Wednesday, March 23, 2005 - According to Nassau West President Kelly K. Bartram, "today and last night have been the longest day and night - ever!"

What the President is referring to is a period of about only ninety total minutes of sleep separating yesterday and today. What caused this latest bout with sleeping problems? Extreme mouth pain for the third time in as many months again is the culprit!

This current dilemma started on Sunday night (3/20), but went largely unnoticed until Tuesday afternoon when Bartram started experiencing shooting pains in the upper right side of his mouth. By the time he arrived at the Capitol, he was in excruciating pain.

At bedtime, he brought a large cup full of iced water to bed with him to soak the affected area with, which seemed to be the only way to keep the pain manageable. Over the course of the night and early morning, he drank over one gallon of ice-cold water one swig at a time at intervals of three to fifteen minutes.

All of this water, of course, had to come out at some point. President Bartram visited the restroom about every thirty minutes up until around 5:30 AM, when he finally fell asleep. The only hour Bartram missed seeing on the clock was the 6 o'clock hour. He was awake for 7 AM, and the alarm clock went off at 8 AM to wake him up.

During the night the President learned some things about himself and his cats. Most importantly, according to Bartram, "I learned that both the cats and myself have a great deal of gas to deal with at night. While they found no humor in my passing of gas, I found plenty of humor in them passing gas. Zoey actually ripped one a few seconds after me, and she had her rear end pointed towards me! I thought, 'hey, this is a good time to go to the bathroom.'"

Bartram continued, "I've got to be honest, that was one of the worst nights of my life. This is the third time a gum infection has troubled me like this, but never to this extent. I'm in one Hell of a mess!"

The President is currently on a regimen of Cephalexin (500 mg capsules), which is a generic substitution for Keflex, an antibiotic. He is to take four per day until all are used. Bartram has an appointment with his personal dentist, Dr. Ryan Barney, DDS, at 2:30 PM on Tuesday, March 29, 2005, in Benson. He has cleared his schedule for the appointment.

As of the time this article went to publication, the President had had six beers to cope with the dental pain. Tuesday night the kitchen at the Capitol had only a bottle of red wine and a bottle of Kahlúa on hand, neither of which Bartram thought would be sufficient to combat the pain.

Tonight, the kitchen had an 18-pack of Miller Lite on hand for this purpose. The six beers were deemed enough to curb the shooting pains, but he was still to take a non-alcoholic ice-cold beverage to bed with him to assist in slumber.