Mush, I'm sure I was told not to wait longer than a year to get a crown on, that the temp they do wasn't meant to last forever. On the other hand, I'd wanted crowns on my 4 front uppers (cosmetic) and my dentist convinced me to try veneers first since they do less initial damage to teeth than putting a crown on does. At the time they told me veneers could last up to 10 years, depending on the types of foods you subject your teeth to...mine have been on for 19, with no problems. The dentist is very impressed! As for a root canal, I had one done on a molar that had given me on again, off again grief for years. Do not relish getting that done again. Yet periodically the area will give me pain, usually after I've chewed something REALLY chewing, or this past session over Christmas was brought on by eating almonds (I think). I still worry that I'll be in that 1% that have a tooth that fails, and then I don't know what I'll do, since I need that tooth there!

The same goes for any of my pictures. If there are any in particular that you like perhaps for printing out,I'd be willing to put hi-res somewhere for you to download. When we were there in 2011 they said that the the previous December there was a massive rainstorm that caused mudslides down the coast in Portabello, and caused Gatun Lake to rise enough that even having the spillways at the Gatun Dam fully open wasn't enough, and the water was threatening to overtop the dam or flood the canal area or something very bad. So for the first time in the history of the canal they had all of the gates of the canal locks open with water just racing through. We were told that the leak pictured here was caused by damage that occurred when they did that.

Wow, some of these take me back! And make me question ... :? It always irritated my Dad when we measured distance by time. "How far is it to Charlotte?" "About three hours". "I didn't ask how many hours, how far is it?" "Well I have no idea how far it is in meters, but I know it takes about three hours to get there!" (Dad was a stickler for accuracy.) Growing up in NE Ohio, we had pop, and chipped-chopped ham, and shopping carts. My mother would say "outten" the lights. Living way out in the burbs, we went "into" town, unless we went all the way to where the tall buildings were, then we were downtown. Curious about THE Puget Sound. We sail, and everyone we connect with says things like The Chesapeake and The Neuse. Maybe because the bay/river is left off? If I said I was going to Chesapeake, that's a town in VA.

HU--thank you for that comment. I am taking generic ibuprofen (Walgreens). I wonder how the generics could be ok but "Advil" not OK. Do you know? The few times I've taken Tylenol over the years, I didn't find it very effective against pain, so that's why I started with the ibuprofen. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- EDITED to add: Saw the endodontist. He x-rayed and looked at the tooth and said it looks OK, the pain is what could be expected but that I was under-medicating. He gave me a prescription for 800 mg ibuprofen and Tylenol with codeine for nighttime sleeping. I'm relieved, mentally. The meds will help no doubt.