The secret of the handkerchief
I now know what that was all about. Sometime late Tuesday, my infection burst through, or whatever it is that they do in the dark corners of the jawbone, and my cheek really swelled up, to the point that it was impinging slightly on my vision all Wednesday.

And once that started, it began to throb, and also hated any kind of little blasts of cold, like draughts, or the normal air movement of walking. I bought a thing meant for sore backs, a kind of elastic belt with pockets in it, which came with chemical hot packs that activated on exposure to air.

That was a look, I tell you -- head wrapped in an elastic bandage with a hot pack increasing the dimensions of my already-swollen cheek.

I stayed home from work both days, too -- which felt like slackage during the moments when my face wasn't throbbing, and like a really good idea during the moments when it was. Read my way through most of Gerald Durrell, and more Jane Austen, and watched Out of Africa, which a friend lent me -- but not Love, Actually, which she included, and which I will probably watch tonight.

I liked Out of Africa, mostly because it was so beautiful. I would like to live in an African plantation house in the twenties! Somehow, Meryl didn't seem at all Blixen-like to me, but that didn't bother me as much as such things usually do. After that, I went scouting madly through the bookshelves for a biography of her which -- I was certain -- I had read quite recently... but I think I got it from the library rather than buying it, even though it was before the current Time of Austerity.

I saw a dentist on Wednesday night. She was stern and Germanic, and while she doesn't inspire me with confidence, neither does she fill me with terror, so I suppose she'll do. Oddly enough, she did not refer me to a specialist for the root canal -- apparently she'll do it herself, next Wednesday, after the antibiotics get the swelling quite down.

(I'm faintly tempted to call on my own bat the fella who is, I happen to know, the root canal specialist for this whole area, and just see if I can get an appointment without a reference.) But there it is. One way or another, the saga of Chipmunk Cheek has at least moved into a new and quieter chapter.

That's about it, really. Took two days off working out (sick, you know), then ran this morning, ten kilometres in about fifty minutes. Today, the ceaseless medical whirl continues; I'm to see my sports medico about getting synovial fluid shot into my knee. Eating has been not too bad, though running a bit to chocolate and sweets round the edges.

Curious thing about my infested mouth -- at no time has the actual tooth in question ever really hurt. It sometimes feels a little peculiar when I bite down on something; my cheek has certainly hurt, from the outside, and the outside of my gum, and at some points all the little glands down that side of my neck -- but the tooth has in fact very often felt better when I chewed with it.