Where I've been hiding lately....

I am thankful, and grateful for all of you who read my blog. It never fails to surprise me when I receive an email telling me how much one of you enjoyed reading one of my little adventures. And I must admit, it surprises me even more when I hear from you asking why I haven't been making regular entries.  When I haven't been up to much, I don't think there is a whole lot fun for you to read. And lately, I confess, my life has been less than fun.  The stuff my days have been consumed with are things I have been wishing I could forget, let alone document and reread it some time in my future.

So here's why I have been in hiding recently:

About a month ago, as I headed through Piazzale Roma to the Sant'Andrea vaporetto stop on my way to my morning physical therapy sesson at FateBeneFratelli, I fell down and smacked those Venetian stones on the street hard with my face. It was only after I picked myself up that I realized I had blood streaming out of my mouth and down the side of my face. As I felt my mouth, I discovered I was missing one of my front teeth, which I found lying on the pavement right in front of me. This wasn't good at all.  I made my way to the parking garage closest to where I fell, and asked the attendant to please help me.  He called an ambulance, brought me ice and some towels to wipe myself up with,and stayed with me until help arrived.

The ambulance that arrived had wheels. I was expecting a boat.  Clearly I would not be going to the Pronto Soccorso at the Ospedale here in Venice. I was examined briefly, then put in the van and taken to the new hospital on the outskirts of Mestre, where I sat waiting my turn for the next 4 hours. After being seen by the ER doctor and getting a series of x rays, the dentist on call extracted a second tooth that was lodged in my upper lip and stitched me up.  I had no idea there was a second tooth knocked out! Here is where we get to the only comical portion of this saga. This happened on Friday morning. The dentist gave me instructions to return to the same hospital on Monday morning to begin the work needed to restore my two teeth. Upon learning I lived in Venice, he changed his mind, and told me to instead go to the hospital in Venice on Saturday morning as there would be an oral surgeon on call and this would save me the trip out to Mestre. Turns out the oral surgeon on call was none other than my landlord.  Is this a small world or what??

So- over the course of the last month I have made 14 trips to the my landlord's dental office just off St. Mark's square. He and I have gotten to know each other much better thanks to my accident. The swelling on my cheek and under my eye finally returned to normal. The swelling on my upper lip has gone down, but there is still a little bit of puffiness  even today that won't go away. My landlord tells me it might be permanent scar tissue where the stitches internally were. Great. I was sans 2 teeth for about a week- my mouth was too swollen for the dentist to complete all that needed to be done until the swelling went down. Then I had temporary teeth for about a week and half, and finally two new permanent crowns.

The good news- my knee wasn't injured in the fall. That was my big concern.
The bad news- looks like I will be visiting yet a second dentist out in Spinea, about 30 minutes out of Venice, who specializes in veneers, which would be a closer match to the color of the rest of the teeth in my mouth than these two new crowns are.

And there you have it. You know the saying "When it rains, it pours" ???   I've had my own monsoon.