It’s been a while since I talked about my #100DaysOfCode journey, and so I figured it was worth providing an update. Before I get into it, I should advise that this story will likely contain graphic textual depictions of dental surgery. You’ve been warned.
… Rewind about a year.
“Do you floss regularly?” the dental hygienist asked, examining my teeth. “Not as much as I’m supposed to, I know – the thing is..”
“You really should floss every day. See all you need to is..” SNAP! the floss string breaks inside my mouth. I tried to explain. “I was saying – the thing is…” Too late, a new piece of floss is back in action, only to break again. “Wow, your teeth are like … really close together.”
That is exactly my problem. I have molars that would happily become one large tooth, given a chance. There is no gap to speak of between them, and as such flossing between my molars is an exercise in futility. Through the years I’ve had the exact same conversation with pretty much every hygienist I’ve met.
Except this time, there was a problem. Having teeth so close together that you can’t reasonably floss between means food somehow manages to find a way in there, and you get cavities. One of my molars had been patched up a few times already, and like a wartime soldier, sent back into action. The problem at hand was the molar was losing the battle and I was in a fair amount of pain, most of the time.
The dentist arrived, we exchanged pleasantries, and he got to action. “Looks like one of your fillings may be a bit loose, let’s patch it up, and if you’re still in pain the next time we see you, we’ll discuss our options”. So a few days later, I had the filling done and I went about my life. The constant pain was a bit better, but never really fully improved. When I was back for my next checkup, he asked about the tooth.
“Hmm – that doesn’t sound good – the fact that it’s still hurting means there’s likely an infection in behind the filling. We’re going to have to do a root canal. Based on the amount of fillings you have in that tooth, we’ll likely need to cap the tooth with a crown as well. Hopefully, you have good dental insurance”.
Between my wife and I, we would’ve had enough benefits to cover the surgery, with only a minimal amount out of pocket. But it was going to require four visits to complete the process and it wasn’t time I wanted to spend in the chair. At least for a back tooth that nobody can see, and has only caused me problems. “Can you just take the tooth out? Would my insurance cover that?”
“Oh yes absolutely – they’d prefer it that we pull the tooth, it’s cheaper for them”. Sold.
And so, about two weeks ago, instead of going back for a root canal, I went in to have my tooth pulled.
We discussed the usual potential issues with the surgery, and I asked about one line in particular because I had concerns. “It says here you can potentially open a hole into my sinuses when the tooth is removed?” “Yes, it can happen – we’ll take it slow and see how it goes, and if it does happen we’ll see what needs to be done next”.
Over the next 45 minutes, I felt my sinuses being distorted in every direction due to the extreme amount of rocking pressure applied to my tooth as it was extracted from my jaw. A few times, I heard snapping and popping as my fillings shattered and fragments flew everywhere. One of them landed in my eye. Dental surgery under local anesthesia sucks.
Eventually, the tooth was out. Sort of. “Well we pulled out what we could – there’s a chunk of root in there still, we couldn’t get it out. We tried, but the thing is, we’re afraid we may open a large hole into your sinuses. As it stands, there’s already a small hole that was opened up from getting this part out. We’re going to have to get a dental surgeon to take a look at this”
I was packed with gauze, given some prescriptions, handed me a post-op guide (which included helpful hints like “For 7-10 days, don’t sneeze”), and sent on my way. “The surgeon’s office will be in touch, if you don’t hear something from them soon let us know!” At first, things were great – but then the pain started to set in as the anesthesia wore off. My wife raced to the local pharmacist and managed to get my prescription filled before they closed. The next day, I heard from the surgeon’s office. Can you come in this morning? Why yes, yes I could.
At the surgeon’s office, the news was mixed. The verdict was accurate – there was a small hole in my sinuses where the root used to be, and they wanted to let it heal before they went digging again. They took some more X-rays and booked an appointment to have the root removed in a few weeks. The good news is there was a plan, the bad news is that I had to go on a diet of lukewarm soft food until the tooth fragment could be removed.
Meal replacement shakes can only go so far, so I packed up my youngest daughter and we went to the supermarket where we raided the baby food section. I learned an interesting and horrifying fact – baby food contains a lot of sugar. To the point where I wondered if opening a can of pop and just handing it to the kid would be healthier. We finally found some food that wasn’t too bad on the sugar scale (I decided anything under 10g would be acceptable), and went on our way. On the way home, my daughter made fun of me endlessly for liking baby food. I can’t wait until she gets her wisdom teeth out.
