The Saga Continues - root canal number two.

On Thursday when we were in the airport getting ready to fly to New Delhi for Math Counts, a tooth on my left side started hurting when we were in the Mumbai airport. It is the opposite side of the tooth I've had all the work done on so I thought it was just sore from overuse since I have basically only eaten on that side for a month.

By Friday morning my tooth was killing me. I could only eat by sucking on food on one side and swallowing it basically whole. Every time I touched it with my toothbrush or tongue it hurt really bad.  I called the dentist to tell him that I need him to look at it when I see him Monday to put the final crown on the other tooth. He gave me a prescription over the phone. Love India. I wasn’t really around a chemist so I just popped three alieve at a time.  It made the pain tolerable. 

We had lasagna for lunch Friday and I could just swallow it whole. For lunch on Saturday we had noodles and I could swallow those whole. If you took an x -ray of my stomach this weekend, there would be a mass of undigested food in there!

On Monday I went to get my crown put on.  It should have been my last visit.  My left tooth has actually felt better and I ate oatmeal and noodles on it today. I consider myself on expert on dentristry by now and I paid attention to every aspect of the tooth incident.  He asked if it hurt when I laid down.  No.  I knew he was going to ask that so I experimented with when it did hurt more.  So I offered up that it hurt more when I bent over to pick something help.  He had a bad look on his face.   He took an X-ray, said “oh No” and started laughing.  Not a good sign.  ROOT CANAL!!!!   Buggars!!!!  It doesn’t seem like it will shatter into pieces like the other one, but an old filling started leaking and now the roots are infected.  He said it hurt so much this weekend because the roots were dying and it felt better now because the infection had basically killed the roots.  You should have seen the look on his face when I told him I was taking three alieve at a time!!!  Ha!  would have taken vicodin if I had some! 

So history is repeating itself and I am taking antibiotics and anti-inflamatory medicine and if the infection is better by Thursday, we can start the root canal process.  At least I know what to expect this time.  I guess the month of march will be taken up with the dentist!  It really eats into my workout time.

Praise God I live in India and two root canals is going to cost about $1000.   Praise God I live in India where the dentist has evening appointments!!

My (non) emergency visit to the hospital

During last block yesterday my left eye got all red, watery, and irrated so I took my contacts out and wore my glasses.  The kids have never seen me in them so it caused it quite a stir :) 

My eye was fine all evening when I went shopping with a friend, but about 9 pm it started hurting really badly.  I couldn't open it without searing pain.  I thought maybe it was scratched or some crazy pice of Mumbai polution had gotten in there.  I thought if I just went to sleep the dirt would work itself out or the scratch would repair itself if my eye was closed and resting for 7 or so hours. 

I woke up around 2:30 to use the bathroom and could not open my eye.  It hurt so bad I couldn't open it long enough to see if anything was in there etc.  I wasn't in any real danger but I need my eye to do a lot of things this weekend!!  There is a hospital about a 5 minute walk from my flat and I figured I'd have a good chance of getting seen this late at night.  I put some clothes on and walked down to the hospital with one eye closed.  Luckily it is pretty easy to get around that time of night - no people to dodge, no noisy traffic, etc.  I got to the hospital and it was silent - not a soul moving.  I went to the ER which was empty - NOT a sight you would see in the US!!  I told the nurses (or whoever they were) about my eye.  They babbled to each other in Hindi and pushed a button to call a doctor.  The doctor came and asked me the same questions about my eye.  He said " you need to go to blahblahblah - they have an eyespecialist there.  We are not an eye specialist hospital"  HE WOULDN'T EVEN TOOK AT IT!!!  I didn't need a specialist!!  He could have looked in there, found dirt and flushed it out.  done.  Or he could have found a scratch and said "just rest with your eyes closed for the next 24 hours"  great.  He wouldn't even look at it.  I didn't even know what hospital he was talking about.  He tried to explain where the hospital was.  It was about a 20minute walk at this time of night from where I was.  There were no rickshaws available.  I thought wondering around somewhere I don't know at 3 am with one eye closed was probably not the best idea. 

So I went home and went back to bed and prayed that it would be all better when I woke up.  Jesus answers prayers!!!  It felt much better a when I woke up.

Let's hope I never really have a medical emergency at my flat.  Maybe I'll be bleeding to death and they don't have a bleeding specialist!!!  ha!! 

My eye is still a irritated, but it isn't searing pain anymore!  :)  Now I can get some stuff done!

Living with Lupus

Sometimes when I am struggling to finish a run or a workout, I remind myself that it could be a lot worse.  I remember when I was so sick from Lupus that I could barely move or take a breath. Lupus is basically an autoimmune disease where your body decides your organs are the germs.  It affects people differently.  Some people have one bad flare, go into remission and are fine for the rest of their life.  Some people go in and out of flares and remissions over and over.  Some people never go into remission.   It can vary from muscle and joint pain to kidney failure.

