azurelunatic | Crown, Part 1

So a while ago one of my teeth chipped. The dentist said that since it was already root canaled, it needs a crown. Which that dentist doesn't do.

We shall gloss over the mental anguish of the dentist search, the research into what exactly my insurance covers w/r/t crowns ($0), and the Twitter crowdfunding (holy fuck, thank you).

Tuesday was my appointment (originally Monday, but they turned out to be closed). The signs were promising! Plexiglass barrier at the reception desk, masks required, temperature check, a promise of all surfaces being regularly cleaned and enough scent of cleaning product to back that up.

Inside the back of house door was another story. My regular dentist has only a few actual rooms, the rest are 8 foot partitions in a much taller space. To make up for that, they have tension rods supporting plastic curtains to seal off any aerosols, and machines about the size of a portable air conditioner that point large vacuum nozzles near the patient's mouth to slurp up and electromagnetically destroy any virus.

This dentist has a similar layout, but neither curtains nor advanced machinery. All the chairs are facing towards the outer walls of the room, and I didn't see any vents in the space in front of me, but that's still concerning.

At this point, the science suggests that the virus will get into aerosols, and surface to person transmission is super rare. And that temperature screening will basically only catch people who suspect they're sick.

I kept setting my mask back across my face when I was left to wait, which was a lot. It was very like the nightmare where you're in public and keep trying to put your mask on but it keeps vanishing.

It took longer than estimated. There was the x-ray, and the head of the machine was covered in a garbage bag before being pointed at me. Then the work on the tooth to prepare it for the crown. And an impromptu filling of a cavity in the neighbor tooth. Then the payment. And the temporary crown. (I was a little weirded out by this sequence, because I had to get up off the dental chair to find my card to pay.)

I have been monitoring my health for the past few days, anxiously trying to figure out whether each little thing is a) normal for me, b) THE COVIDS, c) a symptom of an unrelated but bad thing, or d) hypochondria and/or hysterica.

Last night my sinuses started trying to drown me enough that I flipped on my stomach and played games until I had clear lungs again. This morning, my pizza didn't taste hardly pizza-y enough.

So Belovedest bundled me into the shower and off to a drive-through test site. We got our noses swabbed. (Their sinuses were disturbed. Mine were barely tickled, since I've been having to pry gravel out of them with a q-tip since one of the latest medication changes.) Belovedest gave the guy waving cars a tip on Pokémon catching, and the guy hauled out his phone to try for shinies.

And now we wait for 2-5 business days. Yay.

We're trying to separate the household to reduce the chance of spreading it, until we know. There are enough doors and beds, but only one shower.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

also only one kitchen

though maybe if I shut myself in the bedroom long enough, I'll get a cleaner bedroom

possible!

same.

Hope you're okay!

Thank you.

Oh fuck. Crossing my fingers for you.

I'm still feeling mostly the ordinary amount of terrible, and my nose has regained much function. So I'm hoping it was an artifact of the general AAAAAAAAAAA.