Dental Drama, part one

The movers didn’t come. Why? I wasn’t ready! I have been suffering from tooth pain for the past 2-3 weeks and this impacted my productivity in a huge way. Listen to my sad story.

It all started because my new job doesn’t have dental insurance. In fact, their health benefits are pretty pathetic all around but that’s another story. Knowing the high cost of dental care in the US and knowing I had some minor dental issues I decided to get them taken care of before I left. Medical tourism is on the rise and the Philippines is a popular destination. Manila, in particular, has excellent hospitals and the doctors here are top-notch. I decided I should get my teeth checked out before I left and have any work done here at a fraction of the cost.

So a couple of weeks ago I made an appointment with Dr. Thor (not his real name). Coco’s dentist recommended him to me. I went for a check up and after a few x-rays he told me I had a cavity that needed to be filled. When I went to have it filled I was in awe of him. He was so gentle and the first dentist to fill a cavity pain-free. I was thinking in my head how awesome he was and staring into his eyes with love as he worked. He must have read my mind because as soon as he finished the procedure he started talking about his girlfriend! LOL. I wasn’t looking at him like that! Okay, maybe a little. I got carried away at his awesome dental skills! When he said to come back the next week to get my crown replaced I thought nothing of it and made an appointment.

This was where things went drastically wrong.

I sat down in his chair for my second appointment feeling very relaxed and optimistic. I had a slight gap between the top of my crown and the gum line and although the area wasn’t giving me much pain–say a 1 or 2 on a scale of 1-10 and it was intermittent at that– I wasn’t terribly concerned but I figured that with a gap food and bacteria must have entered and it was best to get it dealt with promptly. After administering the Novocaine, Dr. Thor got to work. He didn’t see any decay but he said it was best to take a look and then adjust the crown properly. However, fifteen minutes into the procedure he was still unable to get my crown loosened. And this is where things turned for the worse. He took out a tool kind of like a hammer (to be honest I only got a glimpse of it as I usually keep my eyes squeezed tightly shut during dental work) and used it to tap lightly on the tooth. That didn’t work so he started tapping harder. And harder. It was starting to hurt. I was under anesthesia but I was feeling more than pressure, yet still he continued to bang on my tooth. He started using more and more force and tears sprung to my eyes. As the tears rolled down my teeth, I started to question him. “Why are you using a hammer?!” That’s what we use to remove crowns here. “Didn’t you go to dental school in the States?” Yes. “Well I have never had a crown removed with a hammer before!” Don’t worry; it’s common practice. Just relax, I’ll have it out any minute. “Well, what do I know? I thought to myself. I didn’t go to dental school.” But deep down I knew that that wasn’t the best way to remove a crown. It shouldn’t be so painful.

Bang. Bang. Bang. Finally after about 15 hard blows to my tooth it came loose and continued with the procedure. After making the mold for a new crown he fitted me with a temporary and sent me on my way. That night I had a lot of pain; it was now up to a 6. And it continued for a few more nights. I was popping Advil like crazy. I called him and shared my concerns and he brought me in for another appointment. He had planned to put on the permanent crown at this point but he said that due to my complaints of pain he couldn’t do it until I was checked out by an endodontist to see if a root canal was necessary. A root canal?! What in the world? He made an appointment for me for the next afternoon to see Dr. Fashionplate.

I had (almost) learned my lesson to go only to someone a friend had recommended but with pain so bad I couldn’t wait around to get recommendations and make future appointments. I went ahead to her but I Googled her first. The only article I could find about her was an article about hot doctors where she was modeling a Diane von Fürstenberg dress. I didn’t think this was a good sign but I was desperate. She turned out to be professional and seemingly competent. She looked at my x-rays and my offending tooth and decided that it didn’t need a root canal after all. She said it looked perfect and that my pain didn’t make sense. The only reasons she could think of why my pain wasn’t showing up on an x-ray was because of trauma or because it was actually the tooth beside it that was causing the pain– however, the x-ray of that tooth looked fine, too. Go back to Dr. Thor and have him remove both crowns simultaneously and examine them both to determine the root of my pain (no pun intended) and then come back to me for the root canal if needed, she said. “Can’t you just remove the other crown now while I’m here in your chair under anesthesia?” I inquired. No, I don’t do crowns. That’s not my specialty. “Don’t do the crown, just examine the tooth to see if a root canal is necessary,” I pleaded since I didn’t want to waste the afternoon’s injections. Sorry, I don’t do crowns. You need to go back to Dr. Thor for that.

