Surgery

So, last weekend, Nick started to notice some pain in his mouth.  It was pain he had felt before, and he knew that he would be dealing with an abscess soon. Abscessed teeth and gums are nasty (an abscess is basically a pocket of infection, so there's a lot of nasty infected fluids like pus). Since his abscess was causing him a lot of pain, I decided to take him to the dentist on Tuesday. I came home from work early (around 11 am), and started to call dentists' offices, looking for an open appointment.  I called 8 or 9 dentists, and no one had an open appointment. Poor Nick was lying in our bed, full of pain, so I started to look for more dentists. I called a dentist in downtown Provo, and they had an opening right away! So I rushed Nick to their office, and they took him back to the dentist almost immediately.  Everyone there was really nice, and we loved the atmosphere of the office and the quality of their service (yay for Jeppson Dental!).
Dr. Jeppson told Nick that his abscesses (he had had two other abscesses in the same spot over the past decade or so) were the result of a botched root canal several years earlier.  Dr. Jeppson could have tried to fix it, but he thought that it would be better for Nick to see a specialist, so he prescribed some Lortab (a really strong painkiller) and Penicillin and made an appointment for Nick to see an endodontist (an inner tooth and tissue specialist) the next day.
So, I filled his prescriptions and drugged him up for the rest of Tuesday. (Side note: Nick is pretty funny when he is on Lortab. After he took the pills, he was grinning ear to ear. When I asked why he was smiling, he said, "I'm happy. I'm so.......happy." and then he giggled. Haha. When I asked what made him so happy, he said, "My pills....want some?" and giggled some more. Teehee.) Anyway, for the rest of Tuesday, we relaxed and watched some TV shows and movies.
Wednesday morning, I took Nick to the endodontist, Dr. Jenson.  Dr. Jenson drained the rest of Nick's abscess (it had burst a little while he was sleeping Tuesday night), and then told him that he had two options for fixing his botched root canal.  One of the options was surgery, which we chose because it had a higher percent chance of success. Dr. Jenson's office recommended having surgery as soon as possible, so we made an appointment for the next day (today).
Today I took Nick to get surgery at 1:30. He was in there for two hours, and when he came out, he was in a lot of pain.  He kept saying that he hated his life, and sometimes he swore. I got him home as quickly as I could, and gave him Lortab. Then I went to Target to fill the rest of his prescriptions (Dr. Jenson prescribed three different medications) and stocked up on soup, smoothies, and ice cream.  Luckily for Nick, our Target carries a line of Panera soups! Now we just have to wait for Nick to heal. I'm glad that Nick got his surgery, because it will prevent future abscesses. It was costly and painful, but I think we will be glad in the long run.
While Nick has been sick, I've been working on my Capstone paper, which is due tomorrow. Here's a picture of almost all of the books I'm using to write my paper (it has to be about 20 pages, with an annotated bibliography and footnotes):

There are about 26 books in that stack. I'll be glad when Spring Term is over! But I am pretty excited about my topic: the lives of wealthy Southern women, which were actually a lot tougher than we think.