That's Your Lot

Not got much today, unfortunately. I had hoped to get some great photos at Koshien Stadium for the opening of the High School Baseball Tournament (if I could get a ticket.) No dice. The painkillers have been quite effective at keeping the pain in my tooth away for about six hours at a time, until yesterday. Three hours after taking last night's painkiller, the pain was back. There was no way I could wait until it was time to take the next painkiller, so I didn't. Three hours later, the pain was back again, so I took another painkiller.

Of course, I couldn't go on overdosing on painkillers every three hours, so at 0930 I went to the emergency dental hospital. Thankfully, that dentist was able to reassure me that my suspicion that the pain was coming from one of my lower front teeth rather than from where the wisdom tooth was removed on Wednesday was incorrect. Good, at least I don't have to have another tooth removed. No, the problem is that the blood clot which formed to cover the exposed nerves after the tooth was removed fell out, so I have a mess of exposed nerves. Apparently, only about 2% of people have this problem; usually, the blood clot remains in the mouth to cover the nerves. The dentist has given me a cream to put into the hole where my wisdom tooth was removed after meals and tooth brushing. At the moment, the new painkillers he gave me are still working after three hours. Three more hours until I can take the next one.

So, today I'm staying home, reading my fantastic new book (like a cross between the dark conspiracy politics of X-Files and the hard S.F. of Contact ), getting some work done, staying out of the heat (for the first time this year there have been bi-hourly citywide announcements over the public speakers warning about heatstroke) and generally trying to keep my mind off of pain.

Update
7 pm now and still no pain. Still on the same painkiller I took at 10 am. Dare I hope that the pain is now behind me?

Thankfully, there were no reports of any players fainting during today's three games at Koshien Stadium today. I'm pretty sure some of the spectators did, though.