Over my dead body. There was NO way I was going back to Dr. Thor to remove another crown. I just didn’t have a good feeling about it. So I left Dr. Fashionplate’s office and returned home. I got home late that night–the appointment wasn’t over until after 6pm and Coco was already asleep. I hate coming home after she’s asleep so I did what I always do: I went in and checked on her, gave her a kiss and whispered in her ear what a sweet little girl she is. Then, out of sheer exhaustion I snuggled up next to her and promptly fell asleep.

Around 11 pm I awoke to the most painful stabbing pain in my gums, jaw and head. It was practically unbearable. I went to the kitchen and rummaged for the Advil by the dim stove light and gulped two down with some lukewarm water. Then I went into my bedroom and eventually fell back to sleep only to be awoken again around 3 am with searing pain running across my left shoulder, across both upper and lower left jaw and up the left side of head. I tried to massage the pain out but it didn’t subside; I squeezed the life out of the the fleshy part between my thumb and forefinger but the pain remained; I tried deep breathing and relaxation techniques but nothing worked. I trudged back into the kitchen for another dose of Advil, desperate for some relief. I popped two more Advil and went back to massaging my head praying for the pain to stop. But this time it did not. It keep on, for hours, unrelenting. Throbbing head pain, stabbing jaw pain and shooting pains across my shoulders and up my neck. My heart rate started to become jagged and uneven, or at least I thought so. After four hours of pain I started to think it was something more serious. The pain was now a terrifying 12 on a scale of 1-1o and I was crying in desperation. Why wasn’t the pain going away? It was at this point that I started Googling my symptoms and got freaked out.Wanting to be more safe than sorry I decided to check myself into the nearest hospital to be sure it truly stemmed from the dental work.

to be continued…

Two Years Done

I really can’t believe it. The movers are coming tomorrow to ship our stuff back to the States! How did my contract end so quickly? I found it so hard many, many days but as they say, the days are long but the years are short. I actually have a lot of things I am going to miss. What are they? Here are my top 10 (in no particular order):

1. my new friends from all over the world
2. Coco’s school
3. fresh coconuts, mulunggay and mangoes sold year round
4. my tennis lessons
5. my condo and all the amenities (pool, mall, tennis, playground, etc. close by)
6. my salary
7. my travel allowance
8. not having to shovel snow or de-ice my windshield at dawn
9. having someone else help with cooking, cleaning, laundry and childcare
10. cheap mani/pedis and massages!

And here are the top 10 things I am looking forward to:

1. clean air
2. parks and beautiful outdoor space
3. spending time with friends and seeing my family more often
4. a large Ethiopian community
5. free activities (libraries, museums, street festivals, etc.)
6. decent radio stations
7. dating
8. products not being out of stock
9. crisp fall air and with the gorgeous leaves and glorious spring weather
10. finding a church home

Here we are the day we left:I was really nervous and not sure I was doing the right thing. I had a job that I really liked and good friends and Coco loved her school but I knew I had to go though to get in control of my debt. My first year here was awful. I hated my job, I hated Manila, I missed home and I wanted to quit. But I had read that it takes about 12-18 months to feel settled in a new city and I was under contract so I returned to Manila after being home for the summer to get through year two. What surprised me was that about 18 months in I started to almost like living here! I still missed home but I had found our new normal and we were settled in. It helped that we moved to a new apartment and I gave up a leadership position at my job that was a time-sucker and our new yaya was much better. I also made some really good new friends and started playing tennis. And I was so happy to be paying down debt.

