Posts made by surreality

@Sparks Depending on how the financing talks come out, I might have to. I am really reluctant to do that, though. Outside family and spouse, I have an impossible time asking people for money.

We'll have a better idea after the consult, which ideally will be Tuesday. They have to check the bone structure in my jaw and everything first to make sure it's all intact enough that they'll be able to do this at all, which has me anxious. They'll be able to give us a more specific full estimate then, as well.

Well, that escalated quickly.

$1800 crown, not happening. Because the tooth shattered this morning.

They can't even put a temporary patch on it.

The Serious Talk has been had about full replacement implants at this point.

The terrifying reality: that will be the substantially cheaper and more effective option in the long term, and ensure I am able to actually eat for the remainder of my life, with no later need for dental work after it's done again. (I give none fucks about the 'looks nicer' factor.)

The doubly terrifying reality: the ballpark estimate for cost is $4k more than we earn in a year before taxes.

FML.

@Roz Having had that happen often enough myself, I'm sorry you're having to deal with it. It is a deeply shitty feeling.

If you are tempted to beat yourself up about it, please don't, and remember to be gentle with yourself on this front. Some folks are really good at slipping under the radar, and only hindsight is ever going to have a chance at being 20/20.

I don't think there's anything that will ever likely make them stop. I have periods of this also. Or times when I think everyone hates me and wishes I'd fuck off. (Sometimes, these things might even be true, for all I know.)

I find that focusing on small goals is a huge help when this happens. "I want to have one chill social scene this week," "I want to attend one group scene this week," or "I want to put in that +jerb for the project my character wants to do and try to get that ball rolling." These things keep my interest, and often enough, in the course of sticking to those simple goals, I will find connections and hooks that lead to more things to do, and people that enjoy doing those things with me.

In a way, it's 'soldiering through', but not the 'stiff upper lip, pretend nothing is wrong' approach. It's scaling down some expectations and aiming for some baby steps to keep myself going. These are typically easier goals to meet, and when they're met, they are still worthwhile victories, even if they're small ones. Small ones count, too, and can very easily lead to good things.

@Derp It's kinda a roster in that there's a list of specific archetypes people can use, and only one of that archetype at a time is in play.

Each new person to play it is playing a totally new iteration/incarnation of that archetype, however, so you're not coming in and picking up a specific character that has been played before with a history or connections you need to maintain or keep track of in any way.

Carnival of Wonders is legitimately the best story concept I have ever seen for a MUX. It's the kind of thing I have wished more or less forever was a full time MUX!

If folks are on the fence about peeking in, this would be a grand time, especially if you're keen on mythology, myth-making, and similar. The general concept is a mashup of Carnivale and American Gods. Yeah, y'all read that right. @Botulism is seriously underselling herself here on how amazing this one is, (and she is for coming up with it, because goddamn).

If your inner story geek just got a case of the vapors? Definitely pop in!

@Kanye-Qwest If you were local, I would give you the info for my good dentist, fwiw.

He and his son are very good... they're just too expensive for us to see as often as we need to. (The dad of the pair is actually so good I was 12 before I realized there were any needles involved, to give you some idea. I just thought, 'oh, maybe I just never needed that... ' -- nope, I just didn't even feel it. That's REALLY good.)

Even with the fuckup sending records over, the person they referred us to was very good at what he was doing, and was 1/3 the price the dad/son would have charged us for the extraction.

Yeah, it weirds out the hygenist when she does cleanings. It took her a moment to realize that most of the 'issues' were staining from coffee. Then she realized there was a weirdly low amount of tartar buildup, and the lightbulb finally went on.

Dentist: "It has to be soda, you'd have to drink a whole pot of coffee a day to-"
Me: "It's usually two."
Dentist: "Cups of coffee? See, that would never do it."
Me: "No, pots of coffee."
Dentist: "Oh. Well, yeah."

@Packrat It isn't even sugar, not scrubbing them to death, or anything like that. (I'm a salty snacks person anyway.)

It's genetic. Weak enamel. The glue from having braces ripped the fronts off almost all of my teeth when they were removed. The front six have had porcelain veneers since I was about 19 because of it; they had to replace the entire front face of each tooth. My mother has the same problem, and her mother before her, but neither ever had braces, so their issues developed more slowly. My grandmother had full dentures by the time she was my age, though, since the options for what they could do to fix shit weren't as good.

(Also drinking tons of black coffee all day, which is super acidic, doesn't help. But I didn't do that as a teen when the disaster began.)

...going to the oral surgeon, only to find that the x-rays weren't sent over properly.

And they told him to extract the wrong tooth.

So he had to take more x-rays to confirm this. So much for saving $ on 'already having the x-rays done'.

...at least we caught the error before it was too late. Seriously, though. That's a year off my life.

@Selira They are both adorable. BUT OMG THE FLOUFY FACE. I am a sucker for all the floufy faces.

She looks like the soot sprite counterpart to my (swap the color concentration to heavy on the brown, light on the black) princess of dustbunnies flurftortie.

Flurftorties are true lurve, they really are.

@RnMissionRun Sadly, my teeth are actually hot garbage and have been since I had braces as a kid. Crooked would have been fine compared to 'it tore the enamel off the fronts (and all around on some that went all around) of every single tooth in my head'. My mother's side of the family has the worst weak teeth/shitty enamel pretty much ever.

So, they weren't making things up. Which sucks worse. (They can fix one of them... for $1800. The other has to go and get an implant for who knows how-the-fuck-much later in the year.)

The worst is, the dentist is actually very good. Just... they nickel and dime the shit out of us. We tried to save money by going to a clinic for a while -- which was hell on earth -- and they made things ten times worse. Every single filling they ever did has had to be replaced for 3x more, because they've all fallen out within 3 years. One, the same day it was done. And nerve damage. (Ugh.)

I see those full-replacement implant commercials and just sigh with longing for a winning lottery ticket at the thought of never having to deal with this kind of bullshit again.

My dentist is really underwear model grade cute. Today, I stopped giving a shit about this fact. You KNOW it's gotta be bad when that happens.

"Yeah, you need to go to the oral surgeon. We can't fix this. Or do anything, actually. That'll be $275, though."

...

And turns out it was two shattered teeth. The fuck, jaw. I am not a shark, and they don't just pop out replacements in a queue.

@Tinuviel ...especially when you get to the 'stabbing into the left side of my jaw' part, come to think of it...

@Tinuviel Entirely possible. Anything that came before waking up to my face feeling like someone was trying to stab me through the back of the left side of my jaw was sadly obliterated, however.

If I was, it was probably my ex otherwise known as "Asshole Dave". He'd inspire that.

The gif at this link. Or web clip, or whatever it is. (I'd imbed it, but it's a different format, and longer than average/might be a page-dragging load.)

Shattering the shit out of a tooth in my sleep.

Ow, fucking ow, ow, motherfucking ow, what in the fuckity fuck ow, holy shit I can't open the eye on that side why?! ow, OW.

I've cracked them before, somewhat often. Never have I woken up and spit out splinters.

OW.

@Arkandel ...but are we sure it isn't just the flagging broke in some update or another is what I'm dying to know here.

So much more work in the kitchen to do, and I ache absolutely everywhere.

Still finding things in it that make me wonder if my grandmother wasn't a Bond villian's sidekick in her spare time.

I'm just going to leave this here.

http://www.cracked.com/article_26190_thereE28099s-mad-max-ballet-some-reason.html