So I think I’ll try to participate in this year’s NaNoWriMo. The goal is to write 50,000 words between Nov 1 and Nov 30.

I admit to being a little nervous with all the family + day job issues but I’m going to give it a good try.

In the process of putting the little participant icon on my sidebar, I also did a little clean up and additions to all my lists of links.

Thanks for all the virtual hugs. Today was the great completion of the root canal on the broken tooth. I was a little more relaxed, especially after the valium.

My regular dentist finished the job and 2 hours later that ugliness was done. I had to have the awful palate shot too. That’s enough to make this grown woman whimper.

I get to come back in about 2 weeks to have the tooth prepped for a crown.

Joy

But with the valium, the dark glasses, and the rather lovely high flow of nitrous, my feet were tingling but I didn’t really care too much what was going on in my mouth as long as I couldn’t feel it.

Ah well.

So let me preface this with the fact that most people do not like going to the dentist. It’s never a fun thing but of all my friends (except maybe Yasmine) I am easily the person who would rather hack off body parts, walk on glass, etc than actually go to the dentist.

After years of thinking about why, I’ve come to the conclusion that it must be because of something that happened as a child where I was being hurt but no one would stop. I have an amazingly high tolerance to any of the “caine” drugs like Novocaine, Xylocaine, etc and it takes a lot to get me numb and more must be given far more frequently than most people. This is true in dental work and even when I had a mole removed with a local.

But last Tuesday I was eating some very NON-crunchy pasta when I bit down onto something that had nothing to do with pasta. I spat out what was clearly a good sized chunk of a tooth. About 1/2 of one of the upper back molars had calved off.

Oh hell.

Despite the urge to scream, I was completely aware that this was NOT something I could just ignore. My dentist was closed for the day and wouldn’t be open until Thursday so I could at least relax that the Day of Dental Doom was a few days off. I contented myself with hoping that the tooth just wouldn’t start hurting.

Thankfully it was okay (at least no pain) and I tried to keep it clean. I called the dentist on Thursday but they didn’t have a long enough opening until Monday (today). That was okay since it really wasn’t hurting and I was going to the Emerald City Writers Conference over the weekend.

All went well until last night where by the time I went to bed the tonsil on that side was hugely swollen and it hurt to swallow. Dang – bacteria had clearly gotten in there. This morning I woke with the still swollen throat and the additional gift of a 101.2 fever.

Off to the dentist for my 2pm appt. The second I walk in the door, they handed my the valium and I chatted for a bit with the receptionist to find that my nemesis – the bitchy assistant that yells at me because I’m scared – no longer works there and the dentist I will see that tday is one that works part of the time at the WSU dental fears clinic!! Wow – a tiny inkling of hope.

I still wouldn’t choose this as a great thing to go do but it wasn’t as bad as I feared. The tooth was salvagable and they cleaned it up and sealed it but I get to go back in for a root canal on Friday am. Joy.

It took almost 5 hours for my face to completely un-numb but I’ll take that over the pain any day. I still have a fever and my throat still hurts but that should clear up soon.

So I have been (somewhat gently) reminded by friends that my poor blog has been languishing on my cruise from last month. I have more days of the cruise but I’m going to have to get on a blog schedule so it doesn’t languish so long.

In the meantime, I’ve been working like mad on the Project-That-Would-Not-Ship at the day job and my software test book that is on deadline.

This weekend I did take the time to go to the Emerald City Writers Conference in Bellevue, WA. I had a great time, had two great pitches with editors and agents and went away more motivated than when I arrived.

The first task is to get the Test Book on the way to the editor and then I need to write the synopsis for Raven’s White Hart!