"Doctor Drama"

Dumpie just came in from the terrace, wiping his mouth with a grimace and bearing a rotten strawberry and a plastic cup of ancient apple juice with at least a dozen dead ants floating in the bottom.  "Dumpie did you drink this?" I asked horrified.  "Yep.  Yuck."  

Yuck indeed.  It is a wonder that boy hasn't succumbed to something or another in the two short years he's been alive, seeing as he tastes first and asks questions later (except when it pertains to vegetables of course). He's just walked back in now, this time bearing a tiny plastic bowl of rotting melon, also rife with ants (but of the alive variety), and has handed the whole swarming mess over to me to dispose of...urghhh.

We were sooooo late to pick up Egg from school this afternoon because Dumpie had hidden my keys.  He does this a lot.  The worst thing about it is that we have the kind of front door that needs to be locked shut or it just swings wide open - so you can't even just chance leaving it unlocked and hope for the best.  Egg was not pleased about being the second last child to be collected, and therefore 'punished' me by careening down the dangerous sloped road on his little blue scooter at a million miles an hour as I frantically raced after him screaming.  Other mothers watched with open-mouthed horror, gasping with fear or perhaps disgust (it was hard to tell) as Egg hurtled toward oncoming traffic - only narrowly swerving in time to take a sharp left and avoid sudden death.  I HATE that slope - it's almost enough to make me want to change schools.

Tonight I have to go to a local hospital for a consultation for an upcoming surgery on my mouth.  Seems the root canal I paid an utter fortune for here in London several years ago has ultimately caused an abscess.   Talk about a dental waste: two root canals and a crown on the same bloody tooth which now has to be removed...and after all that pain and expense...how depressing.  Anyway, as it is my mouth, of course a simple extraction cannot be performed (assuming I was high enough to let my current dentist have a go), but rather demands a complicated surgery involving bone graft and all sorts.  

I am of course utterly devastated, quaking in fear and hoping against hope I'll go tonight and hear that it's all been a huge mistake and off I'll pop with a sugar-free lollipop in hand (for being such a good girl) and a tap on the bottom.  Okay maybe not a tap on the bottom...  

I just want to be one of those lucky ones who gets medically miraculous news and can't believe her luck as she skips gaily out of the doctors office and dispenses the full sum of all her loose change into the upturned hat of the first homeless person she passes and does a bit of 'Singing in the Rain' style click-clacking of heels as she boards the number 47 bus triumphantly....

This of course being real life, and not a technicolour Disney family movie, I suspect I shall have to endure a horrid, smelly bus ride in rush hour traffic, get hopelessly lost within the confusing hospital complex, show up panting and soaking wet, and then be examined by a disinterested specialist who had garlic for lunch.  I'll then hear the inevitable, fight back tears of dismay, and go outside to wait in the cold for a bus which will be so horrendously late that I'll be beset upon by a violent gang of youths who will mug me for my handbag (containing a near empty wallet, uncharged ipod, and half-eaten bits of toddler snacks).

The only (and I do mean only) positive spin I can put on this whole situation is that maybe I'll be given nitrous oxide.  Then I can spend the whole harrowing procedure giggling idiotically at the surgeon's nose hairs as I breathe in more and more of the potent gas.  And when I get home I can curl up on the sofa, feel terribly sorry for myself and attempt to get through an entire tub of Ben & Jerry's 'Phish Food'...