Congenital Heart Disease leads to Paranoia!

A apple a day keeps the doctor away, but means you spend a day at the dental hospital...

Its been a crap week...

No, that's not fair... The course was useful, Change Management has lots of facets and being reminded of them is useful, newer techniques can be assimilated into projects and insights can be woven in the matrix that is my slightly odd way of looking at life:-)

However, a heavy cold meant I didn't spend too long chatting with the others and when that mutated into a migraine... so I headed home early, grabbing a couple of apples as I went for the train. So far so good...

However, just outside Stafford I bit into the apple and screamed as part of my 1st lower molar right side disintegrated... Getting an NHS dentist in Liverpool for the last 5 or 6 years has been almost impossible, and private dentists normally listened as far as "congenital heart defect" and said thanks but no thanks... Being awkward is not always a good thing.

So to the dental hospital I went, unfortunately on the afternoon the Liverpool students were protesting... Oh well, what's 17h of pain between and my mouth??

Absolute agony...

But, the next morning was bright... and the SHO (a dentist whose trained but not specialised) was a bright spark who having looked at my medical history went and found a consultant, who suggested another consultant... Meanwhile I was X-rayed and yup, there was a bloody great big hole in my tooth... and the beginnings of an abscess.

My paranoia about endocarditis isn't too bad, but the thought of leaving a infection source in my mouth while trying to find a dentist who'd touch me and undergoing a series of treatments didn't sound a good idea... So out the tooth was coming...

At this point I was passed on to the real newbe students, and they found the smallest dental student the worlds has ever seen - who looked at me, looked at her pliers and looked at the consultant who'd popped in for askance... He smiled and said "Just give it some wellie"...

A few figure of 8's later, a bit of a grunt - from her, not me, and it popped out...

The cheery chap of a consultant gave me his name, and with a mock glower told me to find a dentist and if I got any crap from anyone to let him know as he'd trained most of the dentists in the area...

Which came in useful, as I now have a dentist... who has taken me on as a "special needs" case, on the NHS.

Its good to be back in the system, and I'm sure it will hurt in the short term but be good for me in the long term...

Though that paranoia still lurks a little, and every cold I get for the next couple of weeks I will be just a little worried. Endocarditis isn't nice, I've seen too many friends get it and require long stays in hospital or valve replacements...

So apologies for the paranoia, I'll try to keep it under control

TTFN

Paul

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