Endodontists in Paradise

I was so excited to blog all about our big trip to Hawaii for spring break. I had it all in my head even before we left. The snorkeling, the lounging in the sun, the beautiful sunset shots.

This ain't gonna be that.

Things didn't go quite as planned. 

It all started out the friday evening before we even packed for this trip. We had dinner at a local Chinese restaurant. Bill bit down wrong on a peppercorn or something. I could see that look on his face as soon as it happened. I knew something wasn't right. I've seen this look before. Once from a subway sandwich, once from a gummy bear. Who would think that a scouting trip 28 years earlier would wreak this much havoc in our lives over the years?

When Bill was a scout many, many moons ago, he went on a midnight hike with his scout troop. They had flashlights to help them hike down the mountain. A flashlight was obviously not enough. Bill ended up at the bottom of the mountain with a bloody face and two broken teeth. It's been the bane our our existence ever since.

Anyways....(that was for Deb)....back to the story. He called our dentist Friday night because, of course, it was just late enough that all the offices were closed, and our dentist agreed to come on on his day off Saturday morning. We were relieved and very happy as our flight out wasn't till Monday morning.

So we got the tooth fixed.

Everything good to go, right?

The next part of the story is a lesson to all you out there to always keep the sabbath day holy.....

It was general conference weekend, and in the spirit of not having regular church, missing our Saturday ride because of dentists apointments, conference sessions, and priesthood meetings, Bill and I decided to have a Sunday bike ride (which we don't normally do). Bad idea.

I was riding behind Bill and he came to and unusual stopping point. I pulled up behind him to find out what was wrong. Uh oh...that look on his face again. Somehow he bit down wrong on the tooth while riding and it had come loose again. Dangling by a thread. Ugh!

Now we are only hours away from our flight and have another tooth issue. He put in another emergency call to our dentist, but I guess our dentist got savvy to our ways and didn't call us back. So luckily, (so we thought) there is a man in our stake who used to be in the stake presidency (now he teaches seminary) who is a dentist. I encouraged Bill to give him a call. So he did, and President Hilton offered to leave his family party he was in the middle of, and meet Bill at his dental office that evening. Very kind of him.

So, again we were relieved to have the tooth "fixed" and be on our way to our Hawaiian paradise.

Bill woke up Monday morning to some throbbing in his tooth. He wrote it off as just normal pain from President Hilton's ungentle dental visit. (Bill described him as a auto mechanic of a dentist) We figured it would go away and the trip would be fine.

Bill had an uncomfortable and somewhat painful flight to Honolulu with an ibuprofen chaser every few hours. We got there, got our car, did a Costco run for necessities, found our hotel and went out to dinner that evening.

The next morning we had an appointment with a realtor to look at homes in the Laie area of the island (don't get excited, as our somewhat tentative home buying plans have been very derailed through this whole debacle). Bill made it till about noon taking ibuprofen and Tylenol just about every three hours, but by afternoon we knew that this was not normal pain.

We got back to the hotel, and he put in another call to our dentist back home who was out of the office, of course. His partner prescribed some anti-biotics (as infection was suspected), and some pain meds. So we went to the closest pharmacy to get it filled just to find out that Hawaiian law says that only Hawaiian doctors can prescribe pain meds to be filled in Hawaii. Ughhh... So he started on the anti-biotics, but the pain was becoming unbearable and he was taking WAY too much ibuprofen and Tylenol. So we started calling around the island for local endodontists. We finally found one who would see him.

We left the kids at the hotel room to watch some TV while we went on our first (of many) trips to the endodontists. Luckily Dr. Fu was a little bit of heaven in a sea of uknowledgable and unhelpful dentists. He took a look at Bill and knew just what was wrong. Major infection in the tooth.   Dr. Hilton (unbeknownst to him) had plugged up an area of infection when he fixed the tooth, so the infection had nowhere to drain, so it just festered and built up in the top of his mouth. Dr. Fu lanced it, drained all the puss out, and sent Bill on his way with a prescription for Vicodin.

We thought we were now in the clear and would be able to go on with our fun filled week. Not so fast.


