Wisdom Tooth

Something To Write Home About

Some years ago, I chipped my wisdom tooth in the back of my mouth. Maybe it was screwed anyway and that's why the chip fell off. I was on the road at the time and swung into other work. The chipped tooth didn't hurt, while my wallet did, so I left it at that. Years went by and this morning I woke up with what Iago would call 'a raging toothache' and so I took the day off from work to immediately have work done on my chipped wisdom tooth.

Now, you have to understand that I am the type of guy who would do his tax returns promptly each year, but I've stayed away from the dentist for a while. I know some people who have it the other way around and go to their dentist for regular check ups but rarely do their tax returns. It occurred to me that maybe most people have one corner of their life for which they just can't make any time.

More realistically, I haven't been missing the dentist for any reason other than lack of habit. I never got into a comfortable groove of going to the dentist for regular check ups so it just went astray from my life. I guess I've been lucky I haven't had any other problems.

The pain got worse as the day wore on until I had to have some cold water in mouth or I couldn't stand the pain. I got my x-ray done in St. Leonards. I thought my Zygomatic Arch would collapse in on my face as I waited in ever-increasing agony. The throbbing pain was as if I was being punched in the face every 10 seconds. It was getting increasingly, unbelievably painful. The wait for the x-ray damn near killed me - or felt like it would - as I sat there swallowing from a bottle, non-stop, to keep water in my mouth.

And then it was off to the good dentist. Anyway, the first thing he said was "that's coming out."

Like, tell me something I wouldn't know, I thought. With my whole right side of the face throbbing with this Promethean pain I had to hobble over to see the X-ray for an explanation of 'why'.

I just didn't care 'why' at that point. I was paying this man to remove this pain from my head. Dutifully, he explained the infection of this and that and the cavity of one thing and a possible root canal of another and I was standing there holding my cheek thinking, "whatever Doc, just bust out your needle and let's yank this thing."

Within 15minutes he had me anaesthetised and then the tooth was pulled. Minimum of fuss and blood and pain. I really don't know why I hadn't done it until I had to; but I guess that's the nature of all these things. It was more surreal watching him fix two stitches in my mouth to lose the gap, what with the suture coming out of my mouth and somewhere in the back of my mouth I could feel the tug of the suture.

Being the weird artist-type that I am, I asked to take the tooth home with me. It looks horrible. Sort of a reminder of why one shouldn't just leave problems alone, just because they're not hurting this minute.