A Year Older and None the Wiser
“I think I broke my tooth,”
I told my husband. It was sometime during late March of this year. We were at a
family gathering one night and since we arrived early, I positioned my hungry
self near one of the bowls of nuts that were strewn around the place. I went to
the restroom, opened my mouth and found out that the bottom tooth near my
wisdom tooth on the left side of my mouth was missing a filling. “Did you swallow
it?” he asked. I nodded.
Throughout that Friday night
and the next day, I started to mispronounce my S’s. Every time I said a word
that had an S in it, the side of my tongue scraped the sharp, pointy edge of my
tooth that was missing the filling. The next day, I found myself at the
dentist’s office. The dentist, a Palestinian woman in her late 30’s, was quite
nice. “Open your mouth wide, wider…” she instructed me. When I was done, she
told me that I needed a root canal on the tooth that had a filling in it. “I
also suggest you remove your wisdom teeth and take care of those three surface
cavities you have.” Now, I never had an issue with any dentist. In fact, I kind
of enjoyed sitting in the chair with my own little sink; I’ve always imagined
it to be like my own little home. But what she told me was a bit of a shock: it
seemed like I needed a lot of work to be done!
I told my mother about my
situation. “You should get that root canal done by my dentist. She’s the best,”
she suggested. And that is how I found myself at another dentist’s office. As I
lay down staring at her made up face and squinting my eyes every time her
bracelets dangled on my nose, the dentist took out my tooth’s root (which I
told her I wanted to see; it looked like a squishy pink hair). “I don’t think
it’s a good idea to place a crown on your tooth just yet,” she recommended, “I
suggest you take out both wisdom teeth on the left side of your mouth because
they’re right by the tooth that will need a crown. Plus, the wisdom tooth
that’s beside the tooth that needs a crown has a cavity.”
Great.
She made me make an
appointment with another dentist who works with her. I saw him three days later
and I was not so sure I trusted his stubby fingers in my mouth. I was in his
office when he bolted out before saying that he would be back in five minutes.
Fifteen minutes later, he found me sauntering around his office, bored out of
my mind. “Well, I can take out four of your wisdom teeth,” he huffed. I frowned
at the young man, “Isn’t that a bit much? I mean, isn’t that unusual? To take
them all out in one go?” He laughed and said that it’s no big deal. “But we’ll
need to do it tomorrow afternoon because I’ll be flying home to Lebanon
tomorrow evening.” That didn’t sit well with me. What if I needed to ask him
something post-procedure? What if something happens and I need him to check it
out? And regardless of the situation, I never liked it when people
underestimate serious and painful procedures by saying that they’re not a big
deal. Taking out my wisdom teeth was quite a big deal to me! I thanked him before
heading out of the office and calling my mother to ask her who is the go-to
dentist for wisdom teeth. She gave me two names and I chose one, a Kuwaiti
dentist who took care of my older brother’s wisdom teeth a while ago.
I arrived at the fourth and
final dentist’s office straight after work, a day before my birthday. I do not
know what came over me that day. Maybe I was anxious about my friend telling me
about how I should not drive back home alone because of the pain and anesthetic.
Maybe I was feeling overwhelmed by my husband’s growing concern. I might have
been nervous about my birthday which was the next day, an event that I was not
looking forward to which is surprising to me since I am all about birthdays especially my husband's which was a day after mine, a factor that also made me a bit overwhelmed because of the expectations and planning that went along with it.
I was also feeling the pressure of this whole tooth thing that has been going on for almost two months. And maybe I was just hormonal that day. Who knows, but I walked into the
dentist’s lavish office feeling abnormally uneasy.
I was taken into a small,
2x2 meter room to get X-rays done. I was there with one Filipina who was behind
the whole X-ray procedure. Another chubby Filipina was there, fiddling around
with some papers and whatnot. Since the door was open, a third Filipina popped
in and started chatting loudly with the chubby one. By then, I was standing in
the X-ray machine with my front teeth hooked on some sort of plastic holder. I
told the annoying Filipina who came in, “Excuse me, can you please leave?”
