It's holiday time!!!

Yesterday my wife and I booked a one week holiday to a sunnier place. I can't wait. It does mean that I won't be updating my blog every morning before 9am but I'm sure that I can get one on each day.

In an earlier blog I mentioned about how my heart defects affect everyday things that most people take for granted. One such thing is visits to the dentist.

Unfortunately, because I have scarring on a valve on my aorta it can be easily infected (white blood cells can't reside on heart valves to fight infection), one such way that it can become infected is from the bacteria in your mouth. The chance of catching an infection from a visit to the dentist is very small indeed; even the chance that in all the visits in your life you will catch an infection is small. However, with so many people visiting the dentist each year it is likely that someone will catch an infection so they have to do something about it.

The result of this is that I have to take a vile sachet of powder mixed with a pint of water that has been designed (in a lab) to taste like banana or lemons or something. If anyone can actually tell what it is then please let me know. In the last year or so, dentists in England have been told that they should watch the medicine being taken 1 hour before any procedure (including teeth cleaning) is undertaken. This means a 15 minute appointment becomes a 1 hour and 15 minute appointment.

The sachet contains amoxycillin which is a penicillin that can prevent bacteria from forming in your body, I believe that it may be available in a capsule but I've not been offered it yet.

On the one hand, the risk of anything bad happening is so small that you could think why bother, it won't happen to me; but then you go and play the lottery and hope to god that it is you that wins even though the chances are smaller.

So I think I will put up with being at the dentists before the actual dentist is and I will even put up with the vile drink. Because if this is the worst that can happen then it is much better than the worst that can happen if I don't drink the drink.