Whew! What a Day Was Yesterday!

My poor, dear husband's pickup broke down on the way to his interview. He had just fixed something on one wheel Wednesday, and on his way to this long awaited interview, the same darn thing broke on the other side! I was on my way to the dentist and of no help, and he was ready to give up. In the end he called a taxi which took him to the rental place, he rented a car and drove the two hours to his interview, for which he was half an hour late.

Had it been me I would have thrown myself at their feet begging mercy and prattling on about how my vehicle failed me and the fact that I'd walked across half of Reno to get the part and how nobody spoke english at the part store and they didn't have the part anyway and how I'd taken a taxi and ultimately rented a car to get there. Not so much my husband. He said "sorry, had some car trouble" and left it at that. He had called ahead of time so that's good. Anyway, it's a mine. That's a manly place, I'm sure they'll understand a fellow man of few words. In the end they let him interview, it went pretty well and we'll find out if he's hired next week.

Now back to my story. I got to the dentist and triumphantly pointed out the tooth I thought was dead and nodded with glee when he banged on it with some metal tool and it did indeed hurt.

Thanks doc, for not just taking my word for it.

Then he took an xray and we turned to watch the digital image pop up, certain it would display a horrendous black gas pocket of doom.

It did not.

It looked FINE.

My dentist looked at me in sadness and despair and I returned the look. Maybe his look was more frustration and impatience. I wouldn't blame him, this was getting ridiculous. Mine was definitely sadness and despair.

He explained that it sure sounded like that was the tooth, that sometimes they can be dead and it won't show up on xray, but without the xray backing it up, it was going to be a leap of faith. If he opened it up and the tooth was fine, we were still commited to doing a root canal on it, and I would be back to square one with the same pain I had before, plus the added bonus of a sore, previously intact and now root canaled tooth.

The decision was agonizing, the worst case scenario worse than I could ever imagine, but I knew I could not have a repeat of the previous night, and I would rather risk it all than leave that office knowing the pain of the previous couple of days was coming with me.

So I had him open it up. The numbing shots were nothing. I was super brave...and in heaven when they took effect. Then he drilled.

Then he said "do you smell that?"

I did.

He said my tooth was deader than a doornail.

And I rejoiced.

And he drilled and filled and I fell a little bit in love with every person on staff at Mark Funke DDS in Carson City, NV. To them much love.

Boone did not vomit even once last night, and I am living happily ever after with my dead, but not extracted, upper right canine tooth.

The End.

The Witty Dentist To The Quivering Patient: "It's All In Your Head"

Literally, get it? Ha ha!

Hypochondriac: A person who constantly believes he or she is ill or is about to become ill.

Psychosomatic: 1. Of or pertaining to a physical disorder that is caused by or notably influenced by emotional factors. 2. Pertaining to or involving both the mind and the body.

Went to the dentist this morning. My upper and lower teeth were pretty much in some degree of agony most of the day yesterday and during large chunks of last night. I didn't even enjoy eating my husbands birthday cupcakes I made of yellow cake drowned in duncan hines frosting. Didn't enjoy either one of them. Ahem.

Anyway, made haste to get to the dentist this morning, certain I would not be going to work as I would be recovering from what was sure to be a very complicated and involved dental procedure and that everybody would ooh and aah that I was even so tough as to have made it through the night with such evil residing in the right side of my head.

Well, damned if there was NOTHING on xray. And nothing he could SEE, except that my gums are terribly irritated and swollen! Apparently the evil in my head is actually in the brain portion rather than the physical portion. I'm so confused!

Bless my dentist he prefers to wait things out rather than charging in with unnecessary procedures (so un-medical professional of him I think!) so he says I should wait it out the next few days. I told him I'd eaten popcorn and he thought perhaps a piece of shell got stuck but then came out when I was flossing like a madwoman over the last couple of days. The pain I'm going through could be due to left over swelling.

Or I may have a virus that set up shop in there - he even mentioned the herpes virus and told me not to kiss my husband or kids for three weeks. WHAT!?! I've never even had a cold sore, how could that be! Not kiss my husband or kids?

Or he said he could send me to an endodontist who would likely tell me the same thing he did.

So great, there's nothing officially wrong. That's nice, no root canal is immediately imminent. But now I'm stuck still in this imaginary pain limbo where it really really hurts - I mean I would take childbirth pain over this pain any day, yet on paper it doesn't exist.

Makes me want to procede with my implausible but highly tempting idea of just having them:

A) Knock me out

B) Pull every tooth in my ever loving head

C) Replace them all with shiny, white, perfectly aligned implants.

I would then live happily ever after and in a million years they'd dig up my corpse and marvel at my pearly whites.