My dental emergency!

Yesterday was "one of those days". It was pouring down rain outside all day long and when I got to campus there were, of course, no parking spots anywhere close to the building where my office is located. After lugging all of my crap (bag with books, bag with workout clothes, lunch box, and coffee cup) across campus, I arrived to my office like a wet rat, and before I could even take my jacket off, there were students in my office to talk to me about various things. Then an 11:00 meeting, which went very well and was probably the highlight of my day, then lunch at my desk.

I was eating leftover lasagna that I had baked the night before when all of a sudden...."What's that in my food? It's a tooth!" EEKS!!! You can imagine my panic. I fished the tooth out of the food and I can't exactly remember what I did with the food...either spit it out or swallowed it. My thoughts were racing a mile a minute. It felt like being in one of those dreams where all of your teeth fall out. Except this was reality. I moved my tongue around in my mouth to find the empty spot but I couldn't find it. I ran to the mirror on my office wall and quickly realized that my CROWN had fallen out! In all of my panic I obviously hadn't even looked at the tooth...

Well, underneath my crown is remnants of the real tooth. I didn't have a root canal, so they basically just shaved my tooth down to the size of a baby tooth so that the crown would fit over it. It looked fine in my mouth, which caused me to calm down slightly. Then I drank some water and realized the spot where the crown had been was EXTREEEEEEMELY sensitive. That one sip of water made me feel like I was going to die. Before calling the dentist I ran down the hall to see if my colleague Galen could cover my 2:30 class (he could, thank you, Galen!), then I called the dentist's office where the crown procedure was performed two years ago. They were able to get me in at 3:30, so that was a huge relief. They numbed me up very well at my request (I get very squeamish in the dentist chair), then reattached the crown. Everything seems fine for now, although I know I'm going to get nervous anytime I eat something for a while. There will be the underlying fear that the crown will once again end up in my food.

Other than that, it's been one of the busiest weeks of the year so far. The Evansville Half Marathon is on Sunday and I'm ready for it!!!The 5K race I ran last Sunday went very well despite the fact that my legs were sore from Saturday's race. Much to my surprise, I ended up getting a better time than the race on Saturday and placed second in my age group behind a former IU runner. Karl also ran and he placed 3rd in his age group!

Karl and me at the "Catch the Codgers" 5K on October 4, 2009. The race had a staggered start with all of the "old people" (60+) getting a head start, as well as all of the middle school kids.

I will try to write an update later this weekend or early next week!