May: Fewer Teeth, Fewer Jobs, Fewer Aches

[livingdeb]

May was unusual for me.

Teeth

I finally got my wisdom teeth out: just the ones that had come to the surface. My top teeth are still cowering in my upper jaw, which is just where I like them.

At the same time, I got my shark tooth removed (I had one tooth completely behind the row of all my other bottom teeth).

The surgery had to be rescheduled for two days later due to a family emergency. Then it had to be rescheduled again--I requested a date two weeks later, hoping the emergency would be resolved. But once again I got a call that it needed to be rescheduled.

As I said on Facebook: I have parties I want to be healed for. I have a job offer that keeps being put off. I have re-arranged my work days. I need this done while I have dental insurance. I have no solid food in the house. I have library books piled up that are going to be due. That I am not allowed to read yet because I am saving them.

Nevertheless, I tried one more time, thinking that if it worked, it would be a lot faster than starting over with a new guy. And the receptionist let on that the family emergency was a problem that required multiple appointments, and I had just been unlucky in the dates I had picked. Fortunately, the fourth time was the charm.

I had only local anesthesia, which apparently is somewhat rare and shocking these days. However, whether you go local, general, or something in between, it's not going to hurt during the surgery and it is going to hurt after surgery, so I went with the less invasive approach. After I told my oral surgeon my choice, he looked relieved and also told me that you tend to heal faster with local anesthesia. Sounded good to me.

He had already told me that my teeth did not look like they were wrapped around nerves or anything like that. Two came out easily. The right wisdom tooth took several tries but did not take terribly long to remove. I do not at all regret my decision.

There was a scary moment when my tongue was getting feeling back, but my lower jaw was still numb where I thought to myself, "this is the best I'm going to feel for a long time." As soon as I started feeling pain (a dull ache on the right side of my jaw), I took two ibuprofen, knowing that the sooner you take pain medication, the better it works and the less you need.

I knew it takes about 15 minutes for ibuprofen to take effect on me (for headaches anyway), so I decided that if the pain felt the same or worse after 15 minutes, I would take one of the scary pills (generic Vicodin laced with Tylenol). But 15 minutes later, it felt better.

So I was very lucky with my recovery, generally just taking two doses of ibuprofen a day (which I'm still doing, though I'm taking only one pill per dose now). My condolences for those of you who had it worse.

Jobs

I had been working for two colleges for a while, and one of the jobs ended, so I spent the rest of the month working only half-time for the remaining college. I like that. I really like that.

But my other half-time job ended last Thursday. There were a lot of things I hoped to get done, but at the beginning of the month it looked like many of those things were going to have to remain undone. So I worked like crazy and some things ended up taking much less time than expected (since when does that happen?), so I ended up being able to finish every one of those things plus a few other good ideas I came up with along the way. It was an excellent month at work.

I have enough money to last me until my pension kicks in, but only if I withdraw virtually all of my contributions to my Roth IRA. (You're allowed to do this with no penalty at any time, though you're not allowed to withdraw the extra part if your investments have grown.)

However, pretty much everyone but me agrees that this is a bad idea, including the people at the forums of a website for people who want to retire extremely early (in their 20s or 30s). I'd be cutting things too close and I should get my pension ASAP (the more I work, the quicker I qualify).

So I'm going to try for more half-time work, hopefully for jobs with the same pension. I've contacted two other colleges who had expressed some interest, but they have not yet gotten back to me. After my sister's visit (she and her family are coming into town from Indiana this evening for a week and a half) I will start doing normal job hunting if I haven't gotten any bites from my old colleagues.

(The job offer I referred to on Facebook was informal; the staff were going to get back to me once they had a salary to offer. But the Provost got involved, briefly, then decided not to work with me after all, but not until telling me that the college that had been about to make me an offer did not have enough funds. I have kept that college up-to-date via e-mail, but have not yet heard back from them.)

Aches

I've been having an aching heel (plantar fasciitis) and aching shoulder (strained rotator cuff) for almost a year. I tried doing physical therapy on my own, and it helped, but did not totally fix the problems. So I went to a physical therapist earlier this year for a while. I was to continue doing the exercises she left me with until I was healed.

While recovering from my wisdom tooth removal, I completely quit doing these exercises.

Now my heel doesn't hurt at all, and my shoulder hurts less. Surly it is just a coincidence that they happened to get better just at the time I quit doing the exercises. Right? So I'm going to start up the shoulder ones again soon.

Meanwhile, I walked around campus for hours on Monday with no walking stick (bringing packing materials to recycle at the local UPS, checking out library books from there while I still could, turning in all my keys, and asking about COBRA dental insurance extension), and there were no negative repercussions. I also danced Saturday night at a birthdave party (thanks, Dave! and Shari the DJ!), thinking I was probably overdoing it, but again with no negative repercussions. The heel is healed!

Still, I'm planning to go to one of those running stores to get my next pair of jogging shoes. As you age, you get less flexible, etc., and many of those lies I've heard (lift with your legs, not your back; always warm up slowly before aerobic exercise; don't wear cheap-o shoes to jog in) probably eventually become true even for lucky people like me.

I've resisted the fancy shoes before because running has not hurt my feet (or legs or knees or hips), because those shoes are pricy, and because I've read that it is recommended people with flat feet like mine wear concrete blocks shoes that offer support by not bending and not having any cushioning, which sounds uncomfortable to me. But now, in the interest of not being an idiot, I'm going to try out some good shoes.

[I'm sure you guessed at the beginning that "Fewer Aches" was a good thing, but did you guess that the other two were, too?]