The ongoing saga of my poor teeth boggles my mind. Please forgive my redundancy of this subject; I am clearly traumatized. I take very good care of them, but somewhere in my DNA, there's a screw loose in this department. I've been able to tentatively hang on to all of them, except those pesky wisdom teeth, for all these years. I had four lumberjack babies, two of them completely natural, but don't be messing with my teeth. I normally have a high pain tolerance, but I am a wimp when in the dentist's chair. Way back, in our early childbearing years, Ken and I belonged to a DMO for dental care, which is code for: we've got to cut costs somewhere, so we're not going to use very much Novocaine when we drill out your teeth, you silly woman. There were years of this. When our insurance changed and I was able to see a dentist who had a real, human heart, he told me that I needed a double-dose of that stuff to get me numb. When we moved from that area, he also emphatically stated that I had to inform my new dentist about my resistance to the numbing. So I have always done that, with mostly good results. Then five years ago, I blogged about the devil in Anniston who did a root canal on me and didn't numb me enough. After he was done, he also threw in this nugget: "I couldn't find one of the canals, so maybe you don't have that other one." I asked him what that meant, and what I should look for. He quipped, "Well, you'll know it in time. It'll get infected." I was so reassured. And over these last five years, that area of my mouth would get inflamed and cause pain, but I didn't connect the dots until it got really bad. And infected. The new dentist wanted to re-drill it and do another root canal. After much research and pondering, I decided I wanted that thang out of my mouth forever. The dentist agreed and set it up for me to have an extraction with a subsequent implant. You know I was so excited to have numbing medication and this gargantuan molar dug out of my jaw, along with stitches and blood and pain. These are first world problems...in other countries, they'd knock it out like Tom Hanks did in Castaway, with an ice skate blade. I might like that better.
After imparting to the staff, over several weeks, that I was indeed mostly crazy in this arena, they carefully walked me to the quiet, darkened room in the back of the offices, speaking kindly and softly. One of the ladies stayed with me after I took the three pills they prescribed. I didn't even care what was in those things. I was just praying for peace and for it to be over quickly. As she spoke, I got a little buzzy and laid my head back. I remember, through the ensuing fog, a voice telling me to open wide, two or three times. Next thing I know, I'm at home. It's 5:30 in the afternoon and I'm in the recliner, no memory of anything but that voice in the etherworld.
Ken laughed and said that it was reported I snored greatly during the procedure. And to that I say, Hallelujah.
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