I have been fairly fortunate - I have never had to take chemotherapy drugs or any of the other horrible meds that some people have to take to get their Lupus under control.  I was really sick for two years, but have been in remission for 6 or 7 years now.  Mine mostly affects my joints, muscles, nerves - no major organs.  I do have a lot of inflammation in my vascular system.  The lining of my heart and lungs swell and cause serious chest pain.

I have found a good rheumatologist here.  My latest test results are not perfect, but they don't indicate a major flare.  Even when I am in remission - Lupus is always there.  I'll be fine, then debilitating fatigue sets in out of no where.  I've been getting a lot more headaches, muscle pain, joint pain, and chest pain lately. I can deal with it during the day, but it is harder at night.  Luckily I'm not around a lot of people late at night for people to see the meltdown that happens at night   :)  It is not a pretty sight!  My legs get all stiff and it is hard to move. My hands get twitchy and weak.  and I stutter sometimes.   It looks bad, but it really isn't that bad.  Doctors say as long as it doesn't happen every day or get worse I just have to learn to manage it.  So thankfully I have friends that will let me sit down and rest, who will open my water bottle and who will listen patiently while I stutter. :)  Resting when I get like that doesn't really help that much.  I just have to ride it out.  I do what I can to prevent problems - get enough sleep, exercise, take my med, don't get too stressed or overworked.  but it doesn't always work out :)

All in all I am doing way better than a lot of people with Lupus.  I am able to run races and do other exercise like combat as long as I modify to my ability.  I'm able to build for Habitat for Humanity and travel and do most other things fairly normally.  I am very blessed :)  and just have to remember that when I'm not feeling so well!!!

Habitat for Humanity

I did not bring my camera to the worksite because I've had a lot of bad luck with cameras here.  Purvi took pics and I'll post them when I get them.


My advisory co-teacher, Madeline,  leads the Habitat for Humanity club and needed another chaperone to take 24 kids to a build in Karjat.  We were supposed to leave at 7 but left 25 minutes late due to two girls who didn't show on time. At 7:25 we took off in 3 busses, with 3 drivers, three marshalls, 3 chaperones, 24 kids and lots of food and water.  The build was about a 3 hour drive from Mumbai.  It was in the same direction at Matheran - where we went for Week Without Walls.  We passed the Lucky restaurant which is our standard bathroom stop.  Faily decent squat toilets.

We had three 6th grade boys and one 7th grade girl go, but most of the kids on were high school students who need volunteer hours.  I was on a bus with 11th and 12th graders who were upset their friend had to ride on the bus with the 6th graders.  They talked about how horrible middle schoolers are, how "kids these days" are more arogant, etc.  It cracked me up.  They were really immature - gossiping and talking mean about people - they aren't much different than middle schoolers :)  except that they cuss a lot more and their gossip is meaner.

We got to the build site and split the kids up in three groups.  We put a sixth grader in each group and split up some of the high schoolers that were causing problems.  The two girls that were late in the morning were the most upset about not being in a group together.  One of them came over to my painting group just so she could be with her friend.  My group painted a house lime green with red trim :)  One group laid bricks with mub and another group hauled bricks to a construction site. One of my 6th graders and the 7th grader was in my group.  The 6th grader worked so hard!! 

After our lunch of Veg rolls and this other Indain food thing that the name is excaping me right now!  We switched activities.  Madeline made it clear that everyone was supposed to be in their original groups.  That girl came to my group anyway.  but the joke was on her!  She hated our activity!!!!  Had she gone where she was supposed to she would have been a lot happier!!!  They had this big tractor/trailer thing that we had to load with bricks.  They make their own brick in this field and after they dry for two years they can use them for a house.  It took 15 of us over an hour to fill that trailer  and 25 of us 45 minutes to unload it.  It was a lot of work!!  It was a lot hotter there than it is in Mumbai.  The sun was beating down and we were lifting brick after brick over our heads.  Some of the high school boys were great workers.  Not all of the girls were.  My tiny little 6th grader worked like a trooper though!  All three of the 6th graders were amazing - never complained and if we were taking a break, they wanted to know when they could work again and what they could do.

