Shelter-in-Place Journal, Day 353

Today was the big day – I was Jokemaster at the Silver Tongued Cats this morning, and I came up with a terrible joke in honor of the date. I will spare you.

After that, I took a brief walk before Diane drove me to Los Gatos Oral and Facial Surgery for my tooth extraction and implant operation.

They were ready for me as soon as I walked in – I paid the bill, and we moved on to the rest of the procedure. The dental assistant got my signature on the last form, verified that I wanted “medium sedation”, and hooked me up to the oxygen monitor, EKG, and IV. Dr. Walker came in, said “hello”, verified that he was going to extract the proper tooth (again – which made me happy), and that’s all I remember until we were in the car on the way to Jamba Juice after the procedure.

I must have been somewhat communicative and conscious in the office, because they made an appointment in six weeks to evaluate the implant to see if it’s ready to have my regular dentist make a crown for it – either that, or they just made a good guess and assumed I’d change the time if needed.

So far, I haven’t had any pain from the procedure – I followed their instructions and took two generic Norco tablets in the first couple of hours I was home, and then one every four hours thereafter. I’m going to have another one just before bedtime – tomorrow, I’m supposed to switch to heavy doses of ibuprofen, which is also supposed to reduce swelling (so far, that hasn’t been a problem either). I’ve also been following the instructions to use an icepack every other half-hour, and that will continue for another couple of days.

My string of closing all three rings on my Apple Watch ended today, of course; it was nice to have a lazy day, but I’d rather have done it voluntarily!