Pain...

Oh, its been a week and a half I can tell you! Remember I had the gum issue just before tripping off to St Lucia? Well it came back with a vengeance about 2 weeks ago. It began with a dull ache over the weekend and rose to excruciating pain on the Monday.

Now the Monday was not the best of days. Our leadership conference was beginning and we needed last minute alts to the communications approval....and the man who approves them was en-route somewhere in the US with his blackberry switched off. Plus, my counterpart in the US was in doctors appointments but doing her best to get hold of him and keep me informed. We got within 30 minutes of having to pull the extra people off the bus and telling them they couldn't go to the first event. Instant grey hairs all around! Then came the saga of trying to send me the approval... She sent it. I didn't get it. She tried again. Again nothing. This went on until about 8:30pm when someone else managed to send me it. It turns out that their firewall didn't like one of the delegates surnames as it contained the word "cock". How very puritanical! In this day and age that barely is worth raising an eyebrow about! Even the BBC allow their presenters to use it. Top Gear episodes would be a good few minutes shorter in fact!

So after all of this palaver I was tired. I think I sent my last work email about 9:30, took a painkiller and staggered through to the sitting room so say hello to Stephen who was still burning our CD's onto a hard disk. About 10pm I headed for bed as I could barely keep my eyes open, only to find that I couldn't sleep due to the sudden escalation of pain from pretty damn sore to completely excruciating. On the point of tears at about 1am I got up and came downstairs to read my book and wait until I felt I could take another painkiller. I went to bed about 2:30am for a few fitful hours of sleep. Honestly, I can say that this was the worst pain I've ever experienced. I could have undergone root canal work without anaesthetic and not felt more. I can't compare it with childbirth, not having experienced it - but at least they give you gas and air during that!!

Thank goodness I managed to get an appointment with my dentist for that afternoon. He gave me more antibiotics - double strength this time, and again with the warning that alcohol was a bad idea (projectile vomiting etc). OMG! These were horse pills compared to the previous lot! I am not good at taking tablets and getting these over 3 times a day was a struggle. On more than one occasion I choked it back up and ended up with a rapidly dissolving tablet in my hand, which made it harder to swallow as by now it tasted foul. They also knocked me sideways. You push and push to keep going, but on Saturday I couldn't do any more. I felt sick all the time and so tired. I pulled out of the footie BBQ and slept on the sofa for most of Saturday and Sunday. I was so happy to finish the course of antibiotics on Tuesday. I was not so happy that there was still some achiness in my jaw. Back to the dentist...

Its better than it was, but not entirely healed so I'm now on another course of antibiotics. These ones (he warned) can give you an upset tummy. Joy! I explained about the problem swallowing of the tablets and so he's given me medicine! I am now feeling about 5 years old with my bottle of bright yellow medicine. It tastes foul. Of course it does. But a spoonful of sugar really does help the medicine go down. Or a square of chocolate. Or a couple of Starbursts....! I woke yesterday with less of a disgusting taste in my mouth...don't get me wrong my tongue is still a yellow shag pile carpet and there is still germ warfare going on in there, but it was less disgusting than it had been!

I've now been off the booze for 2 weeks. I am going to be such a cheap date by the time I finish this course of antibiotics. A mere sniff of alcohol and I'll be frightfully tight!