Thursday, December 1, 2011

They Rocked My Teeth Out

They caught no fish, since the wind was too strong it wasn't safe to go out on the bay.  Bummer for Judas Priest.  They still kept their word about the tickets, but when we got to the venue they turned out to be VIP tickets, which meant tickets in the VIP section.  Which was right by all the other non-VIP sections, although more centrally located.  So we got to see Thin Lizzy (best known for their biggest hit in 1976, The Boys Are Back In Town), Black Label Society (best known for being the band of Zakk Wylde, the guitarist for Ozzy Osbourne), and Judas Priest, best known for being awesome.

One interesting thing about Judas Priest:  in 1990 the band was accused of causing a fan's suicide by subliminally including the message "Do it" in one of their songs.  Rob Halford responded by stating that if they were going to include a subliminal message in their music it would be counterproductive to encourage fans to kill themselves, they'd rather have a message encouraging the fans to buy more records. The lawsuit ended up being dismissed.

Anyway, there were no backstage passes, no meet and greet with the band, just pretty good seats and a very good concert.  Judas Priest had the flaming pyro effects, the black leather outfits, and they really rocked.

For the past few days my teeth have been hurting, a lot, especially in the morning, and especially on the right side.  Yesterday I woke up with a swollen right jaw and pretty intense pain, and managed to get an emergency appointment with my dentist.  They took x-rays and poked around and said that I am not exactly grinding my teeth in my sleep, but I am clenching my jaw in my sleep, to the point where it's causing problems.  (Since my surgery to correct my deformed upper jaw when I was 17, I still have a bite that's just slightly off, my teeth only meeting on the right side, in the back.)  He ground away part of my teeth on the right side, just enough to change where my teeth were hitting, and said that should fix it for now but I need to come in next month to get night guards made.

I managed to still go to the heavy metal concert last night without getting a headache, which I am going to consider a Christmas miracle.

But today I still have pain, I still have swelling, and the ibuprofen and moist heat he prescribed don't seem to be helping.

Of course with my lame-ass dentophobia I am positive that something terrible is happening in my mouth and they just didn't see it yesterday.  Part of my brain knows that even if that is the case and I have to go back in to have some sort of procedure done, I'll survive and it'll be no big deal really.  But the loudest part of my brain is convinced that this will mean a ton of money (right before Christmas), a ton of pain, a ton of vacation time from work that I can't afford to lose, and just lots of agony in general.

I'm just hoping I wake up tomorrow and it's at least better...