For the next two weeks, I nursed an aching jaw and tooth while I attempted to navigate extended hours at work and kids’ hockey. There just wasn’t any time to look at my coding journey with everything going on, and every evening I was gassed – I’d just pass out in bed as soon as the kids went to bed. Over the last two weeks on at least four occasions, I slept the night fully dressed from the day. I was that tired.
Cut to yesterday – I’m back at the surgeon’s office and I have to say, talk about an exercise in efficiency. All four walls in the operating room had clocks on them, so I had a good view of what time it was at all moments. From the time I arrived, to the time I left, was just over 25 minutes. Total time working in my mouth – eight minutes. I was stitched up, and once again, handed a post-op kit with the same helpful “don’t sneeze, blow your nose, use a straw or eat popsicles” instructions. An ice pack was included in the kit with some extra gauze – it helped quite a bit, as the filling wore off significantly faster this time around. I was sitting in the pharmacy when it happened. I’d figured instead of sending my poor wife I’d just do it myself, and I think that may have been a mistake. I stopped in at one of the larger chain pharmacies where I normally get my prescriptions, and handed over the slip to the pharmacist. “Will you be waiting?” Yes, yes I will.
I should have known something was up, based on the numerous “narcotics are stored in a time-controlled safe” signs scattered around the pharmacy counter. As luck would have it, the medication I needed was in the famed time-delayed safe and it was going to be some time before it opened again. I opted to wait, getting more and more grumpy until eventually I was called to the counter. “Because of the nature of this medicine you need to speak to a pharmacist. Please wait for one to be available”. I returned to my chair, doing my best to look like I wasn’t desperate, lest they think I was trying to score a fix and deny me the medication. I shouldn’t have worried.
“Why exactly do you need this medicine?” the pharmacist asked. I assumed based on the oral rinse and antibiotics included on the prescription, and the prescription itself indicating it was from a dental surgeon, that the purpose would be obvious. But I guess, they have to ask. “I just had dental surgery an hour and a half ago”. Except it didn’t come out like that. It came out like an extremely muffled, incoherent jumbled mess because my mouth was full of now fully saturated bloody gauze. The pharmacist saw the horror show in my mouth. “Oh. I see. I would imagine you want to get home – I just have some things I need to go over with you first”.
Apparently, it’s now common practice when narcotics are prescribed to also give the individual a naloxone kit, just in case. I wasn’t sure if I should be thankful or offended, but I gladly accepted the kit because, at that point, I was willing to do anything it took to get out of there. I raced home and popped one of the pills. “Oh thank god, this horror will be over soon”. By this time, I was fully unfrozen. The full weight of the work that had been performed at rapid speed in my mouth had become extremely obvious. I waited for an hour and nothing. Because the bottle said I could take 1 or 2 (every 4 to 6 hours), I opted to add a second. Waited another hour. Still nothing. At this point, I told my boss “Listen, I need to go lie down for a bit, these meds aren’t working.” Yes, that’s right – after all of this nonsense, I had opted to go back to work and tried to finish my day.
After 4 hours, I popped a third. Still nothing. I texted my boss “The meds aren’t working still – I’m still going to try to make it in tomorrow but I wanted to let you know in case I can’t.” He asked me if I was Wolverine. I said I didn’t think so, but if I grew giant metal claws I’d let him know.
And so we’ve reached today. I haven’t thought about coding or programming in a few weeks at least. Before that, I hadn’t either – no excuse for that timeframe, I’m afraid. To survive the day, I went with regular extra-strength acetaminophen (by the way, the British word “paracetamol” sounds so much cooler) so I could safely drive, lest the stronger stuff suddenly start working. And surprisingly, the acetaminophen seems to have worked. At least well enough to get us this blog post!
So that’s my story as to why I haven’t been coding. I was feeling guilty about the whole affair, except I saw this post on Hacker News, and decided there was no point feeling guilty. I know my limits and coding just wasn’t going to happen when I was feeling this rough. I’m going to give it a week or so to heal, then I’m going to jump back on the horse. Or bicycle. Whichever analogy you prefer.
