My apologies for not posting

I am terribly sorry that I haven't blogged anything over the Christmas season.  Unfortunately on the 18th I started having some pain in my jaw and my Dentist and long time friend Paul Bacino gave me an antibiotic for what he believed was an infected tooth.  The next night my jaw was still bothering me but I was able to eat without much of a problem and I worked out at the gym, even though my jaw was very sore.  The next day my jaw was worse but I was still able to eat though with discomfort.  Friday night I started having chills and I was obviously running a fever so my wife insisted that I go to the Emergi-Care on Saturday morning.  The doctor there thought I had a sinus infection and gave me a different antibiotic, which was fine as the one Paul gave me was only a five day regime, so I only had one dose left.

Unfortunately after leaving the ER I felt even worse and went back home and laid on the couch under a couple of blankets and had terrible chills.  Later that night I got the chills so bad that I was almost going into convulsions, Gail checked my temperature and discovered I had a temperature of just over 103.  Fortunately the fever did go down after taking some Motrin and putting on shorts and a tank top.  Gail really wanted me to jump in a cold shower but as violently as I was shivering, I wasn't about to do that.  Maddie really wanted her Mother to take me to the ER but I wasn't having anything to do with that.

I was no better come Monday so I went back and saw Dr. Bacino.  This time he x-rayed my jaw and confirmed that it was definitely the tooth and he could see that there was also no infection in my sinuses.  He drilled into the tooth through the filling and put some medicine into the tooth directly and then put a temporary filling in. Paul told me to continue to take the antibiotic that the ER Doctor had prescribed but to switch to taking it four times a day from the three that she had directed.

Sadly, this antibiotic seemed to also have no effect on my infection.  And whereas I had set up to attend three Christmas Eve services and had every intention of going sick or not; about the time we needed to head out for the first service I again started having terrible chills.  So Gail pulled rank on me and said that this year we would just be staying home and that I was too ill to go out.

Christmas Day I managed to get through all the family celebrations but I was unable to eat and just had a protein shake and some milk.  The day after Christmas I called Dr. Bacino again and told him that I was on my last few pills of the antibiotic and that it had made no dent in the infection and in fact my jaw was more swollen than before.  So Paul called in a third antibiotic for me with the hope that this one might have some effect on the infection.

Finally today I think I'm seeing a little improvement.  There isn't as much pain in the jaw but I'm still having trouble eating anything.  Today though I did force myself to eat a bit more than I have been lately.  I've lost a fair amount of weight through the course of this all and worst of all I haven't been able to train at all.

I can't remember an illness that has laid me low for this long and even my Mother who never gets concerned, has been threatening to come to Omaha and make me go see another Doctor.  I've told her that it's obviously an infected tooth and that it just appears that I was unlucky enough to contract one that has multiple drug resistance.  For whatever reason she seems convinced that there is more to this than just a tooth.  I think she's been doing too much Googling and is making herself worry unnecessarily.

The most frustrating part about it all is that six months ago at my routine cleaning and check up, Dr. Bacino wanted me to have a 'preemptive' root canal in this tooth.  I asked him why would I do that to a tooth that isn't hurting me, he said that his intuition told him that tooth could be a problem down the road due to the size of the filling in that tooth.  My response was that it had been like that for nearly 30 years.  This is a tooth with a large gold filling that was done at the Creighton Dental School shortly after my first wife and I moved to Omaha.  It was done by a dental student who also put several other fillings in for me.  I laughingly told Paul that he just wanted that gold filling.  Sadly, I'm not the one laughing now.  The next time Paul uses his Jedi Dentist skills and tells me we need to do something preemptively, I'm going to be all for it!!  

I haven't been doing any reading to speak of through all this and have spent as much time as possible sleeping and trying to fight off this infection that way.  It's always been my theory that sleep is the best medicine when you are ill.  Hopefully I'll be over the hump this week as one of my Christmas gifts was the two volume collection of NT Wright's new book on 'Paul'.  These two volumes are over 1,200 pages long and it's one of the most comprehensive writings on Paul ever done.  I'm anxious to read these volumes even though I know that Wright and I disagree on at least one aspect of Paul and his writings.  This is another time when I really wish Jesse was still here as this book would be perfect for one of our studies.  Interestingly, the books that I have on the Apostle Paul are second only in shelf space to the books that I have on Christ himself.

I very much do regret that with all of this we did not get to attend Midnight Mass at Saint Cecilia's, that is one of the highlights of my entire year and missing out on this Mass leaves a major hole in my experience of Christmas.

May these ramblings find you all well and blessed.

In God's constant Grace & Love,
Roy