Today is my 25th birthday and it’s not shaping up to be a good one.
I have been sick since Saturday with the flu. I felt better this morning, but I nearly collapsed in the shower from exhaustion (rinsing out my hair was too much effort!), so I took today off of work to continue recovering. That alone wasn’t so bad. At least I’m no longer vomiting and coughing my brains out.
But my chronic toothache has been acting up lately, mostly because I seem to grind my teeth more when I’m not feeling well.
After slathering on a second coating of Orajel at 8 this morning, I decided since I was already home I might as well see someone about it. So I called my dentist and they told me to come right in.
This tooth had a filling that was pretty deep, and my older dentist warned me it might need more work (ie. a root canal) in the future. I tried to ignore the hot/cold sensitivity for the last year, but clearly it wasn’t getting any better.
I’m horribly afraid of dental work but I sucked it up and let her drill out the old filling and take a look. Yup, it’s confirmed, root canal time.
So my first root canal procedure occurs on my 25th birthday when I’m home sick with the flu. Go me! At least it doesn’t hurt anymore, and it hadn’t abcessed yet. She told me it would have definitely gotten infected in the future, so I’m actually relieved that I was able to get this taken care of before it got that painful.
So here I am sitting in bed, waiting for the novacaine to wear off and trying to get a little work done from home.
Someone on the Dope has had a worse birthday than mine in their life, right? Share your crappy birthday stories and cheer me up!
Happy birthday!
I can offer the tale of how I woke up Christmas morning with chicken pox when I was eighteen.
Cheer up though - the rest of the year can only stand to get better!
Hey Elysium, HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Glad to know I share mine with such a hip young thang like yourself. Sorry about the root canal. Hopefully the rest of today will improve greatly and there’ll be some goodies to enjoy. 
Gotpasswords that sounds like such a sad Christmas! Chicken pox is bad enough, but at Christmas when you’re 18? No fun.
I think I may demand some ice cream cake tonight, that will make me feel a lot better.
And Happy Birthday back at you faithfool!
What a horrible way to spend a birthday! I had my first root canal a little over a year ago, and it wasn’t fun. The endodontist had trouble getting the tooth numb. I felt an intense, shooting pain every time he drilled. He ended up stabbing a syringe full of novacaine through the top of my partially drilled tooth just to dull the pain enough so that he could finish the procedure. That was on my mom’s birthday, though, so it probably doesn’t count.
I broke my arm on my fifth birthday. My parents had given me a slide to go with the swingset in our backyard, and I decided to slide down backwards on my knees. I lost my balance, fell over the side and landed on my right arm. I wore a sling to my party that afternoon.
You might have had a less-than-perfect birthday, Elysium, but at least you’ll have a good story to tell for years to come. Best wishes for the rest of your day.
Oh god, I think I would have murdered the dentist if I had experience that much pain.
I was up front and told the Doc I normally need extra novacaine, so she numbed me up really well. The most annoying thing was holding my jaw open that long.
This is definitely a memorable birthday, indeed. I got to eat lots of bananas and mashed potatoes though. Those are good for recovering flu victims AND post dental procedures!