Went to the the dentist today, still trying to fix all the holes in my teeth. Yay for getting older? Filled two cavities, got home, and my jaws started to feel like someone had pounded nails into them, then the left side of my face swelled up like a balloon. I couldn't sleep and was in a good deal of pain. So instead of having supper, I slept for nine or ten hours.

It still aches and it is still swollen.

I had that odd vampire dream again, where the vampires kill our prized and loved race/show horse, then come for our family because they noticed ME poking around. They're too fast to stop, or hit, or shoot, or protect yourself from. There's just no defeating them. I know the last time I had this dream, something interceded on our behalf and saved us, but the dream ended before we got that far this time and I can't remember what.

I'm actually wondering now if I have actually had that dream before? I was sure I had immediately afterward, and now not so much so.

I had a second dream that I did not recall until just now when I walked into the bathroom and looked at the seat cushion I'd been trying to dry (I have no clue how that triggered this memory): someone withdrew more-than-half the funds out of my savings account, and would have gotten all of them, except my bank's suspicious activity monitor kicked in and prevented any more withdrawals, transfers, etc. So I was freaking out trying to figure out who had hacked my bank account.

Interestingly, I've noted many of my dreams take place in the same set-piece areas, even if the dreams are wholly different. This dream took place, at least in part, in the scary representative basement of my parent's house as it was when I was growing up, in the south section.

In my next dream, I was working a table at a childrens' carnival fund-raiser being held inside a school. Some lady dropped off a bag of treats and we noticed a bomb at the bottom of the bag. So I saved a school full of children from a terrorist bomb by getting everyone out and making sure everyone was out later, including snotty, sneering, cynical, stupid teenagers hanging out at the school's arcade. And then making sure none of the buses dropped any more kids off at the school.

Also, this was amusing: What Would Jesus NOT Do? and the Religion 101: Final Exam. Much of which is sadly true, and my father threw a fit when I asked him questions about some of these sorts of things when I was a kid because they didn't make sense to me.

So glad my gods aren't omnipotent or omniscient and don't have silly problem issues like this.

Wanna know what I did today?

I know you don't give a fig, but too bad, I'm going to tell you anyways!

I spent three hours in a dentist's chair being stabbed, poked, drilled, and picked!

That doesn't sound too bad?

Let me put it this way: I had a root canal. Not one of the usual kinds, not one of the typical root canals that you can nap through because you don't feel anything and is nothing at all like the horror-stories of pain, suffering, and oral torture of a root canal gone bad like I'm now telling you about. No. I couldn't be that lucky.

First off, I'm not one of those folks who is at all scared of or terrified by the dentist. I've never had a bad or painful experience at the dentist. Normally, I sit down and say, "Drill me, doc!" and twenty very boring minutes later I have a new filling. The dentist is awesome.

I figured more-or-less the same in this case, even though it was the dreaded "root canal" (yet I figure people exaggerate and that the horror-stories aren't typical, especially given the dentist assured me painful root canals are not a typical experience).

And I use the local dental school for my work -- my insurance covers it AND it has openings for patients: I win twice -- and who wouldn't like being leaned over by cute, smart girls for an hour? I win moar. So I have no reason not to go or be afraid or dislike the concept. It's just a root canal. Whatever.

By the end, I had been given something like eight shots of various numbing agents, with about four of those directly to the nerves involved. Ever had a needle plugged right into your nerve?

Ever spent three hours in a dentist's chair having your nerve endings shredded bit-by-bit because they won't go numb? While trying to to keep your head still and not clench your teeth when the nerve gets pinged and drilled, because that would just make things so much worse?

I had a white knuckled grip on the dentist's chair EVEN WHEN IT WASN'T HURTING, because I knew it was going to any moment. They had to stop a few times so I could lower my ass and legs back into the chair, or to suck down a big breath of glorious oxygen. Because you stop breathing. I shit you not

So you're in incredible pain AND you suddenly find you need oxygen because your body is more focused on having your lower extremities escape-the-pain-via-levitation than worrying about breathing.

At around the two hour mark, I decided and stated "Forget the anesthetic, just get the damn nerve out!" and repeated it a couple times to re-assure the dentist I could deal with the pain, I just wanted this over with as quickly as possible. Though it probably sounded more like, "Forgeh eh awahlehwa, jesh geh eh amn erve owh!" because its hard to talk when you have a sheet of plastic wrapped over your mouth, a mouth which is full of drooly spit and half your face and tongue and-at-this-point-scalp are numb.

All this, and they couldn't drill the last bit of nerve. I nearly leapt out of the chair when they tried to take it out via manual pick, so they poured more medicine into my tooth and sealed it up to try and kill the nerve for the next time, when I have to go back to have the process finished.

I'm told I shouldn't feel anything next time, given that the tiny bit of the nerve that's left will almost certainly be dead due to the chemicals they packed the tooth with. Ok, I'll believe them because I've never before had a painful experience at the dentist.

When I got home, I was exhausted and sore; I took two ibuprofen and slept for eight hours. And Jen says I still smell like a dentist's office; I figure eventually I will finish sweating out all the anesthesia drugs and whatnot.

Oh. And I can still taste the dentist's office in my nose. Yes. TASTE in MY NOSE.