Adventures in Dentistry

I'm hungry and half of my head is numb. I was chewing on something the other day and got a telltale unexpected crunch. I felt around my mouth with my tongue and felt a rough spot on my left bottom "pre-molar," what we used to call a bicuspid back in the day.

I have terrible teeth. Both my parents have terrible teeth and I was born just before they started making fluoride widely available, so my teeth all but melted in my mouth. Ultimately, there are no teeth in my mouth that are 100% tooth. This particular tooth was more filling than tooth, and my dentist, who I think is superb by the way, said, "I can patch it, but it's not a happy tooth." OK, so he's British.

We decided I would put a crown on the tooth. You can tell the teeth in my mouth that have crowns because they're the only ones that look like regular teeth- all white and pearly. Yeah, those are the fake ones. Getting a crown means drilling everything else away, so I had to get a novocaine shot. Novocaine certainly beats the alternative (that being intense pain), but this one numbed the entire left side of my head. Yes, today I am literally a numbskull.

He drills, drills , drills and finally stops to take a look. Tells me there's not much tooth left, but enough that I don't need a root canal. This is the best news I've had today. He tells me this is especially good because this tooth has a curly root, which makes doing the root canal more laborious. Well, I certainly wouldn't want to put him to any trouble.

After doing the rest of his dentist thing, he's starting to clean me up. My dentist has a good sense of humor, but I've found that dentists don't find it funny if you ask them things like, "When you were in dental school did you have funny or sadistic nicknames for the tools?" So I ask him if anyone has ever invented something to un-numb you. He says yes, but it requires a second injection which makes you sore which makes you wish you'd stayed numb. He then informs me that his grandfather was one of the pioneers of local anesthetics and that the original chemical used was cocaine. This is interesting trivia, I think.

After relieving me of $1500 (! - the receptionist looks embarrassed saying the number) he sends me on my way. I'm starting to be able to feel my left eye again and I'm looking forward to having lunch soon.