I have this tooth. Actually, I have many teeth but this particular one caused me huge grief. It’s a mutant tooth and like most mutations, it’s not particularly useful. Okay, so I’m a mutant, with four kidneys, an extra rib and an extra ankle bone in each foot. None of these bothered me much, except for the rib when I’ve been driving for more than three hours.
Then my tooth started to hurt. It’s crooked, like a few other teeth. I tried to ignore the twinges until they began to linger. Dentistry is expensive and I’ve been trying to save for a crown I needed on another broken tooth. So off I went to my dentist, who took an x-ray and said, “How odd, it looks as if your tooth has two roots.” But she gave it a try.
I should mention that along the way I’ve become overly sensitive to epinephrine. I’ll get a racing heart, tunnel vision, breathing constriction (or it feels like it) and numbing arms. Epinephrine is what makes freezing last when dentists drill into your teeth. No epinephrine means using other types of freezing that don’t last more than an hour. My dentist froze me and started drilling and I started writhing. She couldn’t freeze deep enough so she packed it in and sent me to the specialist.
When I saw the specialist she said, “How unusual. It’s going to cost between $800-1200 for the root canal…” Make that canals. Two three-hour visits later, with a lot of pain…the only way they know when the freezing is coming out is when I start to writhe and whimper… and she said, “Hmmm, I can’t get that second root. We’re going to have to do surgery.”
At that point I had hit the $1200 mark. I said, “I can’t. I have no more money.” They were quoting another $500 for surgery. But they said since my tooth was so unusual they wouldn’t charge me for the surgery. You’d think I’d leap at such a chance to have drills and needles and cutting in my mouth. Needless to say, it was like walking the gangplank with a musket at your back. There really isn’t much choice when your tooth is still hurting.
Now, dental work is never fun and I almost always will feel pain because the freezing seems to come out of the nerves first but will stay in the soft tissue of the lips and nose for several hours. It makes me a bit paranoid. I wouldn’t last very long under torture.
Which brought us to yesterday. I went in at 9:15 and they froze me up with about six shots. I thought, good, I don’t want to feel a thing and having these horrid, not exactly pleasant needles will be all I’ll feel. Should I mention that originally they said the surgery would be quick, less than a half an hour?
Thank god at least the soft tissue was frozen. They cut into the gum on both the distal and lingual sides. I felt like there couldn’t have been any tooth left with all the drilling, digging, pulling, prodding, sawing. I also get TMJ (trans mandibular joint syndrome) so holding my jaw open was its own type of excruciating. It was getting so sore that my jaw was starting to shake.
The types of pain I experienced ranged the whole spectrum; piercing, pinching, deep aching, sharp and deep, throbbing, visceral in ways I can’t describe. I am not exaggerating at all when I say they were having to top up the freezing every five minutes. I lost count at over thirty needles and those were only the ones I felt going into my palette or gum every time. And it barely helped. It seems I metabolize the freezing super quickly. Hooray for mutant super powers.
Digging out the root, twisted and infected, was its own form of torture. And then she touched the exposed bone. Who knew bone could hurt so much. A deep lingering, shuddering pain that had me crying. I couldn’t help it. After that I was wired so tense with layers of pain that I was shaking head to toe. They gave me a rest and one of the assistants had to guide me to the bathroom because I think I was in shock. I was shaky for about another fifteen minutes, before going back for more dental fun.
They dug, they drilled, they sawed and they tugged. I say they because there were three people with their hands in my mouth. They had to refreeze me to stitch me. As I sat there, (they wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to keel over), the assistant said, “We’re only going to charge you for materials. The surgery would have been $1500 but you need to pay $185.” I should also mention that while I was in Kansas I broke my front tooth…again. It usually last two years but it’s been less than a year.
When I was told I needed to pay another $185, I’m afraid it was the last straw in a traumatic morning. I’d been there for three hours. I couldn’t stop crying, but I tried to hide it, then told the specialist that I wouldn’t be able to pay for a while because I had another broken tooth that had to be fixed. She ended up not charging me, which I thank her for. They said it was the most unusual tooth they’ve ever seen and they look at special cases every single day. Oh joy, to be so abnormal.
Right now, my mouth aches, my gums are swollen and throbbing, and I can only eat mushy stuff. I look like a demented chipmunk, with one cheek so swollen it’s encroaching on my vision because my eyelid is pushed up. I spent yesterday afternoon sleeping, where I kept dreaming that I was sucking on keys and coins against my gum and that it kept hurting my stitches. That’s because even in my sleep I was hurting. I just hope to any gods in existence that the rest of my teeth have nice, healthy normal roots. Now I just have to find money to get the front tooth fixed…again, a crown on my molar, and I would imagine that eventually I need one on the mutant tooth. Should I ever need this type of dental surgery again, I’m gonna have them knock me out.
