Well, you'd think after having a tooth pulled, the extraction site would gradually start feeling better and better as the days go by. At least, that's what I'd thought. But I've been feeling worse and worse. My jaw has been aching more every day, my head has been hurting so badly I could hardly sleep, and this morning even my neck was hurting. So I called the surgeon and asked if I could come in today. They had an opening at 1:30. I had a healthy breakfast of Tylenol with a sip of water and spent the morning making a big map of Africa with the kids. (It's really rather cool. We drew an outline with major things like the Nile, then found photos of different places and taped them in their correct places. There's are pictures of Victoria Falls, pyramids, grass huts, and our kids in Morocco and the Seychelles. Most of the map is covered in photos.) Then I took the kids to their auditions for 13 Clocks, the play they're hoping to be in this fall. Elizabeth, Josh, Bethany and Peter all auditioned. There were more kids signed up to audition than there are parts, so I warned them not to be depressed if they're not cast. We'll see what happens.

After auditions, my kids went to a "Not-Back-To=School" party at our friend's house. It's a homeschooling tradition to celebrate the first day of public school by having a party. =) They partied. I went to the surgeon.

I'd done some searching on the internet and had figured out what the problem probably was. Dry Socket is a condition where the blood clot in the socket (ie: hole the tooth was taken out of) either never formed, dissolved, or came out. The result is an empty socket (hole) in the mouth with exposed bone. The air, food, saliva, etc on the recently cut bone causes a lot of pain. But since the brain is not used to receiving messages of pain from inside bones, it doesn't know how to interpret these messages, and decides there is just pain, lots of it, somewhere on that side of the head. This is all more common in women over 30 and in messy extractions involving cutting the bone. (That would be me.)

The surgeon sat me in his chair and told me to open wide. "Sure enough," he said, "dry socket. Just an open hole in there." He brought out a little piece of fabric, about a millimeter wide and 4 inches long that had been soaked in clove oil. He packed it into my "dry socket" saying, "The clove oil will feel a little like rubbing alcohol on a cut for a minute or two, but it also numbs the bone. Not your whole mouth or jaw, just the bone. In a few minutes you should be feeling much better."

Well, it took about 15-20 minutes, but he was right, I feel much better. The only catch is I have to return every two days to have the dressing changed until it's completely recovered. He said there's no way to know how long that will be. Maybe a couple of days, maybe a few months. Ugh. At least I like cloves. It's a good thing, since my mouth has a just-chewed-on-a-clove taste all the time now. Kinda weird.

Tomorrow Josh has his first day at JROTC. Today was Naomi's first day at her new school. And on Thursday Seminary begins. Elizabeth has still not heard from the Library of Congress. I'm beginning to think it will take an act of Congress to get them moving. Thursday is also call-backs for auditions.

Book Recommendation of the Day: The Pearl of Great Price, translated in part from an Egyptian papyrus by Joseph Smith, it includes The Book of Abraham, the Book of Moses and the 13 articles of Faith. Read it to find out about Abraham's father attempting to offer Abraham as a sacrifice to idols in the land of Ur, and how the Lord created the grass and then watched it until it obeyed. (Kind of like me with my kids.)