Pinball dental

Nice to pop out of bed this morning to answer the phone. My jaw and I had slept well. Refreshed, I was glad to make my "phone tree" calls. I admit I was not displeased to have a snow day off from the classroom.

Out on the front step to retrieve the newspaper, my view of giant snowflakes floating down seemed almost as psychedelic as my recent nighttime headaches. Last weekend I spent sleepless hours with sharp pains shooting from my left jaw to my right ear, and then pingponging around my skull like an evil pinball wizard. Geez, I hate it when my junior high health class teacher is right about flashbacks. This was a bad dental trip!

My dentist alerted me that I'm storing stress in my jaw, and grinding my teeth during deep sleep. That was my wake-up call for the week, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to change and prevent further damage to my teeth (and to put his kids through college).

I got to make the wake-up calls today. My voice is so rarely turned on before eight a.m., that I sounded funny making calls to the seven school families on my branch of the phone tree at seven a.m. No school today:

SNOW DAY! Don't spend it all clenching your teeth.