I won’t even get into the costs for braces in a mouth with several problems. That’s at least $10,000. Know of any single dentist/orthodontists, or better yet, one who wants to do a work of charity?
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Friday, July 4, 2008
Novel Writing Workshop
Tomorrow (today) we go over the last of nine novels, which means three chapters and the outline. The writing is of a pretty good caliber in all of these and all of them need work. Kij is amazingly astute and finding what's not working and at defining structure.
There has been quite a range in the ideas from humorous space opera to medieval fantasy to alternate histories. I hadn't worked on the novel for ten years and knew I had huge expository lumps. But I was getting mired. I had to build a complete world, including geography, races, culture, religion and rulers. No small feat and it's still evolving. I was told to get rid of the first two chapters and simplify the information. I also had to drop the meddling gods back.
The more I thought about it, the more relieved I was. I have so much information to impart and I was getting mired. After we went for BBQ (where the food was okay and the waiting staff terrible) at the Vermont, I think, we went back to the dorms. Most nights people sit around and talk and write, to varying degrees. There's a quiet room if you don't want to be bothered by the chatter. I was working on my outline and chatting with Eric Warren from the short fiction workshop.
He had sat in one day on our workshop and had read the two novel bits so he could see how the process went. It's not round table like Clarion and is a more gentle, more brainstorming style which I quite like and find useful, not to mention you learn from the other people's novels too. We ended up discussing my novel and it was really useful. Eric gave me a very cool idea for the second novel and I got to bounce my changes off of him.
What this outline has given me that the first didn't is a jumping point to a second novel. I had only thought in the vague terms of "there will be one" before this. Kij has made me cut down to three viewpoint characters. Because of the races and plot, I can't really go to fewer. But this leaves room for different character viewpoints in the second novel. One rule was that two of the three problems must be solved by the end of the novel. I've done this (at least in the outline), and leaving one unsolved problem leaves room for that problem to flow into the next novel and for joining them.
The outline gets turned in next week and taken through the process. I think it is stronger and kind of exciting. I also wrote up story arcs for each of the four characters, which definitely helps in plotting the outlines. I hope to have most of the outline done by tomorrow.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Monday, June 23, 2008
Zenn Car or Tesla Roadster
I'm sure there are more electric cars out there but I recently mentioned the Zenn Car and Tesla Motors Roadster. Because I've wanted to downsize since last year, and should have done it then, I've been looking at cars. My Saturn Ion 3 does get pretty good mileage: 600 km to a 50 litre tank, or about 30 mi/gallon. That's highway driving. But I don't need the space and therefore could improve on the mileage with a smaller vehicle.
Well, an electric car would be ideal, right? When I looked at the Tesla Roadster http://www.teslamotors.com/, with its 220 miles to a charge, its ability to accelerate, its green aspects, I thought yes! The catch: you have to place an order and it could take a year to get your car. The cost is $109,000, which makes it a toy for the environmentally conscious elite only. It's only available in the US. Still, if some of the jetsetting rich folk think beyond what they can spend on frivolities, then that's a start. And as we know, many rock and movie stars can be role models (just look at Paris!), so let's hope they lead by green examples.
On the other end is the Zenn car http://www.zenncars.com/ made in Canada. It's classified as a NEV (neighbourhood electric vehicle). That's part of the catch; it only goes up to about 25 miles an hour/40 km. Even in Vancouver, should I be puttering about at 40 km, I'm going to make a lot of irate drives in the 50 km zones where everyone goes 60 km. But it's cheap at $15, 995 USD. Available in many states, Zenn is looking at starting in Montreal for Canada. It's taken awhile to get through the Canadian red tape even if it is a Canadian made car. But for delivery vehicles and people who just move about the city from work to the store to home, it's a cheaper alternative.
I can't buy the Roadster because it's expensive and only avaialable in the US. I can't buy the Zenn because its goes too slow (and I drive on the highway to get to work) and it's only available in the US. I can't buy a Prius or any other electric hybrid car because they're too expensive.
Now, I had even more incentive to get a smaller car because of the BC government's impending carbon tax, to make people choose greener alternatives. I've already grumbled about how this would work better if we actually had real alternatives. I should have sold my car six months ago when I first decided to downgrade. I've looked at the Honda Fit, the Toyota Yaris and the Nissan Versa. All are viable as smaller cars, all are similar though one is better at pick-up, one at trunk space, one at turning radius.
