Starting to think Nane broke up with Askim. Why else wouldn’t she tell me what’s going on? She’s told me before when she’d overspend like crazy and was hard up for money, and she’s told me when she’s been ill.

Where the sun was shining brightly yesterday and the day before, today it’s all cloudy and wet.

Saw the eye Doc yesterday, and sure enough, the eye pressure is still up. They don’t like to see anything over 20 and since I’m still around 24 and 26 the doc recommended a specialist in Citrus Heights. The good news is that my optic nerve looked fine and I haven’t lost any field vision. My close-up vision hasn’t changed much over the last year, so I’m not going to renew my reading glasses. I’m more farsighted, though, so I have to get my bifocals changed out, which means I’ll be half-blind for a week and a half since I can’t see far away.

Last year he didn’t recommend treatment because it was the first anyone’s seen or heard of me having elevated pressure. But now the doc is ready to officially list me as having OH but can’t determine why or what to do about it, so I’ll be seeing an ophthalmologist soon enough. It may or may not be the beginnings of glaucoma, but worst-case scenario, all I’ll need are eye drops. As the doctor himself said, “If a drop in each eye before bed is all you need to keep from going blind, why not?”

I agree. But I’m also sick of having one thing lead to another. I was healthy for years with little more than allergies, cavities and ear troubles. Now I’ve got a bum thyroid, high cholesterol and possible glaucoma.

Later…

My 5 cavities – yes 5 – have been filled. Andy’s reaction to the number of cavities cracked me up. So glad it’s over, though! I thought I’d be there for a little over an hour, but instead, it took 2½ hours. A woman named Holly whom I never met before did the x-raying and cleaning. She was very talkative and friendly. She advised me to add regular floss to my waterpick routine cuz the waterpick gets around the gum area well enough, but not the contact area where the teeth touch each other. It’s just so hard to floss. My mouth is so small and I have a permanent retainer on the bottom. I think I may eventually have that removed, which they also recommended, so I don’t build up tartar in that area so easily. These days they can make an invisible retainer that I can leave in overnight. On the other hand, I’m not as appearance-obsessed as I used to be when I was younger. So what if my teeth shift and end up crooked? It’s the damn cavities I’m sick of getting.

Since brushing and water picking alone aren’t doing the trick with my overly soft enamel, the cleaning lady recommended prescription-strength toothpaste that costs $20, but lasts 6 or 7 months. It’s got much more fluoride in it than regular toothpaste and is a better guard against cavities. You only use a pea-sized amount before bed and you spit the excess out but don’t rinse it like regular toothpaste.

The fillings are $80 apiece but worth it cuz she uses a special porcelain material that lasts longer than regular fillings. They’re the color of my teeth too, and not silver.

After I was cleaned up I was moved to another spot where Shannon and the doctor began their numbing, drilling and filling routine, which seemed to take forever. Shannon mentioned visiting me some time so she can check out the rats, which they asked about. Did I tell them about the rats? Or did they overhear me telling Holly about them when she asked if I had pets? If they didn’t, maybe they visit my blog more than I realize. If someone’s got cookies disabled or goes through a proxy, I’m not going to know they’re there.

What was amazing was that Holly recognized my name from being featured in a magazine a few years ago. I was hired by mturk.com to do an article for Newsweek. Personally, I don’t even remember what it was about. They wanted me to rewrite something for them without paraphrasing. I worked for, and still do, different people who need articles created, edited or re-written altogether for magazines, websites or whatever.

Anyway, she doesn’t have a Kindle yet but I told her I was an Amazon author and all that and she said she’d look me up, and my blog, which can be linked to from Facebook, as I also told her.

Janet, the receptionist, loved my haircut. The others didn’t say anything about it, but she said it was adorable. Sure looks better straightened, too.

We noticed the doctor had a throw rug over white pine wood floors in the waiting room, and Tom said that this was what I thought I would prefer when we do laminate flooring at home since he knows I don’t like most darker colors. We both laughed when I told him Andy said, “White pine? Where’s the puke button?” Something about his blunt honesty cracks me up. We all agree these floors are HIDEOUS. I can’t wait to replace the damn thing. We could save a lot of money by installing linoleum tiles that you can cut with scissors, but we’d be lucky to have them last 5 years. Better to spend more money for better quality as with the dentist. I’m sure this latest round cost us around $400, and that we’ll hit the max deductible, but on the bright side, we get a tax break.

The doctor asked if I wanted to break it up into two appointments or do it all at once, and I opted to get it all over with at once. She agreed that’s what she thought would be best.

She said to let me know if I felt my bite was off once the numbness wore off and they’d get me in right away to adjust it, but it feels fine to me. Just a bit of gum and jaw soreness, which I took ibuprofen for. My gums bled a bit as my teeth were being scraped.

The name of the place is Waikiki Dental cuz the doc loves Hawaii as much as I do. We won’t be going first class, and we’ll get a $100 room instead of a $400 room, but we WILL be back in Maui someday! Before this year I’d have said I like to vacation in a different spot each time we vacation, which isn’t often, for variety. Not anymore. Yes, I love you, Maui! I’ll get back to you again someday even though we’re finally getting some real rain here.

Yeah, it’s almost like old times and I can actually see green out there, and not just a few scattered patches of it. It was so nice being able to get out of the car, step into the carport, and then into the house and onto a mat we only step on when coming and going. In the trailer, we had to walk through muddy gravel, then step onto a towel I had to remove as soon as we got our shoes off, cuz it, like with all other open areas there, was a high-traffic area and I didn’t want to get my socks wet. If there wasn’t an object present in a particular spot, then it was because we needed to walk through it. It wasn’t like this place that has some open areas and corners we rarely walk through. In the trailer, if it was there it was because we had no other place to put it.