Take Care of Yourself Before You Take Care of Others

Welcome to Medical Mondays! This week’s topic is more of a public service announcement and storytime for the people out there who, possibly like me, tend to put everyone and everything else before themselves. Brace yourselves–it’s a long one. ._.

Last weekend was somewhat of a dumpster fire and I was pulled from work from Sunday to Tuesday, but I’m happy to say that I’m on the road to recovery!

Take Care of Yourself Before You Take Care of Others

Thursday

I started experiencing a constant, excruciating pain at the roof of my mouth, but I had a pregnant patient I was bringing in to induce so I figured I’d just try to power through.

Friday

Pain still super severe and unrelenting. Since I was still at the hospital waiting for my patient to deliver, I flagged down an ER nurse for an ibuprofen. He gave me 4 tabs since I looked so miserable, telling me not to please take it all at once.

I didn’t have tooth pain, but I scheduled the earliest available Saturday dental appointment (at the time, I was still intent on being there to deliver my patient’s baby since I’d been taking care of her since last year).

After breakfast + ibuprofen, I went to the resident reorientation since my patient was still chillin’ and wasn’t close to imminent active labor. People kept telling me I looked extremely pale and “not quite right,” but aside from the pain–now masked by ibuprofen, I wasn’t having any other symptoms, so I insisted I was fine, ate lunch with everyone, and went through the afternoon activities without issue.

The pain returned full force later in the afternoon, so I popped another ibuprofen…and ended up with gastritis (the nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain that followed was not pleasant).

My program probably thinks of me as one of the most chipper residents there–I’m almost always in a good mood. Not so for Friday. I was curled up on the couch in involuntary tears. ._. Several of my friends stayed with me to make sure I was okay and one drove me back home. (Friday night was a mess. Nothing even remotely helped with the pain and I woke up every 45-60 minutes from it.)

Saturday

I woke up to a very swollen face (just on the left) and worsening pain, but somehow managed to last til my appointment, where I discovered that I had an abscess on a tooth that, once upon a time over 15 years ago, a root canal had been started but had never been finished. (…) My dentist gave me his cell phone number in case I started feeling even worse and told me to start antibiotics immediately.

A summary of sorts.

Sunday

I had significantly worsened swelling on my face, but pain mostly gone(!!). I was concerned about a secondary abscess so I called my dentist to check in and he told me to let him know if I noted any fluctuance so he could set me up with an oral surgeon if needed. My advisor stopped by to pay me a home acupuncture visit to help decrease the pain/inflammation.

Monday

Your hard palate is not supposed to be squishy. I went to an oral surgeon and discovered that yes, I did have an abscess on my hard palate. And another one in my cheek. I had two I&D’s (the sensation of your bones being scraped is notttt pleasant)

Kinda happy that I didn’t go into sepsis, and yay for it not spreading into my bones or my sinuses.

Tuesday

I’d like to think I’m doing better. Still uncomfortable and still swollen, but less pain and discomfort overall.

Although this entire ordeal was far from pleasant, I’m really glad I had so much support from my friends and colleagues, and my super awesome dentist and oral surgeon (they were super super nice). I’m not used to being taken care of or being on the other side as a patient, so this was definitely an eye-opening experience in terms of me now being able to empathize (vs. sympathize) with my patients!

At least I managed to get a lot done while I was out?

• Do you have a tendency to try to tough everything out? ._.