Friday, April 24, 2009

Toothache

Today I had a reality check.
The lovely lady who helps me in the kitchen had a bad toothache that
started Sunday.

By Wednesday she wasn't sleeping well and looked really tired. She
arrived Thursday working extra hard to finish a full day's work
before 2:30pm to see the dentist on the way home. She missed him.
This morning I find out he only sees patients before noon, so she
wanted to go back this (Fri) morning for the procedure. I told her I
wanted her to go early rather than late (wouldn't want to miss him
and have to wait a couple more days!)

She had what looked to me like a wisdom tooth pulled for $4. She
didn't want to spend the money for the pain medication - it was an
extra $3! I was dumbfounded.

What level of pain must be 'normal' to endure a full-grown wisdom
tooth extraction without drugs?!

For hundreds if not thousands of years, this is how people managed.
But pain like that is so foreign to me.
I'm still dumbfounded.

I told her I would have paid the $3 for her - in a heartbeat! She
said the last two times she had a tooth pulled, it wasn't this bad.
I sent her home with ice and ibuprofen to rest, but she has to walk
over a mile to get there. This is a reality almost totally foreign
to me. And yet quite normal here. She was shocked when I said I had
4 wisdom teeth out at the same time, and now I see why.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Oh wow! I just had one out WITH meds and it was awful... the recovery as well.

You are right...it is hard to comprehend.

I hope she feels better soon. We are so spoiled here in the west. The things we think we "can't life without."

Carrie Jenkin said...

That is amazing...
Sean just recently had his done with my fear and trembling, lots of good mind drugs, AND numbing drugs and still whined and was sick for days.

Yikes. I hope she feels better. You know it is over 1000 dollars a TOOTH here.

Nuts.

Loves! Carrie and Sean