Now spit!

I also thought of calling this post "And nothing but the tooth" but then when cleaning the hole a leftover sliver of enamel popped out.  They said it was likely to happen, but still it was a shock.  Still, I opted to quote the last line of "Dentist!" from Little Shop of Horrors, because the song accurately depicts what a tooth extraction looks and feels like, except it's not funny at all.

About twenty something years ago, I had to have one of my farthest-back molars removed.  My wisdom teeth were bullies coming in, and one of them basically raped that molar and cracked it, popping the filling it had out and leaving it exposed when my operation was done.

Needless to say, after a few months of being exposed, the tooth began complaining loudly, so I went to the doctor to see if there were any options to save it, since I knew it was damaged beyond a simple filling could fix.  That's when he started telling me about what all was involved with getting a crown (which I could not afford at the time, not even with Dad's insurance) and also what would be involved with a bridge for a back molar.  After about fifteen minutes of technical instruction, I held my hand up and asked if we could just pull it instead.

The dentist (Dr. Thompson, whose practice was in a small office in the building my Dad's Western Auto used to also reside in) didn't pause, because he knew my family's money situation and probably saw from the start that that was the likely and best course of action.  He doped up my jaw, took what looked like a small rubber mallet and a smaller metal awl when I was numbed, and literally gave two taps on what felt like the side of the tooth and it came out easier than a soft turd.

I thought THAT was what tooth extraction was like.  This does not appear to be the case, at least, not if it's not your farthest back molar, I guess.  This one was the next to last molar, and I am thinking I am thankful it was in my lower jaw and not upper.

This petite little sweet doctor I went to see, who said she'd stayed in my hometown while going to college and knew Dr, Thompson, assaulted my mouth like it was full of gold and she was a 49er.  It turns out it does look a lot like the Dentist song, and when they come at you with those pliers, YOU ARE NOT WANTING TO LAUGH.  How do they loosen the tooth?  BY FORCE.  Yanking back and forth and back and forth until you hear and feel bone snapping in your jaw, which is nauseating without having pain, it turns out.  I did break out into a sweat at one point and wonder if perhaps she was in fact from Krypton.

She'd told me before what had probably happened... I injured or cracked the tooth sometime after the filling, and that allowed decay to get under the filling, until the filling popped out and left me with a cratered nothing that only my attention to that area of my teeth during cleaning kept from hurting this far.  It had to come out regardless, and it is now out.

My intention was to eventually look into getting a bridge (because an implant costs as much as a good used car) but that can wait until after the new year when I have dental insurance again.  Or maybe not even then.  It doesn't seem that bad, honestly, aside from the hole.

That will fill in, given time.