Mancolds aren't limited to actual colds. The same thing happens with toothaches. I could tell the story in three sentences, but I need to vent.
Short version
Me, 2 months of tooth pain, multiple dentist and endodontist visits, infected tooth with cracked root, attempted root canal aborted, need to get it extracted.
Joe, massive tooth pain started while I was getting my attempted root canal, day and a half of pain, stayed home from work, expected me to baby him, dead tooth and infection, need to get it extracted. WTF, talk about shitty timing....
TL:DR. Covid didn't get me, but it did break one of my teeth and cracked a filling in another one. I have a problem tooth. It was sensitive to cold and sometimes if I chewed something. My dentist couldn't see anything weird in the exam or the X-rays, and told me to come in if it got worse. So for two or three years it got worse extremely slowly. After a few nights of tooth grinding two months ago, I was eating dinner when suddenly the tooth hurt like hell and didn't get better after a few hours or even a day. I went to the dentist and they looked at it and tapped on it, and thought that it was some nerve pain from tooth grinding. I got a mouthguard and the pain decreased. Things were good for a few days and then half of the tooth cracked and fell off when I was eating (there was a large filling in there and it sheared off. ) Great. The good news was that it no longer hurt. I went back to the dentist and they thought it might need a root canal since I had been complaining about the pain. Thanks to the fact that everyone else is breaking teeth due to covid, there was a 5 week wait for a root canal appointment. I was able to get it down to four weeks by putting my name on the standby list. Meanwhile it started hurting again. My dentist prescribed antibiotics since it seemed like it was infected, which helped a lot. Then another piece of the filling broke off. All of this was sort of reminiscent of my former problem tooth, which was problematic, broke, had a root canal, continued to be sensitive, and then got infected and had to be removed and replaced with an implant, which has been great for 16 years.
On Wednesday, root canal day had finally arrived. I was nervous but also eager to have less pain. The endodontist opened things up and looked around. As I had expected, there was a crack in the outside of root and the tooth was infected. It was a borderline case - the Dr said she thought a root canal* would be a short to medium term solution - maybe 5-7 years realistically. After two months of tooth pain, I opted to go with extraction and an implant, so she finished cleaning things out and put a temporary filling there. I went back to my office and was chattier and more animated than I'd been in two months, thanks to all the novocaine in my jaw.
When I got home Joe was on the couch with a major toothache. He had a tooth break three years ago and he didn't go to the dentist for it, even though he's on my insurance and I bugged him a few times before giving up. Naturally, it suddenly started hurting really bad when I was off getting my exploratory pre-root canal. Joe was in a lot of pain. I felt really bad for him and took care of him, but I was also cranky as fuck internally because a) he ignored it for 3 years b) I was the one with the almost root canal that afternoon and c) he tried to get me to give him some of my antibiotics. After I got him set up with water, advil, and a blanket, I went upstairs and did some work and left him to his own devices.
I got Joe set up with an appointment with my dentist, and they determined that the tooth was dead and he had an infection. The antibiotics started to take effect fairly quickly so he's on the mend until he can get it pulled out. We'll be the soft food brigade for the next month or two. As an amusing aside, we compared our antibiotic prescriptions and realized that mine was 3 days longer than his -not what you'd expect based on all the drama.....
It's not like I was unusually stoic or anything - Joe heard the play by play of all my dental woes as they happened, and it's not like he was unsympathetic or unsupportive, but holee shit this reminded me of the gendered expectations of emotional and actual labor. The fact that we were going through something very similar at the same time and I was still expected to be the one who had to stop at the store to pick up stuff and make the call to my dentist for him is really messed up. I point blank told him that I would make my own dental appointment calls first and encouraged him to call the dentist directly, but in the end the oral surgery office called at 7:30 AM so that was done before anything else opened up.
It was a learning experience for both of us, and I think now we're better calibrated to the other's pain response. Assuming we don't get our teeth pulled on the same day, I am going to just ask Joe to do all the stuff for me that I will do for him.
*I would've actually needed two root canal procedures if I had gone that route.
