Tests (of pain)
Welcome one and all to the trials of a law student at Columbia. That's a pun, folks.
I have encountered my first real test at law school. Through some sick and twisted turn of fate, I have fallen somewhat ill today. Of course, the first day of class is tomorrow, so clearly God has it in for me. Or maybe I'm paying for sins in a past life. Either way it does nothing for me right now -- not only do I have an infection, but it happens to be in my teeth. Yes, that's right, my teeth. Ugh. Probably one of the worst places to get an infection. Not only do I have fever, have to take antibiotics, and have to go the dentist for oral surgery, but I also cannot eat anything solid. Seriously, is this karma? Did I royally screw someone over that i don't know about?
The somewhat short version: I have impacted wisdom teeth which were scheduled for extraction in just a few months. However last night I woke up with a toothache of monumental dimensions; even an extra strong dose of Advil did nothing. So today in between my orientation events, dodging herds of recent undergrads, I went to the dental clinic. Turns out my gums are inflamed because one of these wisdom teeth is infected, and needs to come out "immediately". However, it also happens that their one and only oral surgeon (and incidentally, the only one around who takes the student health insurance plan) is on vacation for a couple of weeks. So instead I received a course of antibiotics for the infection, and instructions to wait for a couple weeks. Or else just go to the Columbia Hospital (located nearby, thank god) and get them taken out at close to full price - which I expect to be utterly exorbitant and ridiculous.
Now, if you think that all of the above happened in one simple visit to the dental clinic, then you are sadly naive and will surely be taken advantage of several times in the next week. No, in fact it took me about 3 hours to figure all of this out. All the while my tooth was hurting more and more, the infection was starting to give me a fever, and I was stressing out about the orientation events I was missing and worrying even more about all the homework I had to do for my first day of class tomorrow. I could not imagine sitting down and doing hours of legalese reading. Which, of course, I just finished. Amazing what you can do when you have no choice.
What a day.
Anyway, I'm now praying (literally) that the antibiotics will kick in and kill off the infection very quickly, and that I'll be able to eat again tomorrow and won't have to suffer through class with a fever. I'll probably go the hospital tomorrow just to see how much this extraction would cost. If it's not too bad, I'll just get it taken care of on Friday and get it over with. No sense in delaying the inevitable.
And for those of you hoping to get stories about law school.....don't worry. I'm sure there are plenty of those to come.
Welcome one and all to the trials of a law student at Columbia. That's a pun, folks.
I have encountered my first real test at law school. Through some sick and twisted turn of fate, I have fallen somewhat ill today. Of course, the first day of class is tomorrow, so clearly God has it in for me. Or maybe I'm paying for sins in a past life. Either way it does nothing for me right now -- not only do I have an infection, but it happens to be in my teeth. Yes, that's right, my teeth. Ugh. Probably one of the worst places to get an infection. Not only do I have fever, have to take antibiotics, and have to go the dentist for oral surgery, but I also cannot eat anything solid. Seriously, is this karma? Did I royally screw someone over that i don't know about?
The somewhat short version: I have impacted wisdom teeth which were scheduled for extraction in just a few months. However last night I woke up with a toothache of monumental dimensions; even an extra strong dose of Advil did nothing. So today in between my orientation events, dodging herds of recent undergrads, I went to the dental clinic. Turns out my gums are inflamed because one of these wisdom teeth is infected, and needs to come out "immediately". However, it also happens that their one and only oral surgeon (and incidentally, the only one around who takes the student health insurance plan) is on vacation for a couple of weeks. So instead I received a course of antibiotics for the infection, and instructions to wait for a couple weeks. Or else just go to the Columbia Hospital (located nearby, thank god) and get them taken out at close to full price - which I expect to be utterly exorbitant and ridiculous.
Now, if you think that all of the above happened in one simple visit to the dental clinic, then you are sadly naive and will surely be taken advantage of several times in the next week. No, in fact it took me about 3 hours to figure all of this out. All the while my tooth was hurting more and more, the infection was starting to give me a fever, and I was stressing out about the orientation events I was missing and worrying even more about all the homework I had to do for my first day of class tomorrow. I could not imagine sitting down and doing hours of legalese reading. Which, of course, I just finished. Amazing what you can do when you have no choice.
What a day.
Anyway, I'm now praying (literally) that the antibiotics will kick in and kill off the infection very quickly, and that I'll be able to eat again tomorrow and won't have to suffer through class with a fever. I'll probably go the hospital tomorrow just to see how much this extraction would cost. If it's not too bad, I'll just get it taken care of on Friday and get it over with. No sense in delaying the inevitable.
And for those of you hoping to get stories about law school.....don't worry. I'm sure there are plenty of those to come.
Labels: My Random Life
posted by slithytoves at 9:48 PM
2 Comments:
thanks for all the gory details..it's very attractive. Kidding. Feel better! =)
As they say in ireland, "jaaaaysus!". Man, that sounds painful. I suppose that's why the dentist had been looking for you the last few years.
Post a Comment
<< Home