Only a week late

 

arly in the week a girl (probably early high school but maybe late primary school) asked for help finding varied sources to site for her assignment about the solar system and that was fun. She's asked a similar question about different schoolwork months back and it is not often I get asked to deploy that much educational assistance on a topic.

Also interesting getting asked for help about a topic I've been relatively expert on when the appropriate response is not to display that - even if I had my peak knowledge on that subject it wouldn't have been helpful to her to display that. What she actually needed was for me to show her stuff like how to use library website database access to find stuff like Scientific American articles, and the astronomy section on the junior non-fiction shelves.

This got brought back to mind seeing a tweet by Mike Brown pointing to some new research on planetary system evolution. Felt good to read about that and to be excited again, despite that I probably will never be able to claim that expertise.


Mouth has been hurting again recently, despite having got another filling. Had strongly hoped that would resolve the matter for months if not years but it looks like I will be needing that root canal. Minor but persistent pain, so I put up with it last week through electrolysis. Pain got worse on Sunday, but nothing I couldn't handle with the painkiller regiment my dentist had recommended while treating me for an infection in this area a few weeks ago.

Called up on Tuesday (Sunday they weren't open and Monday I was at work during bankers' hours) to make an appointment. Disappointed to learn they had no spaces left this week, but I got a spot to have that root canal done on Thursday next week (2017-07-27). Of course by Thursday this week it decided to ramp up again so that even with painkillers in full effect I wasn't able to function through it.

This morning: went to dentist's office, got appointment moved to Monday, requested prescription for a stronger painkiller for the meanwhile. Got recommended a slightly stronger over-the-counter painkiller instead. Hoping that will be enough. Only three days now instead of another week. I really don't want this procedure done, am dreading it, but it is clearly not feasible for me to refrain.

Perhaps this is to a degree my fault - might have gotten the cavity seen to when I first noticed there was a problem, and maybe it wouldn't have reached so deeply that I'm needing to have the nerve itself removed if only I'd taken some time to decline additional shifts and got it looked at back in summer or early autumn. Maybe then it could have been caught before it so deep. Instead I thought I didn't need to stake time out to care for myself, that I could rely on gaps in the flow of time requested of me by the library