I just got back from the dentist.
Now, the Internet is a dangerous thing, and while I certainly wouldn't go so far as to label myself as a hypochondriac, Wikipedia can compel even the healthiest person to make a will.
My own personal hang-up is my teeth. I've never had the greatest luck with my teeth, mainly thanks to an addiction to a certain brand of fizzy drink (it's the heroin they put in it that makes it so tasty), far too much smoking and an extraction ten yeas ago that bordered on physical assault, and where I really should have called the police.
Anyway, over the last couple of years I have become increasingly paranoid about the state of my teeth. Some days I'm convinced that my tongue has swollen up due to neuralgia, the next day I'm stressing over the chances of a stroke brought on by peritonitis, and sometimes I actually think that all of my teeth will fall out overnight. And I mean all of them.
I blame my dentist. He's a lovely bloke called Neil but a few years ago he decided to give my latest attempt at kicking the habit a little prod with some "scare tactics" and, like Derren Brown in a blue smock, he subconsciously made me believe that this could actually happen. He probably didn't tell me that it would happen overnight but it felt a bit like that Marillion song where the Dr. tells Fish that he'll die if he doesn't give up drinking.
Anyway, one of the first things I did when I agreed to this expedition was to type the following words into Google: "high-altitude toothache", hoping that I'd get a googlewhack.
But no, there's pages of the stuff.
To be honest, if I had checked before I had agreed to the expedition then I wouldn't be sitting here now.
To be fair, a lot of the data is related to people who are either sitting in badly pressurised planes or hanging off the tip of Everest, but occasionally there's an anecdotal story where someone at high altitude gets some air trapped under a filling and then the pressure becomes so intense the tooth explodes! From the inside out!
I have a lot of fillings.
Anyway, it looks like I was worrying about nothing and I don't have to have any dental work done. Neil gave me a nice scale and polish while he told me about his friend's trip up Kilimanjaro and he didn't seem to think that I was in any danger of my teeth exploding halfway up a mountain. Toothache, however, still sits just behind 'sudden brain hemorrhage' as the thing that terrifies me the most about this trip.
Unfortunately, while all the books and safety guidelines suggest that you get a full dental X-ray before you leave - just to be on the safe side - I wasn't allowed one because I don't meet the criteria. I'm guessing that this is a good thing. Apparently, new regulations mean that you can't go around zapping people with X-rays willy-nilly anymore. Just in case they turn into the Hulk, probably.
Apart from that, there's not a lot left to report. My leg muscles hurt like hell on Monday and most of Tuesday (the wife tell me this is a good thing) but I still managed to get in a 3 mile walk which included a very steep incline. Early days, early days...
Tomorrow I am off to Pickering to pick up my boots. After that I have a date with Roseberry Topping.
Neil
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