Dental Adventures

Monday, Jan. 06, 2003
5:51 PM

So I survived my dentist appointment. I know, maybe not the biggest accomplishment of my life, but I was nervous about it and not sure whether I was going to need more work done. It turns out I do, and I don't know the whole extent of it yet. I have one little cavity (my first) that needs a surface filling - I'm not sure what that entails, but hopefully not drilling.

OK, I've been surfing the Web for at least an hour and I can't find anything on surface fillings. I've found plenty of stuff on filling materials, but not whether they have to drill. Anybody know? The dental hygeinist said it's just sort of like a sealant but didn't say anything about drilling.

So anyway, not only that, but at least one wisdom tooth needs to be removed (I hate the word extracted). I have an appointment next week for a consultation with an oral surgeon to determine what exactly needs to be done. All four at once, two at a time, just one for now? Do I just need novocaine (actually they use lidocaine now) or do I need to be knocked out completely? So many decisions... I am not incredibly happy about having to do this, but it looks like it needs to be done whether I like it or not. Anybody have advice for getting through it? Words of wisdom (har!)? NO horror stories, PLEASE!

Oh, I should say that my hygeinist was very cool. She was really nice and tried to be very gentle. She chatted with me as she scraped away at my teeth and made me feel at ease with her. She didn't make me feel like a dolt for not going to the dentist regularly like I should, a welcome change from the last dentist I went to. I might actually go back in six months.

In other non-dental related news, I have finished the three G63s for Denise (except the buttons, she's going to do those, yay!) and I'm making good progress on Kevin's Italian outfit. I might actually get everything done that I had planned on! Well, I had originally planned to do a recreation of a Byzantine apse mosaic, but I dropped that for now to concentrate on the clothing. Poor Kev needs new garb and I had the commission for Denise to get done. I needed a camicia to go with my Italian garb, so that's getting done. I will get to the apse mosaic eventually, but it was the biggest project and one that was not strictly necessary.

I've made another resolution - not really a New Year's thing, just something that I think will be a good thing for me. I'm going to only do Italian garb (and general research) for a while, except for pieces for other people. I have long had a habit of dabbling in various arts - I get distracted easily (oh shiny!) so I have a pretty good breadth of knowledge on a bunch of things but not necessarily depth. I still have a lot I want to learn about Renaissance Florence, so I'm going to try to really stick to just that for a while. I'm reading Dressing Renaissance Florence and learning all kinds of cool stuff. I have plans for more garb for both me and Kevin. I have a bunch of other stuff I want to learn - maybe with the eventual goal of writing a CA on the subject. Got a TON more research to do before that happens!

Anyway, the time span of this entry is going on two hours (including web surfing time) and I'm hungry so I'll sign off for now. Hope you're all having a good day!

Ciao!