I think it was Woody Allen who said that when he got into his seventies, his body just began to fall apart. Sometimes it feels that way to me, but the truth is that my body is just getting some badly needed overhauling. In most ways, it isn’t falling apart, but coming back together.
Today I went back to see Dr. Zambrowski, she examined the extraction site and put me on anti-biotics. There were some signs of infection, which is why I was so tired and felt so weak.
I brought Zinnia to the dentist for the first time since the Covid-19 outbreak. The state permits licensed therapy dogs to visit hospitals and some medical facilities now.
She (not me) can also go to the Mansion by herself and go from room to room to visit the residents.
Zinnia was born to this work, she needed little training or direction. She is calm steady, affectionate, and appropriate. She went right for Ariel, just as Red did (she has a photo of Red in her cubicle.
She reads emotions so easily, she can spot a child or older person who is upset.
At the dentists, she stuck her nose in every cubicle, said hello, and then came and lay down next to me in the examining chair and didn’t move once.
I’ve always believed the best therapy dogs are born with the gift of loving people and reading their moods. Training is mostly about teaching them that people are the work, not birds or balls or sheep.
Ariel is a dog lover through and through. Sometimes her husband goes and sleeps on the couch because her dogs won’t move out of the way in bed. He is a dog lover also, clearly.
Dr. Zambrowski wants to see me in three months. This afternoon, I was almost pain-free. I told Maria I thought it was interesting that my tooth abscess was so much more painful than my open heart surgery.
She re-interacted that getting a tooth insert was up to me, she did not believe keeping the gap would harm the rest of my teeth. The tooth was narrow and jammed in between two others, and it would not affect my eating in any way.
She said the reasons for an insert were quite legitimate, but in my case, it was a matter of aesthetics, not medicine. I said I didn’t feel the need for one at all, and neither did my wife.
Great, she said, if you change your mind, you can do it anytime.
I know the pain of a tooth infection, so I’m not surprised that it has knocked you low. I had an abscessed bottom molar that ended up getting infected twice. I had to get the tooth extracted. The whole ordeal triggered my latent chickenpox/shingles virus to go active and now I’m dealing with that on top of everything else. Best of luck to you in your healing.