Sunday, April 11, 2004

I'm baaaaack (ish)

Well the week from hell is now over and I slept for about 14 hours last night (woke up at 2pm to discover that I'd missed a lovely day but oh well, the sleep was needed).

A brief recap:

I've been suffering a little (like Andre the Giant, just little) tooth-ache for the last couple of weeks due to copping a fist in the mouth at karate. Left side upper incisor, one of the big front ones. Figured there was something seriously amiss but managed to sudiously avoid doing anything about it for two weeks by following my ignore-it-and-it'll-go-away method (tm). But when my gum started to abscess pusily (is that even a word?) I hied me hither to the dentist. Who, upon taking an x-ray (is anyone else bothered by the fact that the dentist always runs out of the room and hides behind a big lead sheet when they point the x-ray device at you? I mean talk about not inspiring much confidence...), declared that the tooth was broken at the jawline. He then went on to say that the reconstruction would probably take 6-8 months, involve multiple trips to the oral surgeon (doesn't that sound like they just talk about it? No? Just me then...), and cost around $6000.

Needless to say this was a little bit of a spanner in the works: having quit my job the previous week, was moving out of my flat that week and leaving for Australia the next. And had given most of my stuff away too. So I did what any red-blooded male in the same circumstances would do, I went home and went back to bed.

A visit to the surgeon the next day cleared things up a little (but only a little - I hope the guy is better at surgeoning than he is at explanations). Itr appeared that it would take a month or so for the ACC approval to come through but when it did that would cover all of the surgery costs and go towards some of the materials and after-operation care. So it would end up costing me in the region of $2500 which would wipe out my savings but was at least do-able. It also meant that I could stick to my schedule of going to Oz on the 18th, although I'd have to return in about 3 weeks for the op. I also go a bunch of antibiotics and painkillers for the current problem (which are both working a treat, yay penicillin! yay codeine!).

The initial operation would rip out the remaining bits of tooth and root, stick a titanium screw into my jaw, and cap that with a temporary fake tooth. There would then be a wait of about 3 months till the swelling reduced, and the fitting settled. Then another porcelain tooth would be fitted - this one sunk into the gum so it would look like a real one. This would then be allowed to settle for another three months by which time the final tooth would be made (by the Swedes apparently, they're your people for prosthetic teeth) and this would be fitted in the final visit. Of course all of this could be done in Sydney for a mere twice the price...

So all-in-all I'm looking at coming back maybe three times if nothing else goes wrong (fingers crossed). Which makes getting a job in Oz as soon as I get there a priority, and a job that doesn't mind me leaving for a few days very soon at that. Bang goes the relaxing holiday.

But then I get a call on Thursday from the surgeon saying that they're trying to fast-track the ACC claim and if successful they'll be able to do the op the next Friday (16th). So while that's a very scary prospect so soon it's a better idea to get it over and done with. Cuts down on my return visits to Chch at least. They're not sure whether it'll get approved but if so I go under the knife at 1pm Friday... Eek!

And while all of this is going on I'm having to move out of my flat - a place I've been in for 4 1/2 years. I'd collected so much stuff... Arrgghh... But not only did I have to move all my own stuff but since the whole flat was vacating we had to clear the collected junk of 10 years of flatmates. A big job to be sure, but not insurmountable for 4 people. Ah, that's the rub...

First off Stephen (whingey bitch-arse poseur of a wanker Pom) clears all his stuff on the Wednesday, turns up for about an hour to pull down a few posters, drinks beer with the downstairs boys, then scarpers. Without paying his bills of course, fuck-knuckle. And I find that he's off to the UK for 3 weeks the next day. Cunt. But I guess I expected that from him, 'cause he is such a tosspot.

My other two flatties spent the Wednesday night getting pissed in the lounge with the boys then went into town to drink more & play pool. I'd really no problem with that except that I knew that when they came to move all the stuff and clean the next day it'd be all dramas and not enough time etc... Prophetic really.

Thursday dawns, a crappy day which proceeds to get crappier. For a start the weather was appalling, pissing with rain and freezing all day, so shifting any of the big stuff on a trailer was off. I was up at 8am starting to sort shit out, took a load up to my folks' place & borrowed their (bigger) car so I could shift more, spent the afternoon sorting crap out and off-loading stuff onto people. Had a blazing row with the ex-wife when she came over to get some plants for the department and thought that I should be much more thankful that she was doing me such a favour. Not being in the most stable of moods I told her to either help or get out. Didn't go down too well.

The shining lights of my day were Lisa and Steve who came over in the evening and just launched straight into cleaning. They did a brilliant job, things would have been 10 times more shit without them. So at about 7.30pm I took my second (fist major) load of stuff up to the folks' along with moving Livingston to Mark & Kirsty's (much more traumatic for me than for him I'm sure). Got back to the flat an hour later to find my flatmates had fucked off.

This annoyed me a little.

In the end I was at the flat till 4am that morning tidying up, didn't manage to move much of my stuff at all. I couldn't even do a proper job of cleaning 'cause the bastard flatties had taken (my!) vacuum with them. It wasn't altogether awful - I was too wired on coffee & painkillers and sleep deprived to be capable of dwelling on how I'd been stiffed. Eroica came over at about 3am and cheered me up a bit (also took even more crap away with her, thanks Bo! hee hee hee).

Crashed at M&K's that night and was back at the flat to continue the clean/shift by about midday, got nearly all of it done then. Steffan came over and took away a bunch of stuff that I was looking to off-load and helped me carry some of the big bits. By the end of the day there was only my bed and a few plants left to go. Without my friends I would probably still be there...

So Mark and I shifted the bed yesterday and that's that. All done. No more Hereford Street. No more waving at the tourists taking photos of the house. No more blowing bubbles off the balcony. No more jungle library. No more reading books in bed with my cat (he likes Hemingway). Sigh.

Apologies for the length and whininess of this post, just needed to get some of it off my chest, there's more that's been going on of course but I can't be bothered with it anymore. The end of an era in my life...

Now - on to new adventures!

No comments: