• Tag Archives teeth

  • Clean Teeth. Legislation. Western Civ.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring                                                                       Waning Bloodroot Moon

    Dangerous driving conditions tomorrow. Winter storm warning.  Who stole my spring?

    Into the city twice today, once to get my teeth cleaned and a second time for a Sierra Club meeting on legislative basics.  The teeth cleaning, an every 6 months visit, has become routine by now.  Mary, the dental hygienist I saw today, complimented on my teeth-brushing.  That feels a bit to me like being told, good boy, you cleaned your plate.  Mary has a gentle way with her and worked hard to convince me to take extra good care of my teeth.  It’s important for overall health, especially as we age.

    On both trips listened to another lecture series, this one on Western Civilization, part II.  It focuses on the 500+ years in which modernism arose.  This is ground I’ve been over from several perspectives over the years, but each time it gets a bit clearer and the puzzle pieces seem to fit together better.  Modernism and the Enlightenment are key to understanding our current political, cultural, social and economic conditions, so it’s hard to become over educated about them.  What I enjoy now is finding connections between, say, Chinese history and Western.

    I’m on lecture 9 already.  Just finished the Reformation, ground I know pretty well, but it never hurts to hear it put in the larger socio-political context.

    The economic and environmental situation we find ourselves in now can be traced back to this period, both the good and the bad.  More later.  I’m tired.


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Great Work Health Politics Weather +Climate World History 📎and tagged

  • Getting Over the Pain

    Posted on by Charles Comment

     

    Samhain                                             Waxing Thanksgiving Moon

    Well.  A good night’s sleep, little swelling this morning and no discernible pain.  So far this recovery has had no bite other than fatigue and disorientation, some of which continues this morning.  Still taking the ibuprofen but I only used one of the vicodin.

    The new political reality has us all shuffling from meeting to meeting, trying to figure out what comes next.  Tomorrow afternoon I’ll attend a meeting of Minnesota progressives (leftists) to discuss the impact on a wider progressive agenda.  It’s not good, at least not in the short run.  If we can use the next two years to define and energize those who would benefit, we could find ourselves stronger in 2012 than we were 2010.  That’s a big if and it will take considerable work to make it happen.


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Health Politics 📎and tagged

  • Here Comes the Pain

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samhain                                                 Waxing Thanksgiving Moon

    The gauze is out and the long acting anesthetic still has control of the pain.  Cold packs on my right every half hour, ibuprofen and vicodin for bedtime.  Should be ok, though tomorrow could be worse than today.  Cheer up, things could be worse.  I cheered up and, sure enough, things got worse.

    Right now I’m thinking this recovery will proceed pretty smoothly and I’m happy about that.

    Kate sat out in the waiting room, tense, because she knows the things that can go wrong.  Meanwhile, I floated softly as a cloud among the daffodils.

    Though I do try to avoid the medical world as much as possible, I am glad we have their work available.  It makes life easier and, often, even possible.

    As I’ve written this, the analgesic from the procedure has begun to wear off and my jaw has a touch of ache to it.   It probably will not stay subsided for long now.  Have to roll out the heavier meds.  Not much more clear thinking now.  Adios.


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Health 📎and tagged

  • Apres Versid

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samhain                                           Waxing Thanksgiving Moon

    Woke up on a blue plastic couch, a bit chilly.  A woman filled a syringe, I could see her through a small window.  There was a slight fog in my perception, a kind of garbling to my thought, courtesy of the versid and fentanyl.  Took me a moment to orient myself, feel the gauze on my right, filling up my mouth, giving me an overfull sensation.  A bit later a nurse took my blood pressure, put me in a wheel chair and wheeled me to the elevator then down to Kate who waited in the truck.

    Back home now with pain meds.  The teeth came out smoothly which lessens the risk of complications.  A good thing.  Vicodin and ibuprofen for the rest of the day, a bit hazy as the day progresses.

    Glad it’s over with and will be even gladder when the healing process finishes.


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Health 📎and tagged

  • The Better Part of Wisdom?

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samhain                                               Waxing Thanksgiving Moon

     

    Wisdom teeth.  Well, I still have a couple.  A while back I had the first two yanked out, but the ensuing weekend and week made me hold off on the other two.  Until now.  Faced with the imminent loss of dental insurance, or at least a changed plan, I asked my dentist what he thought I could do now to help my dental health long term.  The wisdom teeth, he said, out.

    So, this morning out they come.  I woke up early this morning, a bit nervous I guess.  My goal, in general, is to stay away from the medical profession (except for my lovely wife), but once in a while it’s unavoidable.  Like today.

    Wondering about wisdom teeth, I took a quick poke around the web and found a dentistry site that identified wisdom teeth as vestigial.  Interesting.  Seems at one point our diet consisted of much more abrasive material which needed the third molar to help grind it down.  Back then we didn’t need extra fiber in the diet, I’m guessing.  Now jaws stay fuller*, our diet’s smoother and we don’t create space by losing permanent teeth, thanks to modern dentistry.

    Around 9:15 the procedure begins.  Oh, boy.

    *Until quite recently, our diet included mostly very coarse food, as well as impurities such as dirt and sand. This coarseness would abrade teeth so significantly that they would take up less space in the jaw.


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Health Retirement 📎and tagged

  • Like Having A Root Canal

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc           Waxing Moon of Winds

    Back from the dentist.  Guess what?  I get to have another root canal!  I have a full blown infection under #19. (lower left quadrant of the mouth, some tooth or other down there.)  Still, it does mean anesthetic.

    I drive a long way to get to this dentist, but he is good.  The drive is worth it.

    Tired now.  Gotta nap.  Then, workout and a legislative committee conference call.


    📂This entry was posted in General 📎and tagged

  • Hey, Buddy! Wanna Live Forever?

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    69  bar rises 29.92 0mph NNW dew-point 57   Summer night, pleasant and clear

    Waxing Gibbous Thunder Moon

    The gibbous Thunder Moon hangs low in the south, below the tops of the great poplars in our woods.  From our perspective it illuminates downtown Minneapolis.

    Some switch got hit and the mosquito population jumped out of the woods.  Now they are out even in the daytime.

    A program on the Science Channel discussed the nature of aging and held out the possibility of stopping or even reversing the aging process.  Kate and I discussed whether we would want to live a long time, say a thousand years.

    I would.  The number of books to read and write, plays to see, movies to watch, places to go, there are enough for several lifetimes for me.  Gardens and dogs and family would all retain their interest to me.  What we would do with all the people, I don’t know.  Might place a premium on space flight and terraforming Mars.

    Tomorrow I have teeth cleaning.  An event I look forward to every six months.  Not.  Still, consider an eight hundred year old set of teeth.  Yikes, if you didn’t take care of them.  Bad news.

    The UU history piece has picked up speed.  I’ve gathered enough information now to have a sense of the sweep of Unitarian and Universalist movements west, then on into Minnesota Territory.  Next I have to do some specific research at the Minnesota History Center on the large churches.  Right now I don’t know whether I can answer the question that interested me in the first place, i.e. Why did liberal religion find such fertile ground in the Twin Cities?  I have not given up on that; the information to answer it seems elusive.


    📂This entry was posted in Faith and Spirituality Family Writing 📎and tagged