ToothFire and DamNation

Today I lost my virginity.

Not that one, my dental virginity. I had a root canal that cost half my monthly salary. While I know that I desperately needed it, and the doctor could not have been nicer had he been coated in coffee and handing out cocktails, it is kind of hard to fork over that much money for one stinking tooth.

X-Rays were taken, tooth testing was done -because the whole row of teeth were hurting at this point - with dry ice, some hot welding tool, a piece of cotton that I cannot be entirely certain was not a tampon, and then for good measure they beat the hell out of them with that mirror thing that dentists don't leave home without.

I then got a tutorial on what a root canal looks like, complete with pretend teeth.

I met the doctor, we joked and laughed about migraine medication, and Botox, then they numbed me up with all kinds of stuff. Then I waited. And waited. And waited. Then this lady came in and asked if I had ever had a dental dam in my mouth. No, I hadn't and if it was the thing in her hand I was not going to start today.

That bitch stuffed it in there anyway.

They then drilled and drilled and smoke started billowing out of my mouth along with tiny fragments of my poor little molar. The smell was awful. Still I managed to not have a full fledged panic attack in the chair, and didn't even deck either of them when he got to the gum line and I could feel it.

Quickly they numbed me up some more, and then got back to business.

I was admittedly shaky after that part, but he was quick and it didn't take long to fix. The two dead nerves were removed, the temporary filling was put in and I finally got that horrible latex dam the hell out of my mouth.

He did write me a scrip for pain meds which I promptly had filled. He also handed me another piece of paper with another scrip on it. It reads: "Please eat lots of candy, cookies, donuts and soda. Your teeth are far too nice to have to do this kind of work on. If another dentist has to see you they might try to kill me for not giving you this advice. So please go to bed with a Hershey bar smeared on your teeth or something, for your own safety."

I go back to see him on the 22nd, and this time I can't wait. It turns out that this referral is one that was right on the money!