Dental Dilemma

Several months ago, while eating lunch, the last tooth on the lower, left quadrant of my mouth broke, leaving crumbs of amalgam and enamel on my tongue, which I had to, uh, spit into a napkin. The decision to see the dentist, of course, meant that I would be forced to go back to the dental clinic at U.C.S.F. After years of neglect and poor work by neighborhood dentists, no other way to solve any problems in my mouth presents itself. I went to the clinic four years ago, after a bicycle accident called for a propitious bond repair to a broken tooth and root canal work and I was most happy to have a professor of dental technology supervise his student's work.

My teeth have never had enough room in my mouth. In fact, when I was twelve-years-old, the canine tooth on the right upper part of my mouth grew out over the other second teeth and was extracted because there was simply no place else for it to be. When I was fourteen, Dr. Rawitz drilled so far into that last tooth, that I probably rose several inches from my seat, proclaiming that it hurt! Over the next ten years, every few months that sharp, mind-splitting pain would recur and leave me sweating for some kind of mercy. I had not an inkling of warning, either. It happened on the bus, it happened at the movies, it happened in gym class, it happened when I was dancing a slow dance with a boy I liked who hadn't yet noticed my 'crooked' smile... And, I had my wisdom teeth pulled by the time I turned twenty-two.

So, after a couple of episodes of deep cleaning, where it feels like the dentist is employing sharp hooks under your gums to remove the plaque, and two more to prepare another tooth for root canal and crown, I was given an appointment to see an oral surgeon to remove the blasted tooth but it turns out that they'll do that on the next appointment in a few days. Plainly, the tooth must be removed; it hurts now. However, he gave me a prescription for a pain-killer...