Steve_Bamlett_blog

What is the biggest challenge you will face in the next six months?

Have you ever noticed how sometimes little but immediate ‘challenges’ take your mind off the long term ones – even if we count the ‘next six months’ as long-term or not. And this is the case for me today.

For today I go for a minor operation under local anaesthetic to remove a wisdom tooth embedded in my lower left jaw. A few weeks ago I was in horrible pain over the site. Antibiotics took away the pain after a week but the dentist told me that the X-ray (he showed me but I had no idea how to read it to detect a rotted tooth inside the jaw) revealed that the pain would return and eventually be much worse.

You have two choices, he said, “… since you are a diabetic, you have to have medically supervised surgery. Either, go on an appallingly long waiting list for the NHS hospital at Darlington or accept private treatment in the next two weeks’. It would cost me about £350 (which I read as £400-500) he said. That is a lot of money on a pension but I didn’t doubt that I might wait for over a year for NHS and the tooth and gum ache had been excruciating. I consulted hubby and went for the treatment. It is tomorrow. I have to go to a surgery about 56 miles away in Brampton, nearer Carlisle than any other city.

I am told I will be okay to drive there and back, and I have bought Co-Codamol. If possible, I will visit Carlyle afterwards to one of my favourite bookshops with a large art section to take my mind off what they predict at the surgery will be ‘soreness’. I aim to get a Felix Vallotton book before giving up to buting off Amazon. Let’s see! What I intend to do is to upload this blog when I leave the house (about 8 a.m.) and update as follows. One thing I found out that surgery ‘ Chandlers Lane Dentists, 52 Front Street, Brampton, CA8 1NT is a listed building:

House formerly shop. Early C19. Snecked red sandstone ashlar with smooth quoins, dressed red sandstone to side; Welsh slate roof with tile ridge and lead hip. L-shaped: 2 storeys, 2 bays to Front Street. Shop entrance on corner has smooth quoined surround with hollow chamfered lintel, retaining painted grocer’s shop name (established 1863): bowed door has centrally glazed panels. C20 shop window left, in C19 opening. Upper floor has sashes with glazing bars. Entrance in lane has top-glazed 6-panel door with patterned fanlight. Down slope is stepped entrance with plank door, sash windows with glazing bars. Cast-iron street sign on corner CHANDLERS LANE, of 1896. Included for group value.

https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1312488?section=official-list-entry

I wrote all the above last night. Now up at 6.35 and it’s cold. Weather for today (apparently it will be a degree or two warmer in Brampton. Hoping I get to Carlisle in order to make the lonely horrid trip a bit fun. Geoff looking after Daisy at home – he’s dreading it because she goes all miserable and won’t eat when one of us is away, he says:

Will leave at 8 a. but mounting this blog now at 6.40 ish. Talk later. The day’s headings below:

Getting there and the wait:

The journey was smooth. Going over the North Pennines by the A69 corridor is not the most interesting journey. My first sight of Brampton out of the car park was a bit depressing. I imagine the likes of Lee Anderson prominent in this once beautiful town, now lòking sad:

Otherwise, the town looks nice o wrvyhe car tops on the Front Street:

And I am sitting in a cafe awaiting  my appointment with a coffee. At an upstairs window, up very narrow stairs indeed a very old-fashioned feel. It’s  8.50 now.

The procedure done:

NNow, I am in a pub in Brampton, taking my first antibiotic  with a slimline tonic before going to Carlisle. I read the instructions the surgeon gave me, which said that, in some cases, lower wisdom teeth extraction leaves you with pain or numbness permanently because of nerve damage. Here’s hoping not. Pain is coming on now, so it’s onto the Co-Codamol and hope that it passes in three days as is usual.

Out at last and awaiting my antibiotics  at the chemist. The she thing took an hour because one of thevrootz of the tooth had a hook that clung to the gum, and the other was fused to the bone, and the link had to be cut. This involved uncomfortable pressure but no pain, and the surgeon was very nice. He put in stitches because I take blood thinners as part of diabetic medication and put me on antibiotics to start immediately because the area around the tooth was still deeply infected.

On the whole, though, it was not, yet, as bad as I feared even though the guy said it was an unusually tricksy operation. I couldn’t help laughing at the instruction to vary how wide I held my mouth and in what direction, with the instructions to the nurse to suck harder. Well, you gotta laugh!!

Visiting Carlisle if possible:

Now lost in books I want to go home and stop aching all over. Lol.

The journey home & Goodnight summary.

Tje day got harder all the time as the swelling in my jaw increased. Carlisle was not a good idea, and the journey  home was horrendous.

With love

Steven  xxxxxxx