Habitat has built 2,300 houses in this area since 2006.  In 2006, Jimmy Carter came and 2000 volunters built 100 houses in a week!  The families have to invest money in the house and they have to put in sweat equity hours.  one family was loading bricks with use :) 

The bus ride home took 3.5 hours.  Mumbai traffic!!!  The kids were more chill this time - no vulgar music for me to make them turn off.  about an hour and half in one of the boys said he and a girl needed to use the toilet.  I went to the front and told the driver and marshall we needed to stop.  They kept driving - I asked again and they said they didn't know where to stop - we had already passed Luckys.  The kids said they could pee on the side of the road - on in the middle of the road - it is India!!  The girls prefered bushes, but it wasn't necessary - it is India!  ha!  We were on a highway with 3 lanes going each direction.  There was a petrol station on the other side but no way to turn to it.  The driver slowed down to investigate.  I told him to just pull over there.  The marshall deemed it unsafe for the kids to unload there and pee on the road.  soooooooooooooooooo..  he turns the car around and drives the WRONG way on the highway for a few hundred meters then turns and drives the same distance ON THE OTHER SIDE to the petrol station.  yeah.  that is safe.  the squat toilets were swarmed with mosqitos - the kids would have prefered the side of the road :)

The was a high school "jammies" that night at 7.  High school bands play and have a "jam session".  The kids were excited about it and upset that it was clear we weren't going to make it in time.  My bus was the last to get in.  Madeline and I had a school driver that was going to drive us home.  My teaching partner, Jordan, is a drummer and performed at the jammies with some other teachers.  He was ready to leave and getting rickshaws to our area from school is hard to do so he came with us.  He could tell we had worked hard - we were covered in brick dust and had paint in our hair!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=I5e3p1xTCqY

He got a TV and cable this week.  cable is $120 a YEAR with hundreds of channels!!    Kind of like that I don't have "TV" .  I have A tv - I watch DVDs on it.  It took me two months after I bought it to get it set up.  I have not gotten cable yet, but think I will just for news and such.  There are also several american movie stations.  Jordan invited a few of us over to watch Wayne's World - which I have actually never seen. I was exhausted from the sun and work and could barely stay away and his school couch is way more comfortable than my school couch.  and his isn't pink.  or a breeding ground for ants :) 

Weekend fun with friends

I had a stressful week so I was excited that Andrea graciously invited some of us over to play games at her house.  Nancy, Zach, me, Bryan, Jordan, Preya, Reid and Andrea started off playing charades.  We are all new to the school this year except for Reid.  Our personalities were reflected in the words/phrases etc that we put into the charade bucket.  As I think about each person there, we are all extremely different but managed to have a lot of fun together!!!  After charades we played Psychiatrist.  It was kind of like "whose line is it anyway".  One person would leave the apartent and they rest of us would come up with a scenario to act out and see if the person could guess what it was.  I got to act like Zach,  be a heroin addict, be part of a love triange etc as part of the game :)   At the end of the night Reid took out a cake box and put it on the floor.  He said we had to pick it off of the floor without using our hands and keeping our feet on the floor.  Each time someone did it successfully, he ripped part of the box off so it was shorter and harder to pick up.  I am extremely unfexible due to running so I was out right away.  It was fun to watch people's attempts to due.  Andrea got amazing video footage of Zach doing it!  Zach's wife Nancy is going to be out of town later this week so it is my job to "babysit" him :) and keep him company.  We have plans to practice the box activity using cinnabons!  I like to call it " bobbing for cinnabons"  :)  Preya totally won the cake box challenge due to the fact she is half Indian and can do the Indian squat effortlessly.

I walked home with Reid, Jordan and Preya - the weather is gorgeous right now.  I got home around 1am.  I actally slept for almost 6 hours only waking up 3 or 4 times. Usually I wake up 12-25 times a night.  no kidding.  serious sleeping issues. 

On Saturday I met Andrea, Nancy and Preya at the train station and we took it to CST - the very famous Victoria train station.  It is FAR away and costs 6 rupees to get there by train.  that is about 12 cents.  :)  It is faster too.  As long as you get a seat and aren't crammed in there like sardines - it is ok.   We had a very pleasant ride.  We went to crawford market.  You can get pretty much anything there - spices, pets, dried fruits and nuts, produce, meat.  We went passed a huge slaughter house thing.  it smelled.  There was also a lot of slaughtering goign on uncontained in a slaughter house.  We tried to cut through a path to get from the street to the market.  We stopped about 10 feet in when we saw sheep brains on the ground.  yuck.

The whole market area was crowded and guys kept coming up to us wanting us to buy stuff.  They don't listen when you say no.  Especially when you are white.  They think we are tourists.  Whenever they ask where I'm from I alway say Bandra ( a section of Mumbai where I live)  it startles them a little and makes them think I am a little less likely to take their crap.  I HATE it when they touch me. When you say no, they grap your arm and try to get you to go to their store or they grab you to try to turn you back to them when you turn away.  no. no. no.  unacceptable.  I don't care what culture you are from.  You do not get to physically grab someone.  I say very loudly "get your hand off of me"  that usually works because they don't want to cause a scene.  I will use my combat skills to take them down if I have too :)

We found a great area to buy fabric.  The girls bought 2 meters for $8 for a dress then you can get clothes made by a tailor.  Fairly cheap custom made clothes :)

Internet goes in and out here.  My friend needed it to interview on skype with another school - she asked if I could bring over my 3g stick.  I went over there and hung out and ate a cinnabon with her husband Zack :)   mmmm. cinnabon!