After yesterday's telephone call, I was at the
And hungry.
and dehydrated.
And nervous.
It was decided that today, he would pull just one tooth.
In the chair, I got the needle. I also got pain that I have never had before.
For future reference: a few things have ever made me yell:
--breaking my arm
--a healthy chunk of wasabe
--childbirth
--stepping on a large roofing nail
--a large 12 guage needle directly stuck into a nerve in my mouth
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| A fantasy. The oral sugeon is on the right. |
(Are you enjoying this? Neither did I.) "I should have gotten some xanax," I thought darkly.
I sat for a while, ostensibly to allow it to numb...instead, I briefly went numb, and then it quickly wore off. This has been a problem in the past; one dentist suggested my metabolism was to blame. Another suggested that my nerves weren't exactly where most people's were.
Turns out it's probably a combination of both, but this dentist now knows: novacain does not work for me. Something called "Narcain" does. No, I don't want to know the origins of the Nar- prefix.
Of course, it took several more needle sticks before that was clear.
While we were waiting for numbing to take hold, the denstist started talking about a minor complication. Normally, in order to extract the tooth he would leverage off nearby healthy teeth. However, my nearby teeth were crowned. So instead, he would be inserting a small instrument into the tooth, and "tapping" it "along the length" of the tooth to "loosen it" in the socket.
"tapping?"
"yep".
I'm a therapist. I force people to be concrete. So I asked him, "is tapping a euphemism for banging on my tooth with a maul and mallet?"
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| Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!!! |
Oh, a hammer. I so want to know that someone is hitting something in my mouth with a hammer.
And it wasn't a tap, either. It was about a half dozen hits.
I'm surprised I don't have a concussion.
But the tooth is out.
And I have percocet.
One down, three to go.
...
