The Root Canal

I don’t have any exciting story for you today, but let’s face it, this whole week of posts hasn’t been that exciting. As I was driving in this morning, I was trying to think of something interesting to write about and nothing really came to mind. So, I decided in order to keep a week of uninterrupted posts going, I would tell you about my recent root canal – I’m sure you’re just dying to know all about it.

On Monday of last week, I was scheduled for my root canal at 8:00 in the morning. I knew what road the office was on, but not the exact location and ended up having to call them while looking for the office. I finally arrived a few minutes before 8:00, filled out some brief paperwork, and stopped by the restroom. As soon as I came out of the restroom, they took me back and not long after that, the doctor came in.

He examined my tooth and asked me about the pain I was having and I had to bite down on a cotton swab which was less than comfortable and then the doctor said, “Well, I think you need a root canal, did you want to go ahead and have that done today?” I’m sure I looked at the guy like he was nuts because, duh, that’s why I was laid back in a dental chair. I didn’t pop in to say hello.

So, the doctor shot some Novocain into my mouth in a couple of different places and we waited for the numbness to set in. I will take this moment to tell you that the rooms had TVs on the ceiling, which was quite nice – I enjoyed watching the morning edition of CNN even if I did have to read the closed captioning to find out what the heck they were saying.

Once my mouth was numb, the nurse came in and pulled off my temporary crown and put some kind of crazy apparatus around my lone tooth – tooth #30. It was almost like a bib for the tooth. The bib, as we’ll call it, would allow nothing to go down my mouth while the endodontist worked his root canal magic. The nurse also offered me a bite something or other that would help me keep my mouth open, but I didn’t like it so she took it out and I held my mouth open of my own accord.

The doctor was soon back in the room and got to work. He began talking about how hard it was to come back to work after a vacation – he had been on Spring Break to Mexico with his family the week before – tough life. Let me tell you all his talk about not wanting to be there made me not want to be there. I mean, this guy had the nerves of my mouth in his grasp for goodness sake!

Every so often, the doctor would ask if I was okay, I would say yes even though I really wasn’t. I was tired of holding my mouth open and was beginning to get a crick in my neck – not pleasant – not to mention the fact that my bladder was rapidly filling up and I was doing everything I could not to think about having to go to the bathroom, which means really that’s all I was thinking about.

After about 30 minutes in the chair, I started squirming like a little kid and when they asked if I was okay, I shook my head no and spoke as best as I could through the bib and said, “I really need to go to the restroom.” I was more embarrassed than anything because how many 34 year olds can’t hold it for an hour? They let me up out of the chair and I ran to the bathroom to free my bladder of its liquids – and I didn’t even drink anything that morning!

I got back in the chair and after another 15 minutes or so the doctor finished up, told me to take some Advil and sent me on my way – where I had to use the facilities once more before I left. It was a crazy day for my bladder, folks! You probably know more about me and my small bladder than you ever wanted to know, but the story wouldn’t be complete without me telling you about this. I spent most of the day napping and watching television but did manage to make it to the gym that afternoon.

This week, I went in to my regular dentist and had my permanent crown put on, which wasn’t too bad of a process. It took some time to get the crown to fit and he had to drill a little off of my upper cusped because I guess it was long like a vampire or something and if he didn’t take a little off, my crown would hit the upper tooth and it wouldn’t be pleasant.

So, now, after multiple visits to the dentists and $700 out of pocket, my mouth is somewhat back to normal and I am slowly beginning to eat on the right side of my mouth again. I may not be able to afford to sod my front yard this spring as I had planned, but by George, my mouth is pain free. Thanks for listening and have a great day!