Hamster Face

 Its quite difficult to show swelling in a picture. I remember having the same problem with a sprained ankle, for some reason the camera just wouldn't show the full horror of it.

Anyway, I'm lounging around in bed like Barbara Cartland, doing a spot of blogging instead of preparing for the Fling. I had a couple of spells of reprieve yesterday when I thought maybe I was fine after all but as the evening went on my face started to swell up. 2am found me maxed out on painkillers, close to tearing my hair out, unable to sleep or settle. I had about half an hour of total indecision, thinking - I'll phone the out of hours dental service, no I won't I'll wait till morning, but what if I phone and they can do something and help me? So I phoned but they'd gone home at 10pm so my next option was to phone NHS24. Another half hour of to-ing and fro-ing, am I being pitifully needy? but I can't stand it! So I phoned.

I got a nice sleepy dental nurse who talked me down a bit and told me some  stuff I could do, like icing my face - well who would have thought? and swooshing salty water around in my mouth. I've always got those gel ice things in the freezer so it was easy to set up a cold pack and surprisingly nice on my big taut puffed up face. The next most important thing she told me was how to phone the out of hours dental folk in the morning. I eventually got tired enough so I could snooze propped upright with pillows which passed a couple of bleak hours and then coffee in the morning temporarily lifts you above it all a bit. The race was on to be 1st on the line at 9am. I phoned at exactly 9am and they still had their night-time message on, so I phoned straight away again and I was 7th in the queue! Guess I wasn't alone with my night time of dental hell.

So anyway they invited me up to see them and it was an enormous relief to be on my bike and out in the air and feel like I was actually going to do something about it all. Up at the dental hospital the dental nurses kept sneaking out of the rooms to see how the big match was progressing. Yeah the wedding. What a dull game that seems. The outcome decided right from the start - where's the tension? Pretty soon I got to see the dentist and as by now it was completely obvious I had an infection he gave me some Metronidazole and sent me on my merry way.

Its hard telling someone how much pain you're in - especially if you're brought up not to make a fuss. It was a real pity that I never got across to Ruby the dentist yesterday just what a bad night I'd had before I came to see her or I guess she would have known I must have an infection and I could have started on antibiotics and I'd be a day better off; but I was keen to think that maybe I didn't  and maybe I could still run the Fling and it was all going to go away. In a way it was a relief when my face swelled up because that was something undeniable - objective proof that something really was wrong.

I am reminded of a story from one of these oh-my-god-plane crash programmes Peter and I watched a good few years ago, about a pilot who was circling around one of the airports in New York in his jet and he ran out of fuel and crashed, killing himself and everyone on board. They had the recordings of his talking to the control tower, saying he  was running out of fuel but not saying how urgent it was. Just a miscommunication really. The controllers were telling him "yeah yeah we're going to get you down as soon as possible" and he was agreeing - but it was clear that they didn't know it had to be right away or never. I always thought maybe the pilot just got tired and thought "What's the point, nobody listens anyway?" - although probably he thought he had more of a margin than he did.

So I've decided, because being a fool I have this urge to believe that everything works out for the best, that I'm going to have a good Cape Wrath Challenge in a couple of weeks time...and this morning while I was waiting for it to be 9am and I was spacing about on-line I came across a job that I might want, so maybe that will bear fruit - maybe its all for a reason!

Its going to be a good Highland Fling tomorrow I can feel it in my bones, but there's no way I could do it when I'm like this. I'm too-hoo sensitive. Even going into the Scotmid was a bit too much sensory stimuli - it was too Leithy by half.

I'll be very excited to see how the race goes for everyone though.