Maybe the plastic holder made my words incomprehensible or maybe my voice was
too low, but the woman kept on yakking away. I managed to unhook my front teeth
from the plastic holder and told her sternly, “Excuse me! Please leave and shut
the door!” She apologized and quickly shut the door, leaving me standing there
with sweaty palms and breathing unusually fast.
Afterwards, I was taken into
the dentist’s office. I sat there on the chair and I suppose I looked like a
wreck because the dentist took one look at me and asked, “Are you feeling okay?
Do you want me to get you anything?” I looked at him and shook his head, “No,
I’m fine.” He pulled up my X-ray and I appreciated it when he went over every
single detail since I like to know every single detail about everything. After
I filled him in on my experience with the three other dentists I visited, he
told me that they were right and added, “Taking out your wisdom teeth on the
left side is easy. But the wisdom tooth on the bottom right might be a little
troublesome. You see, there is a sensory nerve that is right by the bottom
right wisdom tooth and if we extract the wisdom tooth and damage the nerve,
there might be a chance that you will lose any feeling on the right side of
your jaw and lip.”
That did it for me. All the
tension that was building up ever since I stepped into the dentist’s office
started to come out in uncontrollable tears, “I’m going to be paralyzed?!” The
dentist looked at me in shock, “No! You’ll be fine!” I sobbed and said, “What
do you mean fine?” With that, I tried to look behind me since there were two
Filipinas, the chubby one and the one who handled the X-ray machine, standing there
enjoying the show. “Could you tell them to leave please?” I said between sobs.
At that point, part of me was saying, “What the hell are you doing crying like
that!? Suck it up woman!” But another part was an emotional, blubbering wreck.
I felt bad for the dentist who I turned into a shrink, although he handled my
bout quite well I must say. “Now now, it’s all right. Everything is going to be
okay…” the dentist assured me as he handed me a tissue, “What I wanted to say
is that we might have to do some 3D-type X-rays so we can see how close your
bottom right wisdom tooth is to the sensory nerve. If it’s too close then we’ll
just chip the top of the wisdom tooth off.” I nodded.
The procedure took no more
than 20 minutes. “Can I have my wisdom teeth please?” One of the Filipinas
(they were ushered back inside once I allowed them to) washed them and handed
them to me in a small bag. “How do you feel?” the dentist asked. “Okay, thank
you, and I’m sorry about the tears,” I muttered embarrassingly. He smiled and waved it off
before writing a prescription for painkillers which helped but never do what I
did: take more than one every eight hours. I took four during the span of six
hours this past Saturday along with four strong aspirins. That combo left my
stomach in knots, made me nauseous and lethargic. To this day, I still reel
from the annoying pain in my stomach due to the painkillers.
The moral of the post is
this: When people say that you should get your teeth checked out every six
months, do it! The last time I had a teeth cleaning was about 1.5 years ago, so
it is no wonder that mine needed major work. As my mother always told me, “Your
teeth are precious gems, take care of them!”
Note: Since I cannot get on
the zShare website, I am sorry to say that there will not be any MP3s this
time. I will have to figure out another way on how to upload my music.
at 8:30 AM
2 Comments
EXACTLY my point! Teeth should be checked regularly for a reason!
I've avoided densitst like the plague all my life until one day a tooth of mine caved in, two years ago. It started a very similar musical chairs game between the dentists available, finally ending with two lost teeth and braces which, tomorrow, two years and two months after they were installed, might be removed.
Check the teeth people! Or the agony will last and last.
P.S. had the dentist told me about the nerve thing, I would have screamed bloody murder and ran out of his chair before he could blink! Yummah! Glad you made it out OK.
danderma: to make matters worse i developed an ulcer due to the combo of panadol extras and painkillers i took in a rather liberal manner *sighs* guess my teeth are better now but my stomach had me writhing around in pain for a week!
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