My catch? I still owe payments on my Saturn Ion 3. Although it's been reliable and good on gas mileage, everyone is scared to buy cars (let alone trucks) right now. I can't sell it for what it's worth, which means I can't buy a smaller, more energy efficient car. So the government has me where it hurts with their extra tax on the already taxed gas. And soon, it will be cheaper to take the bus, but it's still cheaper for me to drive.
Anyone want to buy a good car?
Well, an electric car would be ideal, right? When I looked at the Tesla Roadster http://www.teslamotors.com/, with its 220 miles to a charge, its ability to accelerate, its green aspects, I thought yes! The catch: you have to place an order and it could take a year to get your car. The cost is $109,000, which makes it a toy for the environmentally conscious elite only. It's only available in the US. Still, if some of the jetsetting rich folk think beyond what they can spend on frivolities, then that's a start. And as we know, many rock and movie stars can be role models (just look at Paris!), so let's hope they lead by green examples.
On the other end is the Zenn car http://www.zenncars.com/ made in Canada. It's classified as a NEV (neighbourhood electric vehicle). That's part of the catch; it only goes up to about 25 miles an hour/40 km. Even in Vancouver, should I be puttering about at 40 km, I'm going to make a lot of irate drives in the 50 km zones where everyone goes 60 km. But it's cheap at $15, 995 USD. Available in many states, Zenn is looking at starting in Montreal for Canada. It's taken awhile to get through the Canadian red tape even if it is a Canadian made car. But for delivery vehicles and people who just move about the city from work to the store to home, it's a cheaper alternative.
I can't buy the Roadster because it's expensive and only avaialable in the US. I can't buy the Zenn because its goes too slow (and I drive on the highway to get to work) and it's only available in the US. I can't buy a Prius or any other electric hybrid car because they're too expensive.
Now, I had even more incentive to get a smaller car because of the BC government's impending carbon tax, to make people choose greener alternatives. I've already grumbled about how this would work better if we actually had real alternatives. I should have sold my car six months ago when I first decided to downgrade. I've looked at the Honda Fit, the Toyota Yaris and the Nissan Versa. All are viable as smaller cars, all are similar though one is better at pick-up, one at trunk space, one at turning radius.
My catch? I still owe payments on my Saturn Ion 3. Although it's been reliable and good on gas mileage, everyone is scared to buy cars (let alone trucks) right now. I can't sell it for what it's worth, which means I can't buy a smaller, more energy efficient car. So the government has me where it hurts with their extra tax on the already taxed gas. And soon, it will be cheaper to take the bus, but it's still cheaper for me to drive.
Anyone want to buy a good car?
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Writing News
It seems there has been a contest listed on Craigslist that list the SFWA (Science Fiction Writers of America) as sponsoring it. You pay a $10 contest entry and then the winning stories and honourable mentions will be published by a big publisher.
This is a fraudulent contest and SFWA has already issued statements that they have not sponsored that. Someone is hoping to make some money on collecting entry fees but having no legitimate contest.
Writer beware. Do not send anything if you see this contest listed.
This is a fraudulent contest and SFWA has already issued statements that they have not sponsored that. Someone is hoping to make some money on collecting entry fees but having no legitimate contest.
Writer beware. Do not send anything if you see this contest listed.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Dream States
I had the oddest dream last night that mixed different parts of my life. In real life, last night, I gave Daralyn and Miranda a ride home. They're students at the naturopathic college where I work.
So then I dreamt: Miranda, Daralyn and I were at a writing convention. We were in a hotel room and getting ready for bed, three beds. As we settled in two other women I didn't know burst in and, because we'd answered the door, one took my bed and the other took one of the other's beds. A fourth woman had just joined us before that and was going to share the larger bed. The larger intruding woman took that bed.
I took my pillow and was trying to find my sheets or duvet but couldn't. It turns out there was a fourth bed but it had four TVs hanging over it so low that if you were laying in the bed your nose would probably touch them. Since that wasn't usable I went to the adjoining room where two Japanese girls were going in. Two people were already sleeping in there but on small kitchen style tables. Various bits of fabric were draped over the tables.
I heard that one was Martel, this Chicago writer on a list that I'm on. In real life, it turns out that Martel is a woman but I've never met her or seen a picture of her. In my dream it was a guy with wild red hair, and superhero size muscled arms. He had a tiny Pomeranian sized saber tooth tiger and gave me a hug when I said I was on Twilight Tales also.
