Crowned!

Yesterday, I went to my brother's dentist down on the south coast and got crowned.

My first tooth crown ever.  Seems a solid structure and I can't feel it at all, which is a good thing.  It fits very well, after some grinding of high spots.

I went down to my brothers the night before.  After a useless doctor appointment here for my swollen elbow.  It's bursistis--fluid filled sac at my elbow tip probably acquired after my fall in the  woods Christmas day.  That's a self diagnosis thing and also a guess as to how it happened.

I expected it to be drained and afterwards a cortisone shot. 

Oh was I ever wrong.   My appointment was at 3:00.  I was ushered into the exam room almost on time, but then waited over 45 minutes there for the doctor who is a resident fresh out of med school.

Finally in comes the very sweet resident.  She looks at it briefly then vanishes.  10 minutes later she comes back with the resident manager, one of them, someone I have never seen before, an old guy.  He does not touch my elbow.  No one has yet.  Says there is no treatment at all that can be done and maybe in a year the huge swelling will go away.   There is no talk of what caused this or even a name for it other than he called it Popeye elbow.  There is no exam of it.  He wanted to tell some story about some guy who had it on his elbow for years.  I don't know what he felt that story would accomplish.  My reaction was to think omg this doctor let someone suffer with that for years.

I'm staring at him, like seriously?   30 years ago my other elbow swelled up.  I went to a doctor who drained it of bloody fluid and then gave me a cortisone injection into the elbow and I never had another bit of trouble.  So 30 years later the treatment now is to tell someone to live with that "thing" on my elbow?  Fucking seriously?

I object that its ugly and also gets in the way of clothing, that won't fit over it and that the pressure turns my hand numb if I bend my elbow.   He says wear long sleeves and the only treatment is to quit whacking my elbow.  I said, defensively, I don't routinely whack my elbow.  But that was it, no advice on what to do at all, and I need to figure out myself what to do with that swollen protrusion.

I waited over an hour to get nothing that would help, I fumed as I left.

I am not sure why a doctors office will let you wait an hour past your appointment time.  Why not just say, "we're at least an hour behind, do you want to wait or reschedule?"  When you sit there and sit there and sit there and no one tells you it will be an hour more, the resentment begins, that their time is valuable but yours isn't.   But then they get stressed and further behind schedule too.  Why not just be honest. Some people could reschedule no problem.  I would have.  Because I'd assumed they'd be on time and told my brother and his wife my approximate eta and now I was over an hour behind that, causing me stress too.   I think the open and honest approach is the best.

 I left from there to drive to my brother's place.  I made it in three hours, no less.  I sailed through.

The weather was lousy, pouring rain, fog in places through the coast range, made for easy going because traffic was so light.  Just how I like things.

I took I5 down past Roseburg and went across to the coast on highway 42.  Its' closer that way if I'm going to my brothers.  If I'd been going straight to the dentist he has me set up with, I'd have come across either through Veneta to Florence and down or taken I5 to the Drain exit and followed the river over to Reedsport and down.

They had waited dinner on me.  I got there about 7:30 p.m. We had soup and salad then watched an episode of their new obsession, a PBS Masterpiece theater British period soap called  Sanditon.  One episode and I'm hooked.

In bed by 10:00 and my brother was gone when I got up.  I loaded my car with some cat food, litter and the bed of their recently deceased kitty Napoleon.  He got a tumor behind one eye and faded away.  Their other cat, whom they adopted from me years ago, died three years ago also of a mouth/eye tumor, which is odd that both would die of the same type of cancer in the same location.  Lymphomas of mouth or jaw or throat, cancers that spread to the eye and jaw and around it, are thought to be prolific in cats due to their grooming.  When cats groom themselves they ingest any and all toxins they have walked through, slept in or that has landed from the air on their fur.   This makes cats very vulnerable to environmental toxin caused cancers.

I had the temp crown removed and the crown seated, then had impressions for the partial denture.  I will be excited to get it.  Back to chewing normally again, when I get it, without extracting food that gets stuck in the holes from my missing teeth.

I came home what we used to call Route F from the coast.   Highway 126 from Florence to Eugene.  But I turn left at Veneta and come up Territorial and then turn and catch highway 99 south of Junction City and at the actual junction, take 99E all the way to Albany, instead of 99W to Corvallis, never touching I5 once.  It's a very fast route, but that depends entirely on the day of the week, the time of the day and the season of the year.  I would never go that way home in the summer, for instance, as it would be clogged in slow moving RV's and all kinds of traffic.

I drove through Honeyman State Park on the way home.  It's a large state park that's been around forever.  We camped there often when I was a child since it was fairly close to home.  Next to it is Cleawox Lake where we played and swam and across highway 101 from Honeyman is large Woehink Lake, suitable for boating and swimming.   The campsites seem smaller than I remember.  Rain pounded my car so I didn't even get out.  This is in the heart of Oregon coastal sand dune country.  We used to run those dunes as kids.

Yurt Info center at Honeyman.  There were a couple campers, but with trailers, in sites, that I saw when I drove through a couple of sections.

One of the campsites.  Camping in a state park is now quite expensive.  You rarely see tent campers anymore.  It's all the great whites, I call them, huge motorhomes or trailers, often with TV reception disc out front of them and lines snaking back inside.  Oregon state parks have turned into RV Parks and no longer cater to tent campers at all.  We had a large canvas tent we camped in, all of us in the one tent.  I remember mother used to warn us not to touch the inside or it would spoil the water proofing and let the rain come through.

Cleawox Lake

As long as I was looking around that area, I drove down Jetty road to the Oregon Dunes Recreation Area all the way to the Siuslaw South Jetty.   We'd come here when camped at Honeyman as kids and we'd head down the bumpy rocky jetty, delighting if waves got us wet.

We'd come here too, but just to the parking lot and watch the ATV'ers, and dune buggies try to make it up the sand dune.  Most did with ease.  There were show offs who sometimes caused problems but nothing like what would go on in years to come.  Later on,  the spot became a drunken party type magnet and accidents happened due to the drunk riders and now alcohol is banned in the area.

A Harbor seal showed up just off the jetty parking lot when I was there yesterday.

Well that was my day yesterday.