Friday, December 5, 2008

Daddy's teeth

I alluded to not working much the past three weeks in the last post, so I thought I'd explain (this is Gavin). I'm not sure if we had mentioned this before, but I had some oral surgery this week on Tuesday so I've been off recovering and eating a lot of soft foods this week. The previous week I was in hospital with Zoe (she was an inpatient on the same floor I work on) and the week before that both Genevieve and I took a bunch of time off to look after Zoe at home. So it has been a very odd three weeks, for my professional as well as my personal life.



Zoe an inpatient on my floor



While Zoe was admitted, she was inpatient on 7C, one of the units I cover professionally as a Child Life Specialist. So I knew all the staff, and was seeing kids I work with on a day to day basis all the time, while walking back and forth getting things for Zoe. And to get linens and supplies, which of course I know where they are, I'd have to ask staff. I generally try to keep my personal and professional life seperate, but since Zoe came along this has become increasingly difficult and last week it was impossible. I had families asking about how my daughter was doing, and I have to admit I struggled a little bit keeping it all seperate. There were times when I ended up doing work stuff, and there were times that I really wanted to connect with other parents on a parent to parent level, rather then a professional to parent level. There were times when I found myself doing both. It is very hard to describe how this personal/professional conflict is not only logistically difficult but gut renchingly hard at times. Not just last week but frequently at work I see situations so similar to what could occur with Zoe or that are occuring or have occured that it just feels emotionally quite overwhelming. My job is one where you have to be emotionally. . . available, or at least aware, and having Zoe and with her being so involved with the health care system it places a huge toll on my emotional reserves. Sometimes work seems too much like home and home is, well, work (like last week, where I spent a continuous 120 hours or so at "work" with Zoe as an inpatient). This last Wednesday- my usual day off home with Zoe, was the first time in a month that Zoe wasn't at the hospital for an appointment of some kind.

It really does sometimes become very hard, to both do my job well in the way I need to and to be a valued employee. Being Zoe's dad is different- it is just who I am and I have no choice but to do it with everything I have. And usually I am that way with my job as well, but it gets so difficult and emotionally exhausting on top of everything else going on. At some point I might make a posting on this topic itself - it sort of deserves it. Maybe one of these days I'll get around to making one. Anyway, onto my new teeth!

Oral surgery (doesn't actually have anything to do with 1p36 so skip it if you want to).

Here is the background to the oral surgery thing, for those of you who don't know (which would be most of you). I have had a lot of trouble with my teeth since my early 20's. I had a lot of various treatments for cancer when I was in my teens, and it seems like it really did for my teeth. No definitive explanation was ever found. One dentist thought it was the NG tube I used to put down and it causing acid reflux (which it did). It could be radiation or chemotherapy, or possibly nutritional or hormonal causes during the structural and formative development of my adult teeth. I just learned (from an article on Neanderthal man I was reading in a National Geographic in my dentists office) they can put Neanderthal teeth in a particle accelerator and "read" the development of the teeth, tracing nurtitional deficits, periods of stress, etc. Now this has never been done with my teeth- to do would involve putting my head in a particle accelerator which would, I imagine, be fatal (maybe not- I'm no physicist) but it made me wonder if my teeth just never developed properly at a structural level due to all the other stuff going on at the time. Certainly, looking back I had some poor dental hygiene practices at times; my priorities were not on my teeth as my very survival/continuation as a living person took precedence. If I could go back and change this I would, but what difference it might make I don't know. I've seen some very bad cases of dental care in the hosptials I've worked in, and they generally would improve with better hygiene and treatment. Such was not my case. Since my 20's I've been fighting a losing battle to keep what I had and make what I had functional. I have spent thousands of dollars and tried so many options; at times my dental hygiene regime has been pretty grueling and time consuming (not to mention money consuming!) For the passed four years or so I haven't had a good solution- I haven't really had functional molars for ages and I had continual absesses and cysts and swollen lymph glands and nasties like that. So the time came to finally move forward on a long term solution.

(for those of you who are squemish about dental stuff you might want to skip the next bit)

So that is the background. This week I finally did what I had been trying to avoid for so long, and I had basically all my teeth removed. They were all crowned anyway- I think I may have you only one left that was not root canalled. The crowned molars I had left (six lowers in all) had all broken and had nothing to oppose against, as I had my six top molars removed with my wisdoms about four years ago (plus my first attempt- very unsuccessful- with a partial denture). I had put this off for years, for expense, for time, for ego, and most recently for Zoe. I thought I'd have to postpone again last week, but then Zoe got released so I went ahead and got the surgery. I now have a full lower denture and a partial upper denture- my six front teeth are a bridge type crown thingy I've had for awhile and which is holding up for now. I got two implants put in my lower jaw that the lower denture will eventually lock onto. So far I am extremely happy with the results. The dentures fit great (even the lower one, even though the implants won't be hooked up for another while yet). I can't really chew on it yet, but the pain has been much less then I expected. Genevieve has been wonderful staying home and taking care of me and Zoe has been especially gentle with my face. She knew I wasn't feeling well on Tuesday and kept signing "Daddy". So cute!

So I am very relieved to finally have got this done, and to be pleased with the results. I was at the point where the teeth I had were a constant source of infection and pain, and I am sort of glad to rid of them. And it is so odd to see myself in the mirror with a full set of "teeth"- I haven't seen that in years! Damn I look good! And I am really looking forward to chewing my food again- years of grinding all my food with my front teeth makes me wonder what it will be like to have functional molars again!! Back in the Neanderthal days when you lost your molars that was it man, your life is over - feed you to the wolves, you were dead. I'm glad we live nowadays and I can get away with my "falsies"- being eaten by wolves doesn't seem very nice.

Sorry if this is a lot of detail, and not related to 1p36 stuff at all, but I just wanted to share something that had been a long time coming for me, and that I am very happy to have finally done. It was a bit painful, and very expensive, but it was past due to get done and I am happy it is. I am actually quite thrilled to finally have my "old man false teeth in a jar". It is a huge relief to have it done and to have the results be so positive. Thanks be to Genevieve and Zoe for seeing me through- they are my world.

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