I’ve had a tooth that’s been bothering me for several months. Not really bad, but it had been hurting if I bit down too hard on food. I’d been meaning to take care of that thing, but I put it off because I’m terrified of dentists.

I’m supposed to go to Key West next week with a friend, and her company is paying for all of it (except some of my food). I’ve been really excited about this trip. Then, at the beginning of this week, I started getting a pretty bad toothache. Soon, the whole left side of my jaw was hurting. And the bad tooth hurts like crazy when I just press on it a little with my tongue. Of course this HAD to happen right before my vacation.

So then I start to get worried that it will get infected while I’m gone, and I’ll be even more miserable. My friend tried to get me to call her dentist (she raves about this guy), but I knew they couldn’t take a new patient that quickly. She finally talked me into calling today, and I thought maybe they could at least tell me what I could do for the pain besides ibuprofen. The lady on the phone said “Can you come at 10:00 this morning?” This was at about 9:30. I was stunned.

When I got there, all the staff was SO nice. And when the dentist walked in…well, I could just picture him on a book cover. Gorgeous! And I could tell he works out a lot. He was also so nice and comforting. I was really glad I went.

So the bad news is, I’m going to have to go back as soon as I get back from my vacation and get either a root canal and crown or the tooth pulled. The tooth has a pretty bad crack in it. He said he wouldn’t know if he could save the tooth until he got in there. There really wasn’t a lot he could do today, but he gave me a prescription for pain medication if the ibuprofen stops working as well and a prescription for antibiotics. He said I already had a bit of an infection and that I would probably start feeling less pain when the antibiotics kicked in. So at least now I know I won’t get really sick while I’m on vacation.

So…what kind of day have YOU had???