Teeth and Icees

I don't have a whole lot of good memories regarding my teeth, but two stand out to me. I'm going to write about this in the next couple of blog posts.

The first time I had a tooth pulled that wasn't my wisdom teeth was a pretty bad experience. I did everything I could to save that tooth — I paid for a root canal, I went to a gum specialist for another surgery that cost $1,000 and I paid for two crowns for that tooth and its neighbor.

I lost my first tooth because there was a piece of cotton left in it after a root canal. It was supposed to be taken out, but wasn't. 

On the x-ray, it showed up as a tiny little square. I remember looking at it and thinking it was the square of doom. 

I knew having it removed would be a crappy experience, so I set a goal afterward of going to a movie with my best friend after. It helps me mentally if I have something to look forward to after going through something bad. 

Specifically, I decided that I wanted an Icee at the movie. That was my reason for going through this ordeal — I was going to get an Icee at the end of it.

For those of you not well versed in dental work, you aren't supposed to drink from a straw after you have a tooth extracted. I knew this ahead of time, and I put a spoon in my purse to eat my Icee with at the movies.

So me and my best friend go to the movies, I get an Icee, and we sit down in our seats. I pulled out my spoon in the middle of this theater and I'm pretty excited to go to town on my frozen treat.

Only, my spoon did not fit in the Icee lid. The spoon was too big. And the drink came up to the top of the clear lid, above where the cup ends (everyone knows what an Icee looks like, right?).

I just had a tooth removed and could not drink the Icee through the straw so the drink part could be below the lid — and if I took the lid off, the Icee would just spill everywhere and make a giant mess everywhere.

I sat there, frustrated, and I wasn't really sure how to be an adult and solve my Icee problem on my own.

My best friend saw my problem unfold, and I remember her sighing pretty heavily. She grabbed my Icee from my hand and chugged it through a straw like we were both in college on a Friday night at the most popular bar in town.

After a few chugs, she got the drink level below the clear lid. She took the lid off and shoved the Icee back in my face. 

And then I spooned that Icee into my very sore face. I was a very happy camper.

No words were spoken during this exchange, if I remember right. It was a glorious way to help me out when I needed it.

You guys, that's a true friend. I remember that moment like it was yesterday, and to this day, it's one of the nicest, coolest thing a friend has ever done for me.

Get you someone who chugs Icees for you. 

*I'm trying to remember what year this happened. I'm going to guess around 2014ish.

Twitterland

 

"It's normal for you."

About 10 years ago, I sat through a root canal on my front tooth. I've always been hard to numb in front, and I sat there for what seemed like forever.

Was it 20 minutes? Or 30 minutes? An hour? I'm not really sure. All I know is that the specialist breathed a sigh of relief and said that he was glad that was over with. I sat up, and went to grab my purse, pay and leave.

The specialist stopped me and asked me what I was doing.

It turns out the root canal had not even started yet, he was just done getting me completely numb in front. The process of numbing me took so long that I thought it was the entire appointment.

I asked the root canal specialist if that was normal.

His response: "It's normal for you."

On Halloween one year, I had two root canals done at the same time. The same specialist didn't tell me he was going to do two that day. In his words: "I made the best decision for your health, regardless of money."

And now, 10 years later, I no longer have those teeth that got fixed on Halloween, and I'm going to lose the tooth in front that was hard to numb.

This is going to be a woe is me post, but this is my blog and I can whine if I want to.

There are things I did not know about dental work when I was younger. I didn't know that dental work doesn't work sometimes. I didn't know that when you do a root canal, gum surgery and crown a tooth, you can still lose that tooth, which means you have to spend between $4,000 and $5,000 on an implant on a tooth you already spent $3,000 trying to fix. 

And by the way, when dental work doesn't work, no one really cares. You don't get apologies from your previous dentist or specialist. 

You don't get anything except more physical pain.

Six years ago, my health started to decline. I lost a bunch of weight and I was worried for my life. I didn't recognize it as a toothache right away because my dentist back home told me I didn't have any problems. 