I really can’t believe it’s almost done. Living overseas has changed me in so many ways, and all for the better I’d say. I have paid off all of my credit card debt and everyone else I owed (well I still owe my cousin $10,000 but that’s sitting in my bank account to pay him when we get back home). That means when we return to the States in June I will only owe money on my mortgage and my home equity line. No student loans, no car payment, no credit card debt! Yes, living overseas was very, very, very hard at times; I was lonely and the stress and the sun ruined my skin but I will return nearly debt-free, having traveled all over Asia and more confident and clear on who I am and what I want –and that, in my opinion, made it all worthwhile.

Mother’s Day

My friend V took us out to brunch on Mother’s Day to a lovely little place called Bizu. I loved how it was decorated in white and pink with fresh flowers everywhere! I had the spinach and goat cheese Quiche with salad. Coco and V ordered pancakes with Nutella, bananas and almonds. Food was good and I got a present from the restaurant, too! See the little gift bag? It was filled with little make up samples and a coupon.

Coco wanted to wear her Ethiopian dress and a pair of my clip on earrings. I didn’t think about it at the time but I’m glad her heritage was highlighted on that day to honor her birth mom, even if in such a small way. In fact, that might be a nice tradition to start. I really enjoyed the day and I am ever so grateful for my little munchkin!
A few days before Mother’s Day she brought me a gift she had made in school. She wanted me to open it immediately but I tried to explain to her we should wait until Mother’s Day. Well, that didn’t happen. I think we opened it on Saturday. She was SO proud of her work and was over the moon pleased that I loved it so much. She said it was her hands that she traced and cut out to make flowers for the pot. The feather leaf fell off. She also made me this card which she was also immensely proud to give to me. Aw, such a sweetie pie. Oops! She told me that she is not “sweetie pie” that I am sweetie pie. If I call her sweetie pie she responds in an exasperated voice with, “I’m not sweetie pie, you’re sweetie pie! Remember the deal?!” LOL. (but she still is a sweetie pie – don’t tell her I said so!)

She also wanted to try on the dress I had worn to the Latin Ball but it was too long so we settled on this one. I let her put on my clip on earrings and she thought she looked so beautiful. Look at her admiring herself in my full length mirror. This girl is rough and tumble but man does she love jewelry and dresses and make up!

After brunch, I sold my car! I’ve been worrying about getting rid of it since we are moving in, gasp!, 6 weeks but I was able to sell two days after I advertised for PHP 145,000 (about $3500)! I could have gotten more for it but I wanted to get rid of it. And you know what? I bought it for $4,000 fourteen months ago. That adds up to about $35/month, plus gas. Not bad. Not bad at all. And that’s one more thing crossed off my to do list!

Latin Ball

I knew I had a formal gown in my closet but in the two years I have lived here I haven’t needed it. It was wrinkled from being smashed in but I pulled it out and hung it in the shower to try to steam them out. I wasn’t particularly successful and I apparently gave away the shoes I was planning to wear and I couldn’t find a necklace and the Shangri La should be ashamed of themselves for the miniscule portions they served masquerading as a dinner, but I had fun nonetheless! So glad I went to at least one ball while here! Yeah, it was a lot of fun! Gonna miss this gals so much!!

Crazy, Jam-Packed

Moving is stressful. There’s no other word to describe it. And then add to that working full-time, single parenting, moving across the world from good friends so wanting to spend time with them, trying to squeeze in some traveling  and dental work while on this side of the world–well, it’s been busy and overwhelming!!

