"the horror, the horror"

It all started 6 years ago, I guess. At some point early in the summer after my first year at college, my tooth really hurt cause it cracked and el dentist said off to the specialist you go for a root canal, my friend. Yet the subsequent crown never really fit right despite all of the pain & the agony, both for my and my parents' bank account. My fault for asking my new dentist about that this summer, and this time I had to pay for the crown myself. I'm going to utilize my whiny voice or a moment and squeal, it's not faaaaiiirrrrrr. Bad luck I guess that I have to get it all redone after only 6 years.

Even better, the tooth directly below it cracked or broke a bit (hmmm...could it be because of the ill fitting crown???) and a cavity developed. Yay. Let's do both of these procedures at once! But he had to take out the old filling in the lower tooth (I've always been cavity prone, also not fair; I floss and brush religiously unlike my college roommate who frequently forgot to brush for a day or two at a time, oh Crys...) and then drill around a bit before he put the new filling in. It's kind of funny that he kept telling me about how it's a enamel colored filling (!!) instead of a silver filling (!!) as if I'm that fashion conscious about the fillings in my mouth. Who's looking at the very most back teeth anyway. Oy vey.

I think that I counted 8 novacaine shots, including one in the roof of my mouth. 2 of them came after his drilling commenced and it still hurt. Not the first time this has happened when I have gotten fillings. Is it any wonder that I hate cavities?? What's with my mouth that novacaine in normal amounts doesn't have enough of an effect? It's also not the first time that a dentist has stopped and been like, "What, you can feel that??" Oh yes, el dentist, yes yes I can. The funny thing (funny...) about today's episode in discomfort and pain was that they gave me these huge plastic sunglasses to wear (because of the light? the shower of water spraying my face?) and apparantly they couldn't see my eyebrows contorting and flinching. So when the dentist re-numbed me and left the room for a moment, the dental hygenist kept saying, don't be a champ, don't suck it up, let us know that you're in pain!! And I was like um...not trying to. I was definitely flinching and pulling my head away as much as I could. It's hard to convey such flinching when your head is cemented in place by 4 hands, a spit sucker, a blower of air, a mirror and a drill. Plus, my gums/teeth may not have been numb enough, but I definitely bit my tongue a few times trying to adamantly assert I FLINCHED I FLINCHED!!

So I've been in some form of numbness for 3 hours now, and after the last 2 just-to-be-sure-since-it-hurts-to-have-air-blown-on-this-cavity novacaine shots, and I'm still numb all the way over to my left ear. Maybe now would be a good time to get some ear piercings. Good news #1 that comes out of this: Ben didn't object when I called him, almost crying because my mouth had been wide & open and drilled and poked and prodded and shaken and jammed for 2 hours, and told him that I was getting a milkeshake. Good news #2: el dentist gave me my original crown back so that I could take it to one of those places that buys gold fillings and jewelry so that I could get a few bucks for it if I wanted to do so. Nice of him. I kind of just want to see what it looks like!

Alas, no gum until the middle of October.

I don't know why I kept calling the kind dentist "el dentist" because he's totally a 50-something white man. There were some moments when his hand(s) were shaking and I couldn't tell if it was his bordering on retirement age or if it was the tool in his hand.

Extra credit kudos (and bonus points if you press me) if you know what literary reference the title is from. I'll count that as my quote today. :-)