Got back safely. Took a Vicodin. Gargled with warm salt water. Now waiting for Vicodin to take effect, while my jaw throbs like a shattered star.

The vacation was good, right up until the end, when I suffered the now-familiar mule-kick-to-the-molars sensation of a tooth giving up the ghost. (God, what is with my teeth? I brush regularly, I even floss, I gave up my dire Coke habit months ago…and still, WHAM. This one’ll need a root canal, if the sensation of a razor-toothed mammal trying to burrow into my skull via the hinge of my jaw is any indication.)

Ironically, I had already made a dental appointment, now that I have insurance, and having felt a warning twinge, but the soonest they could work me in was the end of November. There’s no swelling or discharge that would indicate infection, (in which case I’d be at the emergency room instead of writing this) but the pain is simply outta this world–and was out of this world for the entire ten hour car trip back from my folks’. It was sort of an object lesson in how exhausting intense pain is–even when my jaw was not stabbing particularly savagely, I was so primed by the memory and anticipation of pain that it was pretty much a six-hundred-mile death march.

I’m starting to think the gods want me to move back in with my parents, since every time we drive back from there, I suffer some kind of horrible fate that makes the car trip living hell. Last time it was a truly epic bout of alleries, this time toothache. In order to top the level of agony set by this trip, I’m banking on either a really dire case of food poisoning, or possibly appendicitis.

God willing, the Vicodin and a warm compress will take care of it, and I’ll be in better shape tomorrow. Now that I have insurance, the cash involved is no longer frightful, so I’m probably gonna call the dentist tomorrow and see if they can’t take me in as an emergency patient–I don’t even care if they pull the bloody thing. I want that nerve OUT of my jaw, and if the tooth has to go with it, so be it.

Oh, and it was a good vacation. *grin* I have painting ideas and everything…