At that point I realized the two women who had come in had been rude and that there was no reason they should take our beds and I went back into the room, told them there was etiquette and rules and that they couldn't just take our beds when we'd already picked them.
Then I was in Europe, I think, sitting beside a large gargoyle outside a building. I was looking at small sculptures that were butter molds and presses when Friz, Jordan and I think, Rick, three other students from the college walked by. We said hi and hugged each other. And that was the dream in all its weirdness
So then I dreamt: Miranda, Daralyn and I were at a writing convention. We were in a hotel room and getting ready for bed, three beds. As we settled in two other women I didn't know burst in and, because we'd answered the door, one took my bed and the other took one of the other's beds. A fourth woman had just joined us before that and was going to share the larger bed. The larger intruding woman took that bed.
I took my pillow and was trying to find my sheets or duvet but couldn't. It turns out there was a fourth bed but it had four TVs hanging over it so low that if you were laying in the bed your nose would probably touch them. Since that wasn't usable I went to the adjoining room where two Japanese girls were going in. Two people were already sleeping in there but on small kitchen style tables. Various bits of fabric were draped over the tables.
I heard that one was Martel, this Chicago writer on a list that I'm on. In real life, it turns out that Martel is a woman but I've never met her or seen a picture of her. In my dream it was a guy with wild red hair, and superhero size muscled arms. He had a tiny Pomeranian sized saber tooth tiger and gave me a hug when I said I was on Twilight Tales also.
At that point I realized the two women who had come in had been rude and that there was no reason they should take our beds and I went back into the room, told them there was etiquette and rules and that they couldn't just take our beds when we'd already picked them.
Then I was in Europe, I think, sitting beside a large gargoyle outside a building. I was looking at small sculptures that were butter molds and presses when Friz, Jordan and I think, Rick, three other students from the college walked by. We said hi and hugged each other. And that was the dream in all its weirdness
Friday, June 6, 2008
Suffering the Effects of Gas...Prices
Alas, today I had to put gas into the car. $25 for a quarter of a tank at $1.42 a litre. For those of you in the US, there are 3.8 litres to the US gallon (different from the imperial gallon) but roughly you can multiply it by four for a price of $5.68 a gallon. It's still cheaper to gas up in the US, when I can, but I can't afford to drive as far.
So, gas prices, definitely causing us discomfort but these days we hear, oh the price of food is going up because of gas prices. Airline tickets--gas prices. Clothing--gas prices. Gas prices--gas prices. Yes, the price of gas is going up because of the price of gas. Or gas prices are going up because of volcanoes, tsunamis, rain, broken fingernails or war somewhere. I wonder how much George Bush can be blamed for gas prices?
The moment that our lovely provincial government mentioned that they would be doing a carbon tax on gas as of July 1, the price went up by a couple of cents (back in April). Let's not forget that gas is already taxed federally and provincially and more if you live in large urban centers--36.3% as of 2006 for Vancouver. Oh and there is tax on the tax. (You'll have to read my earlier rant, "Carbon Tax: Wolf in Sheep's Clothing" to see why I think it's hugely flawed--the least amount of work the gov't can do toward environmentalism.)
Let's go back ten years or more. I remember a time when the price of gas stayed the same for months on end and would only change by a cent. In BC, less than ten years ago Arco started to come into the province. Gas went down to an unprecedented .29 cents a litre. You could gas up for $15. It began a gas war because of Arco's low prices. Do they even exist anymore? At that point in time prices would drop or rise but stay that way for a week.
Somehow everything sped up exponentially. It became a daily thing to see prices change by .10 cents a litre and it still happens. So, tell me, great gas corporations, are your prices changing on the hour because of every geographic upheaval, drop of rain or hurled insult somewhere in the world? Does this somehow affect the reserves? According to these poor beleaguered gas companies, which I'm sure are losing money, yes, every little earthquake, every insurrection causes gas prices to change instantaneously.
Wow, we are so volatile. I notice that those world crises are at their lowest late at night and mid day but that they affect gas prices most when we are going to or coming from work and always on the weekend when you may be driving at any particular time. Gosh, our world is like a bunch of festering sores just constantly popping.
There have been calls for investigations into the price of gas and the fluctuation of such. I have yet to hear that there was such an investigation or the results. We're at the mercy of the gas companies who will only switch wholeheartedly to hybrid or other clean energy cars when they can no longer suck the last drop of oil from the earth and likewise suck us dry. Just look at how little advertising has ever gone into a hybrid car and how they are more expensive than any gas guzzler. Oh, and if you check far enough some gas and car companies are often jointely owned or have shares in each other. Can we say collusion?
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