Photos of the Week
It seems that I take the same photos each spring. It's my way of capturing the beautiful blossoms and the changes that have occurred in our neck of the woods. For comparison, I'll provide links to some of Spring 2020 photos: A little (more) work done; One more time I was faked out; Dogwood Saga; It's Redbud time in south central Kansas.
The first photo shows the growth of the little clump of redbud trees, and the larger whitebud, behind them. Obvious in the foreground are the seed cones from last fall of one of our staghorn sumac plants, while, much less obvious in the background is the redbud tree that was so brutally beaten down when the neighbors trees fell across it.

The second photo shows the beaten down redbud tree. It seems healthy, but it will take several years for it to regrow some branches to take over the places of the branches that had lent height and shape to the tree, but which were split off.

The third photo shows the three dogwoods that have been planted in the past two years. The two are abloom; the third shows no signs of blooming, but seems to be alive.

Next photo: closeup of dogwood blossoms.

The blooms in the next photo are crabapple blossoms. I seem not to have photographed the whole tree.

Tulips are next. The leaves of the iris plants foretell a bountiful year for them.

Lastly, the next photo shows one of the lovely clumps of phlox that we have - transplanted from New Hampshire some years ago at the benevolence of Bogie. (Bogie probably noted that there is a larger clump of her light lilac colored phlox in the midground of the first photo at the start of this posting.) The remaining phlox (not all of the phlox that Bogie sent me survived the first couple of years - probably due to poor placement and/or lack of water) loved our wet March, this year.

Disappointment (4/8/2021)

The dental road down which I embarked in late December, 2020, has taken a turn for the worse. I started telling the tale of my adventure at the end of a posting, Week in Review - 10/17/2020. I told of my troubles with keeping a crown on my #9 tooth (upper, front, right-hand tooth). I had decided to try for an implanted fake tooth as it became obvious that any attempt to keep a crown on the little tooth stub that was left would be futile. (I had had four crowns on that tooth since the first one that had been installed in 1967, the first lasting for 30 years, the second for 20+ years, the third for 11 months, and the fourth for a few weeks. That was in addition to the two root canals done on that tooth.)
On January 11, 2021, Dr Omar started the process, pulling the root of my #9 tooth out. It was long, strong, and healthy looking. Dr O installed a titanium insert into the bone and measured the torque. The installation would not resist enough torque for the post to be inserted that day - my bone was not dense enough (imagine that at my age!) One week later, I returned to the dental office for removal of the sutures and evaluation of the healing process. Everything looked good in the x-rays. The x-rays taken at the next (and last) evaluation on February 8 also looked good. Today (4/8/2021) was my day to have the post installed into the implanted receptacle. Oh, joy.
Dr O had never seen me phased by the pain of any of the work he had done up to today. Today was different. He had barely gotten started when I flinched. He applied more Novocain. When he started up again, the pain was worse and I flinched even more. More Novocain. This was repeated twice more. Eventually, Dr O was able to work without causing me great pain. It turned out there was a reason things were so painful. My body had, stealthily, been rejecting the titanium insert. The insert had to be removed, the bone smoothly cupped, a bone grafting mixture inserted, and the gum sutured once more. What a disappointment.
Dr O offered to try implanting, again, once the surgical site had healed (maybe up to six months). As Dr O and Sheri were working on me, I thought, coming up with the working theory that the insert is machined from a titanium alloy that includes nickel - to which I happen to be sensitive. I told Dr O, "No, let's not try that, again." and told him that I saw no reason to expect different results for the same procedure (I'm not insane!) When I explained my working theory, Dr O started to object, "But...it's titanium...." Finally agreeing that the hardware had to have been formed from an alloy (that he could not identify), he agreed that we should move on to the next option - a bridge. In his lexicon, a bridge is when three crowns are made as one structure and installed with the two "good" teeth as the support for the fake tooth that fills in for the missing tooth.

Last night was the pits - today is better (4/9/2021)
I made a rookie error, yesterday. When Dr O prescribed an antibiotic, I picked it up on my way home. As soon as I got home, I took the first dose (2 tablets). I was to take a dose (1 tablet) on each of the succeeding four days. My error was in taking that first dose before finding the information sheet in the pharmacy's bag. I know that the pharmaceutical companies write those sheets to cover their asses; but, in the process they can scare a person to death. There were a couple of "pucker" statements: 1) that those with kidney or liver disfunctions might have a problem and 2) that anyone over age 65 should think again. Yikes! That was in addition to all of the horrible, possible side effects.
Immediately, of course, I started experiencing stomach pains and twitches in the left side of my chest. (Abnormal heart beats - long QT syndrome - were a side effect. A QT interval is the time from the beginning of electrical activation of the heart to the end of electrical relaxation.) In addition, I felt lousy and I developed a semi-severe headache that was still with me this morning. Was I being panicky or was the antibiotic a real problem? This question haunted me all night.
This morning, I was at my primary care physician's office at 8am. She and her staff, as it happened, were not in office, today; but, Hunky Husband's primary care physician, a partner in the same office, was seeing walk-ins. My wait was but five minutes. He listened to my sad tale - that I was concerned because Dr A had told me a couple of months ago that my kidney function was failing, and I don't need any medication contributing to its problems. Not having seen me before, and it's being faster to ask than to look at my chart, Dr N asked if I took other medications. Yes, I take a statin. Well...it turns out that there are bad interactions between the prescribed antibiotic and the particular statin prescribed for me. Dr N wrote me a prescription for a different antibiotic - one that I had taken six times within the past 15 years. I asked the pharmacy to destroy the four unused antibiotic tablets and bought the newly prescribed antibiotic.
At noon, I took my first dose of the new antibiotic and I can tell you: Whether I was panicky or whether there really was a problem, I feel much better. The headache is gone, no further stomach problems, and no twitching in my chest. Of course, part of my improvement must be attributed to the surgery's now being about 30 hours behind me. The swelling in the gum and my upper lip is down enough that I no longer resemble a snapping turtle but a more friendly sort of turtle.
Recent Comments