Spring awakening in All Good Things

Having a tooth extracted is a lot more traumatic than I ever suspected. I hope I never have to go through that again. That said, I've probably got off rather lightly given that my dentist phobia has kept me from seeing a dentist at all for 18 years! She said all my other teeth were absolutely fine, thank God, which is more than I deserve. But, wow. It was horrific.

My dad came to England, and it was lovely. The last time he was here was over a decade ago and it was only for a couple of days on business. This time I actually worked with him, since he wanted a transcript of the workshops he was running and I was really interested in his workshops (about change management), so we went out to Oxford together for a couple of days. We stayed in an ancient very fancy hotel done up to look like a castle beside the Thames, and had a fantastic time. It was good for me to do a bit of work, kind of dip my toe in it without any pressure or having to write live feed, just to see how it felt.

I actually cut myself off from it completely and had a traumatic return-to-body experience the following day in Bradford watching Simon dance, but then my dad joined me in Bradford, work all complete, and we had a fantastic time in Yorkshire and then back in London.

My mom returned from Australia the morning of the day he left (9pm flight) so they were able to catch up in person. He'd been staying at her place and they only joined me and Will around lunchtime, so they had a lot of hours to talk, probably the first time they've talked alone together in about a decade and a half. From what I heard later from both of them, it was very good talk, airing out a lot of things from the past. Then we all went out to lunch, which was really surreal for me. I have no idea the last time I went out anywhere with both my parents, or was even in the same room with both of them. But it was good. We had a good time.

My toothache had started that weekend and I went to the dentist at 9am on Monday for an emergency appointment. She gave me treatment for the infection, but I wasn't able to get an appointment for the actual extraction for an entire week, so I've gone about ten days in a row of intense, constant pain. Who knew toothache could be that excruciating? I managed to get to Leeds and back in the middle of the week, but was so wiped out by painkillers that I don't really remember it. Mostly I've just lain on the sofa and slept.

Today, however, I am heading to Woking in half an hour, and the pain is finally beginning to subside. It still throbs, but not unbearably like it did all of yesterday after I'd had the extraction, or last week while it was infected. I was actually able to eat something today, although it was difficult to force myself to put anything inside my mouth after the horror of yesterday morning. Will's had to have most of his teeth replaced (due to all his fighting) so he was very supportive of me yesterday, and tried very hard not to act like I was making too much fuss, since he's suffered far, far worse and far, far more. I did appreciate that.

I'm not going to India anymore, thank God, since the job settled, and I managed to turn down a job in Beirut because I know I absolutely could not handle going somewhere that foreign and scary right now. Well, right now I can barely cope with going to the shops in my own neighbourhood! But I agreed to do a job in Dubai instead of the India one, and I'm quite looking forward to it because I love being in Dubai so much - the sunshine, the desert heat, my massage lady, the dryness of the air - so we'll see how it goes. It's in about three weeks. Other than the two days of work for my dad, I haven't worked since my last job in Dubai in December, and before that not since October, so I really need the money as well. And maybe I'll enjoy it....

I'm catching up with Annette on Saturday. We're going to the ballet together and seeing each other for the first time since January. I'm so excited I can hardly wait. It's been far too long.