Salivary duct stone

The year was 2010.  It was February.  I felt really stressful at this moment to finalise my PhD thesis.  Due to that, I didn’t take care of myself really well.  What happened then?  

I started to have a bit of swelling on my right cheek.  I had that for a week or two.  I didn’t think too much about it.  Then, on one morning, I started to feel a painful throbbing.  When I looked myself in the mirror, my right cheek was swollen.   I started to feel something hard on the inside of my right cheek using my tongue.   I didn’t know what the thing is.  I brave myself to endure the late winter chill to go to school to edit some of my work.  

I googled the symptoms and I came across this term “Salivary Duct Stone”.  I know what causes it.  It was my fault of not drinking enough water.  I neglected my health.  It was not a time for me to panic.  So, I googled more information on how to get rid of the stone naturally.  Going to the doctor was the last thing on my mind.   I tried several ways to flush the stone out naturally.  I did it!  My salivary duct was a little bit infected because there was yellowish /reddish puss coming out with the stone.  The puss didn’t stop for a while.  Once it stopped, there was a hole inside my cheek and my cheek was still swelling and the throbbing still persisted.  This was when things became unbearable.  

So, I went to the nearby clinic.  The doctor gave me a referral letter and asked me to go to Sunderland Hospital which would take me around 1 hour journey from Durham.  I called K Ila and she sent me to the hospital.  I packed some clothes just in case I have to be warded even though that would be the last thing that I want.  Alhamdulillah, it was just a salivary duct stone.   I showed the doctor the stone and he told me the stone was out and he couldn’t see any stone left.  With that, he gave me a prescription to reduce the swelling and I didn’t need to be warded.  It took me an hour and half to reach home.   

This serves as a lesson for me: I need to drink enough water everyday to keep myself hydrated and avoid of having a stone inside my mouth.  Alhamdulillah, I don’t have any recurrent swelling until now.  

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hadijahjaffri

I am who I am and what I am cannot be defined by what I have/posses or have done. Therefore, I am me.