Bill spent that evening in a Vicodin induced fog in the hotel room. The kids and I went out to see what we could find to keep us entertained for a while while dad slept. Luckily we had booked our trip to the Hilton and it was a huge and activity filled hotel and "village". I took the boys out to one of the many pools to swim for a while. They had a good time having water fights and playing together. The beach was also just a few feet away so we went and played in the ocean and I was able to get a couple of beautiful sunset shots on the beach that night. We then had dinner at Round Table Pizza (which the boys never get when Bill and I are with them cause pizza is too fatty), so they were happy about that.

boys at the beach

me at a rare beach moment

the sand mummy

the only sunset shot I got

from our hotel window

cute boys in the pool

Beach!

Andy took this photo of me by the pool

the only shot of Bill during his only time in the sun :(

The next day was supposed to be better, right? That's what the Doctor said.

It wasn’t.

Bill woke up (I say woke up, but really I dont think he slept much that night) in more pain than ever. The Vicodin wasn't even touching it. He was also having a little swelling as well. Dr Fu told him if he started swelling up to come back in.

So, we again left the kids to watch some TV in the room while we made trip number two to the endodontists. He looked at Bill again and said the swelling wasn't too bad, but gave him a stronger prescription for anti-biotics as it should have been kicking in by then but wasn't.  So, off to our third trip to the pharmacy.

Let's see...this was Wednesday. That night I told Bill that is was time to call the airlines and book a trip home. It was THAT BAD. It really was. He was in more pain than I've ever seen him... ever. So I called Hawaiian Air and they proceeded to tell me that there were no flights anytime, anyhow, anywhere in the next two days. Thanks a lot for all your help. So Bill looked around at all the other airlines and finally found us a flight that left Thursday night for just a measley sum of a thousand bucks a pop.

So, four thousand dollars later, we had a flight booked for the following night.

He had already called home to our dentist who set him up an apointment with an endodontists here that would do surgery Friday morning. Bill just needed to survive till then.

Thursday morning: Bill looked like he had gotten punched in the face by a heavy weight boxer. Really, really bad. And the pain was excruciating.

on our way to the endodontist

Dr. Fu, here we come!

Unfortunately Dr. Fu had the day off, but his receptionist knew us pretty well by then and was able to pull some strings and get us in with the other doctor who was working that day. I was getting to know the route to the endodontists office really well by them. Didn’t even need the GPS anymore.

The other doctor looked at him and knew it was time for another draining. He drilled a bigger hole in the back side of Bills tooth and kept on massaging and massaging the infected area until he got all the yuck out. Bill said there was tons of puss and blood. Glad I was in the reception area.

Even though his mouth was really sore, Bill said it was the first time all week that he could tell the pain was subsiding a little bit. That was a blessing as right after that apointment (and another trip to the pharmacy) we had to leave to catch our plane home.

Thankfully, Bill felt better than he had the whole week for the plane ride.

Swollen Bill at the airport

I took this photo and told Andy I was going to put the caption “white and nerdy” on it.  He was fine with that!

We made it home Friday morning at about 6 am. We took the boys home and got right back in the car for Bills endodontists apointment in Redmond.

The Doctor took one look at Bill and said, "you're too swollen, we'll have to do the surgery on Tuesday". So more waiting for poor Bill to get this infection out, and a new post and tooth in.

It was sad times that week. We all tried to make the best of it, but let's just say tears were shed by all.

That evening Bill was feeling a little better. The anti-biotics were finally doing their job, the swelling had gone down a lot, and the pain was leaving. We felt so bad about the spoiled trip that we decided to make a little luau that night at home. So we went to the grocery store and got all our luau supplies. We had the most pathetic, lame little luau that ever was.

Maybe not such a great idea. The shrimp were old, the coconut was half-rotten and it kind of hit us all at the same time what a crappy week it had been. More tears shed.

Our slightly old shrimp

Ethan made us smoothies

The half-rotten coconut.  Disappointing.

I'm sure that in a year from now this whole experience will be highly entertaining. Right?

Anyway, the good news is....Bill had the surgery Tuesday. It went really well. He has a brand new post and a brand new tooth. Should last another five years or so.

Curse those boy scouts and their midnight hikes!!