Email from 2/9/15

Hey Dad, 

So I am now in Stroudsburg Pa, my mailing address is 51 N 2nd St Apt 10, Stroudsburg, PA 18360. I am in the Spanish branch here. I am in a Spanish area now so this is very weird for me. I'm in what's called a "Zebra companionship" Spanish/English and we are now part of the Spanish branch and one of the English wards here (Stroudsburg 1st). I haven't really participated much in lessons haha. 

So the tooth.. A couple weeks ago I started wearing my retainer cause I figured the gap might be smaller for when I go home and wore it for a few days and then stopped and then 2 days later I accidentally packed it. On Monday I started getting a tooth ache and by Tuesday night it was really hurting and was giving me a really bad headache as well as a fever with chills. Wednesday and Thursday as well. I went to the dentist Thursday and he said it looks like my ligaments were pretty stressed from the retainer and may have caused a bacterial infection, but there is no abscess and gave me an antibiotic (clindamycin). Woke up Friday and my face my face was really blown up and they got me into a oral surgeon. My face had been swelling more and more over the days, took a few pictures buuuttt I don't know if anybody will be seeing them until after my mission haha. Apparently I did have an abscess and a bad bacterial infection and so they drained it, which really hurt, and put a rubber tube in my gums which I had taken out today. My face is getting closer to normal now at least, but both dentist and oral surgeon talked about possibility of having root canal... I really don't want that. I have another appointment with the dentist on Feb 26, for a check up/cleaning.  I was just trying to be good and wear my retainer, this is not what I expected. I've paid about $220 in personal funds for medicine and the draining.  I might be able to get a lot refunded though so I will let you know. They gave me Vicodin for pain haha, a smaller dose it definitely worked, but I had complete control of myself though. 

This Sunday we went to the Spanish meetings as well as the English meetings, which will happen each week. As a missionary I'm okay with it because I love church:) but it's definitely tiring still. It's been a rough first week. 

Please pray for me that I won't need root canal, I really really don't want that. That draining was painful enough. I could really use prayers. 

I love you dad.

Love,

Elder Barker