides, Toothless had retractable teeth. I don't think that's what I would have.

That's it, Folks. I'm going to bed to rest. "Big Bang Theory" is on!