The dental work has been difficult. I had two cavities filled. Quick and relatively painless and inexpensive. Great. But the crown replacement-turned-possible root canal has been terrible. The pain was so intense and has lasted so long (two weeks now) that I ended up making a visit to Makati Medical at 4am one morning to be sure I wasn’t having a heart attack (neck pain, jaw pain, tooth pain and feeling heart palpitations as well). I am not a hypochondriac and I hate pharmaceutical drugs so willingly going into a hospital at the crack of dawn indicates how much pain I was in. After an ECG (that’s what they call an EKG here) and an oxygen test what was the diagnosis? Acute anxiety and radiating pain from dental work. I told you moving is stressful. Yeah, I’m strange to get my picture taken outside of the ER. My friend V met me down there and he insisted I cancel my tennis lesson for the morning to take the day off and just chill. Good advice (not that I followed it) but I did skip tennis. We went to Salcedo Market and did some shopping. I made a mini pack with God on the way to the hospital that I would get my eating and health under control once and for all if he let me live. I’m a single parent after all, I begged. I’m all dramatic but I bought cucumbers, carrots, squash blossoms, mulunggay, onions, basil, apples, eggplant, romaine, red peppers, raw honey, hummus, a loaf of wheat bread and some chapti to get back on track. I meant it! Here I am with the squash blossoms and mulunggay. I feel so wordly! Have you ever eaten squash blossoms? I eat mulunggay regularly in my morning juices but I had never eaten squash blossoms. They are the tops of the pumpkin plants while they are still on the vine. I didn’t know they were edible but I steamed them for dinner and they were quite tasty.

After breakfast I met my friend J and we went to Divasoria and Quiapo, two shopping areas where most foreigners here wouldn’t dare to go. They’re enormous and chaotic but the prices are great and you can find almost anything you are looking for. J suggested we go to find some beads and other art supplies for our students. I got several huge bags of beads plus some dresses for Coco, an iPad case, an over-the-shoulder bag for me and one for Coco when we hike next year, some ribbon and iron-on patches to decorate some of her clothing, some hair accessories and I don’t know what else. A bunch of stuff and I don’t think I spent much more than $30! I love shopping there even if it’s totally exhausting to stay so vigilant watching out for pick pockets and scam artists! LOL

After shopping I got a mani/pedi (trying to use up gift certificates!) and then later that night I went to the Latin Ball: a really nice black tie event. Crazy-busy, jam-packed day!

Good-Bye Coco Beach

When we got back from Cambodia there were still 5 days left of vacation before I had to go back to work. It was the perfect amount of time to head back to Coco Beach for our final visit. Coco has been asking to go back for months and I knew that I, too, wanted to go one last time. It was wonderful as usual. We are really, really, REALLY going to miss this place! In honor of our favorite resort, I’m posting tons of large photos with no apologies!

All her dogs had to make the trip. She couldn’t choose which one would stay home.

One day we took the “free boat” to island hop. This is the boat that Coco Beach offers every morning at 9 a.m. You take the free boat for a 5 minute ride to another beach and from there you can rent a banka (like the ones shown above) and be taken to an awesome place to snorkel. I knew we had to take the free boat because I have become friends with one of the banka owners who took us out on previous trips. He’s a really good guy and it was great to see him. We decided we would meet up with him again the next day and have a picnic on the beach. What a fun idea! We went into the town to buy some fish and rice and fruit, then we went to his house where he marinated it and picked up some charcoal and then we boated over to a quiet beach and ate lunch in a cave!

It was a long, hot day as you can see from my tuckered out kiddo but we had a great time. So very sad to say good-bye to good friends, though. We will miss C and his family! Next time you’re in the Philippines and crave a relaxing vacation on one of the most beautiful beaches in the world, consider Coco Beach!

Coco Beach Island Resort
Puerto Galera, Oriental Mindoro Philippines
Phone: (+63) 917 883 9334
Fax: (+63) 43 287 3529
Manila Booking Office
Unit A Ramona Apartments, 1555 M. Adriatico St., Malate Manila, Philippines

October 2011

January 2012

October 2012

April 2013

Cambodia in Pictures

My friend J who was in Cambodia with us and took these great shots. These were taken with her iPhone! Incredible. It’s a mish mash, hodge podge from the whole trip. Enjoy.