Growing Accustomed To Pain

Since 2012, I’ve become accustomed to something that has inevitably become part of me. When I blacked out at Jared’s and smacked my head in his garage, that probably is what gave the infection permission to setup shop in my head in places I couldn’t imagine at the time.

As time went on, the infection spread through my jaw unabated, and silent. What I didnt realize, is where else it was going. All the symptoms it was causing, I guess I just ignored. I guess chalk it off to ignorance. I was too busy trying to live.

Pain was all apart of it, if anyone has ever had a tooth ache, mine was on a whole other level. It wasn’t cavities that was causing it. It wasn’t the lack of hygiene. It was the lack of my immune system. What very little defense it was putting up, couldn’t stop it, it could only just slow it down.

Throughout roughly the past decade or so, the only solution to the pain, was root canaling the tooth I thought needed it. Over the years, I’ve collected X-Rays. I often look at them and just tell myself “If I only knew”. Which resonates with something that Sarid told me during my first meeting “It’s unfortunate that doctors have ignored you, and undertreated you, and misdiagnosed you for so long”. Yes. If only people were doing their jobs. Doing what they were supposed to be doing. Compassion isn’t something you learn, it’s something you have. People have an innate built-in compassion to help others, it’s their choice to listen to it, or not.

By 2016, I had lost count of how many teeth were treated. I didn’t know anymore. It was just a par for the course for me. Tooth hurts? Root canal it. I just don’t want to feel the pain associated with it. I don’t want to deal with it, just do whatever to make it stop. As you can see, it was a domino effect. As the infection spread through my lower jaw, it started in tooth #18, and just moved from left to right. Sequentially. At the same time, the infection spread into my sinuses.

In 2017, I went to the Fauchard Center here in Denver. I met one of the most compassionate dental radiologists ever. Dr. Gander. Unfortunately she’s retired, but her efforts to look were unequivocally astounding. I still remember sitting in the Cone Beam CT scanner. It’s something I’ve never done before. But the imaging it provided, was an extremely useful tool to Dr. Gander. That scan was $1200 total, and no, like always, insurance didn’t cover it, nor defray the cost of it.

From time to time, I’ll read her report. It was extensive. The list of issues she saw, found was really eye opening. Knowing now what I didn’t know then, explains the level of detail she went to. She couldn’t offer an explanation, I didn’t expect her to, but she pointed out several issues in my mandible (lower jaw), maxilla (upper jaw), as well as my sinus problems. Again, this is all documented proof of the pure destruction this unchecked infection has done.

Between 2018, and 2019, I turned to Dr. Gallegos whom is an endodontist. Endodontists specialize in teeth root canals for the most part. The mission was to retreat everything that Dr. Bacon fucked up, as you can see from the report. But again, I thought he was looking out for my best interests. Again, hindsight is 20/20, this was only creating a much larger problem down the road. I spent $4000 attempting to salvage the crumbling teeth in my head.

When you root canal a tooth, you essentially embalm the tooth in its place. In other words, it’s dead. The root is what carries your immune system, and it’s life. It’s also a nerve. It’s the only signalling point that ties back to your nervous system to let you know there is a problem.

Back in 2015, the infection reared it’s ugly head with tooth #21. Dr. Bacon pulled the infection out with his syringe as I was numbed for the root canal. I remember how painful it was to get lidocaine that day. It broke me sitting in that chair, and feeling that pain. I need to walk it off as the pain escalated.

The procedure itself was done quickly. But when I got home, as the lidocaine wore off the pain returned. The tooth didn’t have a root, but it still felt like it did. Perhaps this was the warning signs that I ignorantly ignored the most. When I awoke the next morning, what little immune system I had, was working overtime. Where the 2 needle sticks were, the tissue around the area began to really what I can on only describe is to disintegrate.

The tissue was necrotically decaying as time passed. I remember panicking, and calling Dr Bacon. The only thing we could do, was to have his periodontist address the tissue issue he caused. And the only way, was to debride the dead tissue around the tooth. Again, in hindsight, I should have just had them pull the tooth.

