A Very Expensive Tooth

Hap\'s Tooth
Yesterday morning, when I went out to feed the horses, I noticed that Hap had some sort of drainage coming out of his jaw. My friend brought her clippers over and we found an impressive abscess underneath all the hair. I thought he had somehow managed to catch strangles, a highly infectious disease which is usually self-limiting in healthy horses. His vet came out, examined him, didn’t think it was strangles, and really, really wanted to take x-rays, to rule out nasty causes of the abscess like an infection in the bone, or a chip off the jaw.

I hauled Hap to the clinic this morning. My friend came along to provide moral support if it turned out to be something particularly nasty, and practical assistance if Hap decided to be a butthead. Fortunately, Hap’s evil twin did not show up, and the x-rays indicated the jaw bone was healthy. However, his teeth badly needed floating, and there was a possible fracture of one tooth. This was that tooth, which popped out as the vet started to float that side. She is quite confident that this fractured tooth was causing the abscess, and is glad that she got it out before it caused even more problems. As it is, I have to figure out how to get SMZ down him for a month. SMZ is a sulfa drug much used as a horse antibiotic. Horses don’t like the taste, so one spends a lot of mental energy trying to come up with novel ways to disguise it.

I was so euphoric as I drove back that I drove onto an icy patch on a hill before I realized it and got stuck. Even four wheel drive didn’t seem to be help. While I was assessing the situation, and trying to figure out a solution that did not involve Jack, a man in a truck stopped to help me. He had two shovels, and it took about five minutes to shovel enough sand over the ice that the truck was able to pull out the trailer using the lowest gear of the 4WD. Hap stood quietly in the trailer the whole time.

I bet I can’t get anything close to what this tooth cost from the Tooth Fairy.

DDOS

Lunarpages is our webhost and mail service provider. According to their forums, they are suffering from a DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack. Although this weblog is working right now, our email service is not. I am still receiving email at my gmail account, if you have that address. If you need to contact me, leave a comment.

Feeling Better

I seem to be on the mend from my case of shingles. I think I have a fairly light case: only one or two days of excruciating pain. Today I have almost no pain, though I am still having a lot of tingling and pins and needles feelings. At least these are far less bizarre than the weirdest sensation, when I felt invisible insects crawl on my arm. My various patches of rash seem to have reached the point where I should no longer be shedding chicken pox virus, so that is a relief.

I have been trying to get stuff done in the early part of the day, because when I get tired I notice the pain a lot more. Then all I want to do is read while resting my arm on a hot pack. The worst times have been in the middle of the night. Half asleep, I will toss and turn trying to find a comfortable position for my arm, when there are no comfortable positions.

Reluctant Hiatus Update

Shortly after my arm hurt so badly last week, I thought it coincidental that I had an outbreak of eczema on the same arm. In addition to the eczema failing to respond to home treatment that usually works, it stopped looking like any eczema I had ever had before. Also, although my arm was never quite as painful as that first day, it didn’t quite feel like past episodes of overuse either.

I went to see the doctor today. I had started to think that I might have shingles, and, unfortunately, so does the doctor. I’ll be taking one of the antiviral drugs, and ibuprofen does seem to help the pain, but shingles seems to be one of those wildly varying complaints that can take a long time to heal. It is good to know that all the weird symptoms in my right arm probably has the same cause. In the space of ten minutes, I will have throbbing pain, shooting pain, tingling and itching. The weirdest feeling is not painful though: occasionally I feel as though I have a drop of liquid on my skin, but it is dry when I look at the area. It is like the stupid little nerves in my arm are just firing at random.