One Rough Ride, Pt 2

In the backgrounds of struggling with Anthony's issues, and the court battle about to unfold, I had another problem. A stupid, inconvenient, costly problem.

Anyone who's read this blog for a while, or who just happens to have known me well for the last 10 years, knows I wear a top denture. No teeth up there, just a giant piece of plastic. About 2 years ago, the backs of my bottom teeth also had to go away, a painful surgery indeed. I was left with ten teeth in the front of my bottom jaw. It wasn't too terribly inconvenient once I healed, I just had to learn how to eat without back molars. Physically, it's undetectable. Life went on.

In November, my top denture cracked. Straight down the front. Where the break occured, the now jagged edge cut deeply into my lip and gumline, and the resulting misalignment began to bruise my jaw. I was in pain, lots of pain. I tried to hide it as best I could, tho.

I had to go to a dentist, and he explained that in order to replace the top denture, he had to make a bottom partial to replace the molars. Those back ones missing were what caused the break to occur in the first place. Great...thousands of dollars now had to be spent (no, these little bastards aren't cheap). Thanks to my genetic condition that caused the teeth to be lost in the first place, the ones that remained in my mouth were quite weak. Since a bottom partial has to be secured against solid teeth, they had to be shored up to handle the challenge. We were to do a series of fillings on the anchor teeth, simultaneous with an intense cleaning so that the fitting for the bottom would be perfect. I set the day for this appointment to be the day after my court appearance.

So, the day of my court appearance, I had asked my neighbor to walk my son to the bus. Since I had to be there at 9, it meant leaving in a cab at 8. His bus didn't pick up until 8:30, so there was a half an hour window that I was supposed to be in two places. I figured she could handle it, but at 5am tha day she called in the throws of a drunken panic attack and insisted on going to the hospital, stranding me. No, I don't feel sory for her, she does this once a week and I find her useless. A series of frantic calls on my part ended with me hopping in a cab with kiddo, dropping him off at a nearby classmate's house for breakfast and to get on the bus with her. Then we shot towards the courthouse.

While we waited to enter room C, my ex proceeded to tell me he didn't believe that kiddo's outbursts were as bad as I was saying, and the teachers were making things up. He even asked "why isn't he in a class that can handle kids with special needs?". Christ, what the hell does he think special ed is? I tried to swallow my frustration when I walked into the courtroom and we patiently waited our turn. I didn't have a chance, tho. The judge was in a bad mood, and she was livid that apparently the person who did my serving for me had forgotten to write a date on the second line. According to her, it made the service inadmissable. My ex even admitted to her that he had indeed been served all the documents, and held them up. In truth, he had not only been served the documents, but came with me to the courthouse to file for the third rescheduled hearing. She then asked if he had been served, why he never chose to respond. "The courts assumed you were not served since you didn't respond". He babbled some BS about financial difficulties preventing him from doing so (really? a response filing costs $20. Yea, real financial stretch). She then oh-so-sweetly offered him an extra two weeks to respond, which he nodded in agreement. She then snapped at me that my parenting plan was a waste anyways, as I didn't have a specific time listed for pick up. I tried to explain that it was due to his fluctuant work schedule, but she brushed me off. As she slammed down the stamp on the continuance, I felt my heart plummet. I had to wait another two weeks to treat my son, two weeks he didn't have according to the temporary IEP. When we walked out of the courtroom, the idiot then turned to me and said "wait, why do we wait another two weeks?" Because you asked her for an extra two weeks to respond you stupid fuck.

I called my friend who did service, and had him fill out the form the rest of the way, triple checking it. I then amended the parenting plan with a specific time (7pm, bitch, ya happy?), reserved him with the amended copy, completed the second note of service, and filed it with the courts. You want the I's dotted and the T's crossed? You got it. Let's see what he does with his response, if he bothers actually doing it. For the record, he never did.

Over the next few days he would, however, proceed to tell me that any treatments I tried to acquire for kiddo were supperflous, and he wouldn't allow the expenses. He said there needed to be "proof" that kiddo was actually acting up, despite the overwhelming evidence, and my actually seeing it for myself. Granted, he only has visitation two days a month, his perspective on our son's condition is pretty damn limited. But it doesn't stop him from interfering.

My stress level intensifies, my heartache deepens, I begin to feel myself slipping out of control. I stop going to the gym. I lose my appetite, so when I cook dinner for Scott I just pick at my own plate. My teeth still hurt, so each bite is wincing anyways.

I go to the dentist the day after court, and go through an intensely painful cleaning. As she attempts to begin the fillings, we get to go over the lovely dance of my gums not wanting to accept lidocaine. I explained to her it takes twice as long and three times the dosage, but apparently she didn't believe me. The evil woman keeps drilling away, but since my nerve is still very much alive I twitch everytime she bangs into it. As she attempts to shove more lidocaine in, she ends up gashing into my bottom gum. Finally, she gave up and slammed down her tools, telling me she refused to work on me and I had to go somewhere that would gas me.

And that day, just to ice the damn cake, I received a nasty letter from unemployment. When I had originally filed for my extension, I had noted that I was requesting approval to enter school, which would have a start day of January 4th. When I never received approval, I canceled my class registration so I wouldn't be attending out of line (if you don't have approval, you must continue to look for work full time. school prevents that search). But in the letter they apparently assumed I had started anyways, and were demanding class lists and my possible withdrawl from benefits. No where on the forms was a spot to say "hey, I'm not actually going to school, because you guys never approved it!". No, this would require a bunch of phone calls, and hopefully the glitch could be worked out before I had a check denied.

Once the lidocaine that did actually take wore off, the pain was exquisite. I couldn't talk, I couldn't eat, I just burried my head in a pillow. After my ex picked up kiddo that evening, I sadly expressed to Scott that I would not be cooking dinner, and I just wanted to sit in the dark. He seemed content to wander into the bedroom and watch wrestling.

Once he left the room, I quietly cried again over the events of the week. My mouth was pure agony. My ex was pounding on my weakest nerves. My son was down to half days at school for his behavioral issues. I now had my hands tied by the courts to do anything to help him. And now I had the possibility of being removed from unemployment because they couldn't get their paperwork in line. I was brushing aside that Scott had been pulling away from me for months, and at this point was oddly picking fights with me for the tiniest things, but was bristling when over the next few days he became even more determined to be argumentative over nothing.