i was supposed to see two facebook friends today but my teeth got in the way. specifically the thirteenth tooth. it cracked open in the middle of the night and, eight advil later, i was sitting on the sidewalk outside my dentist’s office waiting for somebody, anybody to show up for work.
some reflexologists and traditional medicine professionals believe that the large intestines and the lung meridians of the body affect teeth 4, 5, 12 and 13 of the upper jaw. so a disturbance in the thirteenth tooth could be a warning of lung, intestinal, pituitary, and thymus gland problems! i just thought the side of my face was exploding with pain!
my dentist said “aren’t you glad this didn’t happen when you were out meeting facebook friends in another country?” and i think i agree although one thing i found through this journey of meeting all my facebook friends is they have been nearly uniform in their hospitality. i’m sure if i had been in taiwan, facebook friend warner sills would have found me an endodontist. that’s a fancy pants name for “person who can get rid of that pain that starts in one tooth and makes you want to rip the side of your face off and wear a mask like that dude in phantom of the opera”.
my dentist sent me posthaste to dr. trina, endodontrial genius and then he called their office to make sure i showed up. he’s not dumb, my dentist.
a root canal is no fun, particularly when the only drugs you’re getting make you feel as if your face has just ballooned out to the size of a small townhouse. in the course of the surgery, dr. trina discovered that i have not one but two roots in my thirteenth tooth. this, she declared, was “not completely abnormal.”
she told me the surgery would take two hours. she wasn’t inclined towards vicodin, codeine, laughing gas, or even a small martini. she’s into natural childbirth, natural appendectomy, and natural root canal. i was on my own. well, not on my own: trina had both hands and several surgical instruments in my mouth and an assistant kim who occasionally took a jab at me. i worried that one or another swab, finger, needle, scapel or drillbit would go down my throat.
i have a number of facebook friends with post traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, agoraphobia, ms, fibromyalgia: some of them have complained about the state of their own teeth. after all, most dentists don’t do house calls. and most of these friends are pretty terrified of dentists.
dwayne johnson, aka the rock, starred in the 2010 blockbuster “the tooth fairy” along with the dazzling cast including ashley judd, julie andrews, and stephen merchant. it was a poignant commentary on our belief that after the pain of teeth extraction we should get a reward. what i got was a bill for one thousand smackers and an ibuprofen because dr. trina said in a few hours i was definitely going to feel it.
i felt trapped in the chair, trapped by the topical anesthetic, trapped by the pain that the root canal was supposed to cure. and two hours in a dental chair? trapped, trapped, trapped.
then i remembered the point of the williamsburg bridge experience in which i tried to get to facebook friend #317 michele piersiak who lives in staten island. i was in brooklyn and mr. mapquest said “walk over that bridge.” i hadn’t known i was scared of expansion bridges strung up over three lane highways and hundreds of feet above the water. but once i was in, i had to figure out how to get myself across. saying thank you helped. i said thank you to just about everybody and everything on the williamsburg bridge. i was a blubbering thank you, sobbing, red-faced thank you note.
and i did the same at dr. trina’s office. i started thinking about how she had spent four years in college, three years at dental school, and another two years in specialized training for endodontics . . . all so she could stick her hand and her drills into my teeth. all so she could say that my double rooted tooth number thirteen was “not completely abnormal”. . . . obviously i couldn’t say “thank you thank you” out loud but suddenly, i really DID feel grateful for all that work she put in at school so that she could get rid of the pain. of course, i’m writing this while my mouth is still just a little bit numb. supposedly, in an hour or so i’m going to begin a long, dark night of the soul.
but i’ll take not completely abnormal. not a bad title for the rest of me.
arlynnpresser 
May 25th, 2012 at 10:41 pm
Take care!
May 25th, 2012 at 10:50 pm
Outch…!!!!
Howard Lovely, Jr.
May 25th, 2012 at 11:17 pm
Awesome read capturing the moment we are there with you.
May 26th, 2012 at 10:55 pm
If I could get someone in authority to label me as “not completely abnormal,” I would most definitely start putting it on my business cards.
May 27th, 2012 at 8:56 am
Just an other bite ❤ Tonight 🙂
May 28th, 2012 at 8:24 pm
You’re so brave! I’ve had the worse experience with dentists when I was younger, totally traumatized from the same ‘natural’ way while I bled and screamed as a six year old. You are so brave to get through this! So brave!
Pink.
May 29th, 2012 at 5:36 pm
hey, maybe i DO need those business cards!
May 29th, 2012 at 7:20 pm
Dentist visits always made me a nervous wreck! When I finally decided to have all mine pulled & got dentures, I had a wonderful oral surgeon who made it a much less stressful situation by knocking me out cold, lol. Though I’m sure genes & my love for soda contributed to the rapid decay of my teeth, I was told by a couple of different dentists as well as the oral surgeon that the antidepressants & anti-anxiety meds I used to take were also a contributing factor. Something they don’t exactly advertise.
One of the best meds for anxiety is being able to change your thoughts about any given situation to one of gratitude & positive outcomes. It looks like you are well on your way to figuring that one out! 😉
June 11th, 2012 at 3:03 pm
I really couldn’t get through any dental procedure the normal way, I just couldn’t. So, I agree with Pink Ninjabi, you are truly brave!
June 12th, 2012 at 8:28 pm
aren’t you an endodontist? i think they should have mini-martinis that they give you in the waiting room. . .
March 28th, 2013 at 1:16 am
I had my first root canal 46 years ago. It was terrible! I had pins sticking up from the tooth and having to hold my mouth open to go into another room to get the Xrays done was a pain. Then before Doc felt certain about a crown, military transferred my husband to So. Carolina to Shaw AFB. They had no endo docs in Sumpter, so one had to come to Sumter once or twice a month. All this time waiting, I had a temporary crown that kept on coming off; therefore was glad when Dr. White from Fayetteville to okay going ahead with the install permanent crown. Like yeah! It’s been in my mouth every since. But, after trans. back to Kirltand AFB in Albq. NM, have had other root canals and crowns. I think Dr. Goodis is the best; he can do a crown for you in a few short minutes. I think he is blessed by God for those of us with TMJ problems etc. The dentist in Albq. that put on the crown after spending $1,000 for root canal charged me approx. the same amount for crown. It’s come off five times. His office person on call put it back that many times, and he thought the build-up was not done properly; so now looks like the original dentist did the crown isn’t willing to do anything else for me. Therefore, think it is too far gone and only remedy now is to pull the tooth after all of that money I invested to save it. Otta be a law against poor dentist! Oh, and he had his assistant contact me, vs. him to say since I no longer go “all” of my dental work done with him, he was no longer interested in doing build-up or anything else to the tooth. So sad about this entire occurrence! Patients beward, some dentist charge a lot and do a cheap job! Being nice and polite isn’t what we need, we need one to be professional!
October 15th, 2013 at 6:05 am
gps 腕時計