Yesterday I cracked a tooth. Not just a little chip, but cracked a premolar in two. It seems that the larger piece is also no longer attached to the root and I think I'm going to end up with a crown at best, or an implant at worst. One small blessing is that it's not painful, so I can wait until tomorrow to see the dentist in relative comfort. The reason for the lack of pain is the root canal treatment I had done in November last year, during the second month of my pregnancy.
This was part of the hell fortnight I had last year.
It involved morning sickness, two jobs, a root canal, an ear infection, a sick cat, a bout of gastro and an uncomfortable fungal infection.
It started with the pregnancy. I must have been about seven weeks along and all day sickness had kicked in. Nausea from the moment I woke until the moment I fell asleep again, vomiting a few times a day and just generally feeling tired and crappy, as is common in early pregnancy. So I munched dried crackers and fruit and sipped water to manage it as best I could. I had morning sickness with the Bright Spark as well, but this was a little worse and coming at the end of a busy school year. Fortunately classes were winding up and my contact hours with students were decreasing so I was able to snack at will to manage the nausea.
This was one of the reasons for the second job. I had decided after 9 years of teaching final year Biology I really should get some experience with external exam marking. Our university bound students sit an exam at the end of each of their courses, known as the Western Australian Certificate of Education Exams (WACE Exams). The results of these exams contribute to their university entrance score, the Australian Tertiary Entrance Rank (ATAR), so they're the stressful culmination of a year of hard study for our year 12 students. It's considered excellent professional development to have some experience marking the exams and it was something I'd been meaning to do for a few years so I applied in June before I was pregnant and had received a position as a marker in early October, also before I was pregnant. But between saying I would participate and the actual exam being sat I had sunken into the fatigue and nausea of early pregnancy. But I could still do two jobs at once as well as being a mother and house wife. The Husband would pitch in more for a couple of weeks and the Bright Spark would spend a few extra hours in childcare, but the money would help out around Christmas and it would be a good career move for me. A few small sacrifices for some gain. So I attended the three hour Friday night session to learn the marking key with a bag of dried fruit and crackers and at all started well.
That Saturday night I developed a bit of a tooth ache. I thought I'd hurt my gum and was developing a bit of in infection, something that had happened a couple of times during my pregnancy with the Bright Spark. I turned down the Husband's offer to do a midnight run to the chemist but as the night wore on and the pain got worse I was beginning to think there might be more to it than just sore gums. After an early morning run to a chemist for codine and booking an emergency appointment with a dentist I was diagnosed with a root canal infection and the first stage of root canal treatment was done. This was the start of several days of pain followed by another root canal treatment. In the middle of this I was also diagnosed with an ear infection which had followed a head cold from the previous week. Now the pain from an inner ear infection can be pretty uncomfortable, but coupled with the pain of the root canal infection and treatment I was in agony for a couple of days. It was, however, at this point that I decided I could do natural childbirth. If I could handle this pain pushing out a baby would be a walk in the park. So I took as much paracetamol and codine as was safe and pushed though. Eventually the pain subsided, the antibiotics did their job and I could walk around without every step sending shooting pain through my jaw. I did a few hours marking and even managed to turn up to work for one day that week.
Then came the sick cat. Actually the cat had been a point of concern for a few weeks and things weren't improving. Dippy, our little feral from Carnarvon, was not doing well, showing signs of respiratory distress and off her food. She'd lost a bit of weight over the previous few months while we'd been distracted by miscarriage and new pregnancy and now after a week on medication she was doing no better. We made the decision to have her euthanased after a series of tests. We said goodbye to another beloved pet. She was a quiet little tortishell with a bob tail, probably from an injury sustained as a kitten. She was an untouchable fascination to the Bright Spark and "Dippy" was one of his first words. We used this as a chance to give him a lesson about death, letting him pat her after she had passed away. This was the first time he had really been able to lay hands on her and after a vigorous pat good bye and an explanation that mum was sad because Dippy had died and gone to heaven, while carefully dodging the words "gone to sleep" we left her at the vet.
I negotiated to reduce the number of exams I would mark and with the help of my colleagues at school I managed to complete final weeks of term and see my students to their exams. I was sad at losing Dippy, relieved that the root canal treatment was done for now and almost finished my antibiotics. Then came another hit. Gastro.
When our son spent his first winter in daycare he experienced many colds and had a runny nose for most of winter. We became experts at diagnosing colds in their early stages and using steamy showers to help clear a stuffy little nose became part of our bedtime routine. We thought colds were pretty bad and went out of our way to avoid kids who were symptomatic in an effort to reduce our viral load. We were relieved when spring arrived and the Bright Spark's nose dried up after months. Things were looking up. Until gastro struck.
Gastroenteritis is a blanket term used to describe a range a bacterial and viral infections that cause nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea. They also cause mummy fatigue, washing over load and daddy downfall in our house. You see when the Husband gets gastro he goes down like he's been shot. He vomits uncontrollably, dehydrates quickly and requires home visits from doctors to have shots of anti-nausea medication into his bum. It's pretty nasty for him. The first time the Bright Spark had it we had to take a trip to the hospital for rehydration. We also managed to share it with his Nana and Aunt, all over the hectic Christmas period. So the first signs of diarrhoea and nausea send us to battle stations.
The bout of gastro that hit me during the hell fortnight was, fortunately, relatively mild and required a few days off work to rest and hydrate. I was already nauseous and tired from pregnancy, I was happy to take a few more days off work to put my feet up and focus on drinking electrolyte solutions. It was thought that the antibiotics had probabl started it and it passed pretty quickly. Then came the final blow.
As they had interfered with my gut flora, the antibiotics for my ear infection had also interfered with the fine balance in other parts of my anatomy and I developed thrush for the first time in years. So now I could add itchy and sore to tired and nauseous. I was also a little over worked too. After another trip to the chemist and the application of some soothing cream "down there" I powered through the finally hundred exam questions and beat the deadline for completion of marking. I also managed to turn up to work a few more days and get though the pile of marking from my teaching job. The year was coming to a rapid end and I had survived a complicated and exhausting fortnight.
I was booked to have the final part of my root canal treatment completed six weeks after my son is due. Unfortunately the oat bar I was snacking on yesterday had other plans for my poor tooth and now I await tomorrows appointment to find out what will become of it. After years of good dental health it seems that pregnancy, and muesli bars, have once again taken their toll on my teeth. So fingers crossed for tomorrow's trip to the dentist and lets hope I don't go into labour in the next 24 hours. I don't really want to be able to do a direct comparison of the pain of dental treatment against the pain of labour.
Postscript; After 26 months I am just about to recieve the crown for my implant to replace the tooth I lost while pregnant with the little Prince. It has been a long journey, but in two days my smile will finally be complete again!
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