Broken Tooth Blues

I have been suffering for a few days from a lower back tooth that mostly chipped off after the filling that was in it came out, leaving an infected gum area with tooth fragments sticking out. Ouch! Fortunately, I have a very good, kindly dentist who removed the fragments from the gum yesterday and put me on antibiotics. Although it aches some, I feel that I am well on the road to recovery.

When an infection affects a part of my body, even if it seems minor, the whole body can suffer as a result. I remember the time a few decades ago (late 1979) when I accidentally cut into one of my fingers pretty deep and had allowed it to become infected. I came down with what seemed like severe flu symptoms, which lasted for days and wouldn't get better. When I finally saw a doctor, he diagnosed the problem, put me on antibiotics, and within a couple of days I had drastically improved.

This past tendency for me to ignore my own developing health problems when I was single is still regrettably a (hopefully shrinking) part of my personality. Fortunately, I have a wonderful wife who looks out for me! But, sheesh, I am in my fifties and should be a little quicker about addressing my own health concerns by this stage of my life.