I went through probably one of the most painful surgeries to date. We had to do a tissue graft. Which was taken from the roof of my mouth, and placed where the debridement took place. What they thought was by “saving the tooth”, it was in my best interest. But again, they were both just making it look like they were trying to help, when in reality, just covering up a severe mistake that Dr. Bacon did.

Fast forward to the final retreatment that Dr. Gallegos performed in 2018, #23. Prior to the retreatment, she performed a cone beam scan and an X-Ray of the tooth/area. The findings of that scan, was that the tooth was reabsorbing. What is that you ask? It’s a phenomenon not well explained, nor understood, however, the tooth was being reclaimed by my body. Inflammation was another finding. I still went with the retreatment, but that only made things ten times worse. The issue was in the teeth, and bone of my jaw at this point, but everyone was ignoring how I got to this point.

Not even 3 months, after all the money, time, effort, and pain, through all of the sepsis episodes, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I removed all of the lower teeth on the left side. At this point I’ve had enough of the ignorance of doctors. I was tired of trying to tell them what was going on, they clearly were not interested in that. I turned to Dr. Lurcott after the last septic episode at UC Health. Someone needed to put a fucking stop to this, and I was willing to start taking drastic risks to do so.

I had all the teeth removed by Dr. Lurcott. It was a painful process, but I removed what I felt the problem was. This was done by the end of 2018. Right before Mayo. After I returned from Mayo, I made it a priority to just quite simply remove every tooth that was root canaled. At this point, I didn’t give a fuck anymore. I just needed to start throwing water on top of this napalm fire.

By near mid 2019, I had removed all the upper teeth minus the teeth that were not root canaled. I felt better. It was almost as if I was moving in the right direction. Things calmed down. The tumor and sinus issues (I thought) were 100% addressed at this time. The tumor was gone, and the raging sinus infection stopped. I felt that I was at a place where I could start rebuilding my mouth. To my credit, I tried. To the best that I thought I was getting, but fuck I was so wrong. It didn’t help that the infection was still silently there. Hidden from imaging, blood work. I began to need opiates to function through the pain. I thought that if I just ride this out, things will get better.

As we all know it didn’t. I extensively talk about this in a previous post which can find here:

Pre-Surgical Jitters

I say the phrase often. “In my head”. Why? Because it’s been the cop out excuse of almost every doctor here in Colorado. I can only count on 1 hand how many have helped me to understand what has really been going on. When the real irony is it’s been there the whole time, and ignored.

The ignorance of most doctors who had 0 compassion, understanding, or just even the sheer will or possession of intellect to just try is what has put me in the place that I’m at today. I grow tired, and impatient from this whole “process”. I just want someone to practice medicine for a change, and just make me better. That’s really all I ask. This fucked conservative approach of “Do no harm” has really done just that. Harm. Failure of action. Failure of listening. Just a complete systemic failure of people not wanting to own up to the mistakes.

People try to find the silver lining in things, which I find odd. If I was to have to say what that is under the circumstances, it would be that I can advocate for myself, and others. I have gained the ability to sniff out the bullshit pretty quickly. This whole ordeal has forced myself to focus on me for a change, and not the world around me.

The struggle continues daily. With the kidney stone out of the way (for the most part), the problem of the remaining infection in my face still exists. This wait I’ve had to endure since March, yes March, has felt like an eternity.

I am forever grateful that I have the benefit of short term disability, caring co-workers that put up a GoFundMe to help lighten this crushing financial crisis, and to the doctors who actually try.

October 25th, cannot come any sooner. I was hopeful that I would be able to get that moved up, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. I can only hope that Hepworths surgery scheduler does her job this time. Realistically, that’s all I can do. I’m pretty sure by now she knows what happens when she doesn’t.

I see my GP today to get my workplace ADA extended until Nov 28th. My disability was extended until then, however, that date marks 6 months. That is the limit of short term disability. I will have to transition to long term disability / Social Security Disability at that time.

I cannot stress enough how much I do NOT want that to happen. It would put me back so far. It would literally shitcan all the effort and everything I’ve endured up until this point. I will do everything in my power to avoid that. Even if that means I just have to push through. I’m not going to give up that easy.

October 6th is my next Ketamine session. I know it is needed, as the pain has started to return, along with the sleepless nights. I at least got 2 weeks of some relief. That’s all I can be thankful for.