Back to roots

A few weeks ago, I had a dental check-up and my dentist was horrified to discover from the x-ray that I had an enormous hole in the side of one of my bottom back molar teeth right at gum level. In the photo above, you can just make out the hole at gum level, where the arrow points to. It begs the question why she had not discovered it before, considering I have annual check-ups usually with an x-ray. Either she had missed it before or it had grown impressively since the last check-up. She was so horrified at the size of the hole that she said her opinion was it would have to be extracted. That would be the third tooth I would have lost in as many years. She was surprised it was causing me no pain. She did mention it might be saved by having root canal work done on it, where they remove the pulp in the tooth and fill it to avoid infection. She would need to first consult her endodontist for their opinion. Unfortunately her endodontist recommended extraction too.

Now at the mention of root canals and endodontists, I informed her that my son-in-law, Darcy,  is an endodontist and I would consult him. His opinion was that he thought the tooth could be saved with root canal work and that my dentist's endodontist lacked the experience and letters after their name to cope with complex cases, whereas Darcy has been doing it for the last 8 years. Darcy is extremely passionate about his work and had received many prizes for his expertise.

Darcy does not work at one dental practice, as no one place has enough customers requiring root canal work for five full days a week, so he works at many practices, maybe one day a week or even one day every two weeks in a wide location of practices. One that he does every week is in Canterbury and he has in the recent past done the boss a favour by doing a root canal procedure on the boss' mum for no charge at all. (Root canals can cost anything from about £1,000 or more). So when he offered to try to save my tooth for free, the boss was happy to return the favour. It meant I had to go down to Canterbury and I decided I would make a small holiday out of it by going down to Canterbury the day before and staying overnight in a hotel just round the corner from the dental surgery, so I could easily be there for the 09.30 appointment the next morning. The alternative was getting up at silly o'clock for a hearty breakfast and leaving London at 06.30 to arrive in Canterbury in time. What with the heatwave and the prospect of a three-hour procedure and not being able to eat for a while afterwards, while the swelling settled, it seemed sensible to make life as easy as possible for me.

I know it seems a little weird having your son-in-law peering into your mouth and doing a procedure, but if it saved the tooth and avoided an extraction, it was worth a try. And it's for free!

I duly travelled down by train to Canterbury on Thursday and tried to do a bit of sightseeing, but it was way too hot and the town was full of raucous teenagers celebrating or commiserating their A-level results.  After a wander to see some of the sights and the amazing old buildings, I scurried back to my hotel for an early evening meal and an early night.

Entrance to the Cathedral grounds

The next day I met up with my son-in-law who did the three-hour procedure to first fill the hole on the side of my tooth and then drill down the roots to remove the pulp and fill them. It was not helped when, towards the end, the suction machine overheated and refused to work, even with several attempts to restart it, so I had to transfer to another room upstairs for the procedure to be finished. So the tooth is saved and I can't wait to tell my usual dentist - maybe she should employ my son-in-law as her endodontist! 

In other news, in an attempt to help Kay weed her garden earlier this week, I managed to rip half my thumbnail off its bed. Long story, but the pain was indescribable and blood everywhere. Kay helped me clean it up and bandage it. A friend commented the next day whether my tetanus vaccines were up to date. I had to fill in an online form with my GP to ask when the last vaccine was and to my horror it was 2009. Within 2 hours of my online form, I had a text message to attend the surgery within the next 45 minutes before the staff went home to get a tetanus booster. My favourite GP did the vaccination which included diphtheria and polio too so I am covered for at least the next ten years.