I went to a surgeon to try to get my gallbladder taken out. I had another minor surgery, trying to figure out what the problem was. 

The problem was a tooth. That tooth, part of a bridge, broke above my gum line and when it got infected, the infection went to my jaw bone.

I lost a $7,000 bridge and I spent $10,000 fixing it. 

I put off buying a house when it happened. I canceled a vacation I wanted to take. I took a loan out on my car that was already paid off to pay for it. 

--

I went to a new dentist this week, a young one just out of school by a few years. These visits never go well for me, and I'm not sure why I even try anymore. 

This new guy was nice enough, and I tried to be nice back. He looked at my x-rays, noted how many root canals I've had (too bad x-rays don't show how many teeth I've had two root canals on), and he leaned in pretty close to me.

He said: "Oh my God. What happened?"

Dude, I thought, you should have been there when it happened. Imagine how I feel right now.

(I ended up at my tried-and-true dentist in nearby big city a day later, who treated me with kindness and respect, as they always do there.)

You don't remember the time I went to the emergency room three times in one week because I couldn't take the pain (infected jaw bone incident). You don't remember the time I got a pain shot in front of my best friend in the ER in a not safe for work location on my body. (Are you really best friends with someone if you haven't seen them naked?)

I left that appointment a couple of days ago and waited until I was in my car to cry. On Tuesday night, I put an ice cube over my eyes to try to reduce the swelling from crying so much.

It turns out that I'm going to do the implant thing again. 

I don't have much of a choice and right now, I'm going to take the time to be mad that life is unfair.

--

So, what the hell happened to my teeth?

A series of unfortunate events, coupled with depression when I was younger. There was a piece of cotton left in one tooth after a root canal that was supposed to be taken out, but wasn't. I lost that tooth. There was a broken instrument in another tooth that was left after a root canal that I wasn't told about.

My specialist who broke the news to me: "This really pisses me off."

I thought to myself at the time: Dude, try living through it. Imagine how pissed off I am that foreign objects were left in my body without my permission.

The thing that sucks about having bad teeth is that I don't know another person my age who's had a single root canal, let alone as many as I have (11 on nine teeth). I don't know another person my age who has implants and has lost teeth.

I have no one to go to for advice. I have to rely on myself for that, and only I know what I can and can't tolerate.

I set a goal for myself 10 years ago when I started going through the worst of it, and I think those goals are still accurate today. They are:

• I want to smile and not feel embarrassed about it. 

• I want to chew food.

• I want to live without pain.

The question now is how much more of this can I possibly take. My current dilemma is not dire, and it will be fixed with an extraction via an oral surgeon and hopefully an implant.

The fact that it's a front tooth doesn't even bother me. I'm way past the point of being vain about this. I'm past being embarrassed about the state of my teeth. 

You don't really get to complain about a front tooth getting extracted when you've almost died in the past because of your teeth (jaw bone incident).

So, why am I complaining about this? Why am I writing about this?

I don't really know.

Let's normalize going through hard and painful things. Let's just admit that life sucks sometimes and there are times that you have to make the least possible sucky decision out of a few decisions, all of which cause pain and misery.

Also, there's a list of things I really don't like being said to me. 

Among them:

• "If you keep going to the dentist, they'll keep finding things wrong. Stop going." Thanks for that advice. I would die if I did this.

• "Get them all pulled." Chop off one of your body parts, a leg or an arm. Just do it and see if you're all sunshine and roses afterward. 

• "Are you still going through that? Aren't your problems fixed by now?" My favorite way to respond to dumb people: Thank you for sharing that.

The amount of money I have invested in my mouth at this point is astronomical. If I told you, you wouldn't believe me. I could pay for 50 trips across the country and back; I could pay off my student loans, twice over; I could pay for 250 Eric Church concert tickets (and I wish I could); and at this point, there's probably a Tesla in my mouth. 

And it's still not over?

What do you do when you go through hard stuff and have no one to go to for advice? The answer: The only way out is through — with a really, really sore mouth.