DannyBoyinExile

It’s been quite a while, but I finally had to force myself to go back to the dentist. At times like this, I really wish I would’ve taken better care of my teeth – and if I’d planned to even be ALIVE this long, I probably would’ve! Plus I used to binge on candy and sweets, to the extent that all of my candy-chomping teeth have been filled (in some cases, refilled!) or yanked out entirely.
My latest malady is a typical example. One of my teeth had already been filled, way back in my candy-bingeing career. So I was eating some beans a while back, and bit down (full force, as I wasn’t expecting that much resistance from some puny pinto beans!) on what turned out to be a chunk of rock that was cooked and salted along with the beans. Just that quickly, I broke away a piece of my bionic tooth – and magically, the filling came out, leaving just the outer edge of the tooth, because the center had been previously drilled out.
The middle of my tooth was thus exposed – but it didn’t hurt, and like a typical moron, I felt no need to rush to the dentist (which certainly WOULD hurt). A few months passed by, during which I simply chewed on the other side of my mouth – and I probably would’ve died of old age with that half a tooth still intact, had another mishap not occurred. This time the culprit was a piece of corn chip, which turned out to be nearly as hard as the rock was! Alas, I broke off ANOTHER chunk of the poor tooth. This time, there was barely half of the edge of the tooth left above ground, and it DID begin to hurt, so I had to swallow my pride – but spit out the tooth fragment! – and return to the dentist.
They are generally attentive to an inmate who is in pain, so they saw me very quickly – only to subject me to even more pain… I’m not afraid of many things in life, but I’ll admit that a dentist IS one of them. I mean, you KNOW it’s going to hurt, WHATEVER they do – and I wasn’t disappointed.
She (!) tested me to the utter limits of my ability to withstand it – and that was just for the shots! Then she began the process of removing it, which was no easy task, considering that only a portion of the tooth remained above the gumline, so she couldn’t simply yank it out. (I probably could’ve, with a pair of needle-nosed pliers, but she had something else in mind.) The lady cut, sawed, levered, and PRIED out the remains of my tooth, and within a matter of hours (or so it seemed!), it was done. I even restrained myself from biting down onto her fingers or utensils (utensils of mass destruction, for sure!) in the process. She was thoughtful enough to take another X ray afterward, to make sure she didn’t miss any pieces of the tooth (which she didn’t), and I was good to go.
I was given some gauze pads to clamp down on (to stop the bleeding), written a prescription for Ibuprofen, and was sent on my way. Go forth, and sin no more. That dentist may never see me again (let’s hope not!), but if she did, she’d be proud of me. I don’t eat candy at all anymore, rarely eat sweets at all, and brush my teeth at least twice a day. I even quit eating corn chips!
I also started flossing regularly (my teeth, not the corn chips!), but I’ll confess that I still eat beans. Sometimes you just have to live dangerously… So says DannyBoy.