Melting pot

I have mentioned before that live in a small cul-de-sac with another cul-de-sac off that, so our estate comprises 32 houses. Sixteen of those in the main cul-de-sac are three-storey houses and eight in the second cul-de-sac are two storey. Half have back patios leading out onto one large communal lawn the size of a football pitch on one side of the estate and the other half are have patios leading out onto a second lawn the size of a football pitch on the other side of the estate. Both cul-de-sacs are classed as 'private roads' -in other words, communally we have to upkeep the road surface, drains and lighting ourselves rather then the council providing these services.  Each month the residents pay into a collective fund to pay gardeners to tend to the communal areas, painters to paint the exteriors every five years or so and any other expenditure that is deemed necessary such as tree-surgeon checks, drain clearing, road resurfacing and such like. 

We are quite a closely-knit community and there was a time, when Kay was a little girl and played out on the communal lawns, that I got to know all the other parents and knew almost all of the 32 occupants. How many people can say they know so many of their neighbours anywhere, let alone in London. Recently we had a big communal party on one of the lawns as our houses were built 60 years and we wanted to celebrate the anniversary. It was an opportunity to meet any newcomers that had moved in, say in the last five to ten years. In many ways we are a big melting pot of people, so many coming from outside the UK - some from Nigeria, Ghana, Poland, Brazil, Norway, Malawi and other (unknown) places abroad. 

Recently those with small children had dwindled - like myself, where children have grown up. In recent months a couple of houses have been rented out to some with children and the lawn my house overlooks is full of children's laughter and toys again, especially now it is the school summer holidays. One little boy in particular certainly has a pair of good lungs on him!

Alcoholic Daze - Chapter 6

The drinking got worse, if that were possible - by now the amount of whisky Greg drank per day had risen to a full 70cl bottle. It had not been helped by the information Greg had received in A&E from a young doctor, who had told him that, although he obviously had a drink problem, he should not attempt to stop suddenly, as this would bring on all sorts of withdrawal symptoms, such as shaking, hallucinations, convulsions and blackouts!! He should rather try to cut down gradually by a unit per day until he could wean himself off it altogether. This information terrified Greg and paralysed him. Instead of cutting back, he seemed to want to drink more to ensure he did not get the withdrawal symptoms - the thought of them frightened him more than the drinking to excess itself. Now he started to drink as soon as he awoke in the morning - usually around 7.30am just as my daughter was leaving for school. He would not even bother with a cup of coffee, but go straight for the whisky bottle. He was always careful to have a half-inch of whisky left in the bottle at night, to be sure of a stiff drink in the morning. Then, once Kay had left for school, he would ask me to drive him to the nearest supermarket and stock up on the day's supply - a 70cl whisky bottle and 40 cigarettes. You can imagine what this was costing us each week - and remember, we were on a small pension - so making ends meet was becoming an act of ingenuity on my part.

We always varied the shop. Being in the heart of London, we are lucky to have most of the major supermarkets within a half-mile of us - Sainsburys, Waitrose, Tesco, Marks & Spencer Food, as well as Lidl, Aldi, Londis, a few small corner shops and a couple of off-licences. There is a Co-op too about a mile away. Not to mention several petrol stations. So we were always able to pick a different outlet on any given day to avoid giving anyone the impression he was an habitual drinker. Sometimes he would be too weary to get out of the car and get it. Sometimes too weary to even get in the car in the first place. In which case, I would be sent out to get it. Occasionally, by very late evening, he would have drunk the entire contents of the 70cl bottle and, just as I was winding down for bedtime, he would demand that I take him out in the car to the all-night petrol station to get another. He still hated the idea of running out and not having enough whisky left to rely on when he woke in the morning, in case he got withdrawal symptoms. I was in a quandary, not knowing what was best - tough love and refusing to get more for him, or getting him a supply to avoid exposing him to the dreaded withdrawal symptoms. The key turning point came horribly one morning, after he had unknowingly run out of whisky the night before. That next morning he was shaking so much that by the time I managed to rush out, buy a bottle and return home with it, he was unable to keep the glass still against his lips and I had to take hold of the glass for him and help him drink. We had sunk to depths we could never have imagined. I now accepted in my mind that he was hooked. He was an alcoholic. It was to be the beginning of a very slippery slope.