For those who missed me on the Forum, I apologise for my disappearance, but there was a real reason for it. I'm an idiot!
Having gone to Bali for serious dental rehabilitation, I was not even close to imagining how much pain I was about to put myself through. After 4 days of intense treatment, including 5 extractions, stitches, multiple injections, removal of stitches, more injections and finishing up with 4 implants around the sites of the extractions,the pain level experience meant that sanity/insanity became optional.
Let me stress that all decisions were made by me. I told the Dentist what I wanted as a final result, how long I had in Bali to get it done and they told me how it needed to be done and I told them to proceed. Last Friday I had extractions And stitches, Monday I had the stitches removed, Tuesday I had Implants inserted and since I had Been able to control the pain from the extractions with pain-killers provided by the dentist I was probably over confident of doing the same for the implants. I think one or even two implants would have been manageable but after 4 I had no chance of winning that fight.
Dr. Thomas and the staff at ARC were incredibly generous with their care and concern and gave me a quiet room with blanket and pillow, soft music and as much time as I needed to take to get it together. A special thanks to the Gorgeous Miss Jo, who sat with me for a good while and helped me get my head back together. A very classy lady.
The next 4 days consisted of foggy drugged painful periods where I tried to get my mind off the self-imposed misery that was my every waking moment now. I became very low functioning and my only needs became pain-killers and some soft food. I was living on Nasi-Goreng and spaghetti Bolognaise and soft serve ice cream and lots of Milo drinks in cans. I lost about 5 kilos in about 10 days.
Happily I can report, now that I am back home, (got back to Melbourne at 11pm Sat night), I have relaxed a bit more and found I am so thankful that most of the experience is behind me. The pain is still demanding respect but I can feel it diminishing each day and without the same volume of pharmaceuticals being consumed. I had to return to Dr. Thomas on Friday to get a temporary plate put in as I currently have no front teeth but, I have to return in 3 months to have the Porcelains, or whatever, fitted onto the Implants. This, according to Dr. Tom, allows time for the Implants to bond into the jaw. (Osteo-Bonding).The 4 Implants are like threaded sleeves buried into the gums and now waiting for the 7 tooth bridge to be installed in 3 months. At this time I will also be supplied with a new bottom partial denture to replace my back teeth which were thoughtfully yanked out back when I was a kid.
So, in summation of the above, if you are thinking of having serious Dental work done on your next trip to Bali, do yourself a favour and RING your Dentist and discuss your treatment in full, and give yourself two trips if the Doc. thinks it would be better for you. Then you can post on BTF and thank me for the advice.
Now for some more advice. Don't travel alone. If you have read my previous HNR's, you will be familiar with an instance where I was nearly robbed by a lady outside my hotel. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure I was nearly a victim on two other occasions. I wont go into the details, but I think if someone is travelling alone then there is more likelihood that they will be targeted. Male/female, no difference. Suffice it to say, I am having an X-ray tomorrow to see if anything is amiss after being "accidently" headbutted in the left temple. (like I needed that). If I hadn't been so high on pain-killers I would have hit the deck. Has anyone else been "accidentally" headbutted up near Padma? All the pain and problems aside, I am looking forward to getting back to Bali in June/July for a few days, to complete my "make-over", and then The Beloved and I will return for a couple of weeks in September for a spell in Legian or Seminyak. I don't think I will stay in Kuta again as the air quality seems to be getting worse there. How the Stallholders live with it 7 days a week defeats me. More later. Billthefencer.
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