Dear Roger:Sadistic Dentists? Hell, In A Pinch Ill Take What I Can Get!

Its been a rough few days! I dont know if I had mentioned it, but for the past couple of months I had been living with some pretty significant pain. My wisdom teeth had decided to surface and not only were they badly impacted, to add to the fun, they were also infected and broken due to damage that had been done to my jaw. You dont take hits to the jaw and not do some damage, and I had even done some damage when I wrecked a motorcycle a decade or so ago.

So anyway, the pain had reached the point where it was unrelenting. I felt like hell, I had a constant infection in my jaw and I was on antibiotics and they weren't helping. I ran a fever constantly, I was taking Vicodin and over the counter pain meds like they were pez and nothing was helping. I was to the point of desperation and misery that I didn't know what I was going to do. I hadn't been able to find a dentist to take my insurance, I didn't have the cash to pay the ridiculous amounts some were asking just to see me, and I was losing hope.

I called the university dental school and they were booked several months out. The woman I spoke to there told me to call the a number for a low cost dental clinic, and at the end of my rope, I did. I went through their application process, qualified, and they agreed to see me this past Friday.

It wasn't fancy, and in the waiting room I was the only one speaking English, but at that point I didn't give a damn. I paid the entry fee, they took me back and did the x-rays and let me tell you people were freaking impressed!

Turns out, the one wisdom tooth was putting so much pressure on things, it was displacing things in my head! It had broken the tooth in front of it, and was causing other teeth to cross from the pressure, but it was also pushing on the bones in my skull! The nurse was impressed! She asked how the hell had I been walking around like that? I told her that I had reached the point where I wasn't eating, wasn't sleeping, and was ready to step in front of a train if I didn't get help, so I wasn't coping too well . But she was impressed I had made it a few months like that.

Good damn thing I have a pretty high tolerance for pain. The dentist came in, jammed a pick up into the the tooth and I about came unglued. Blood started pouring out if my mouth along with infection,(he had opened the abscess) and it hurt like hell. He said that he needed to pull the wisdom tooth and the one in front so he was going to numb me up and pull them. It happened that damn fast! He jammed that thing in, I bleeding and pissed, and hes pulling out a needle and then without numbing the skin, giving me an assload of shots to numb up the area.

He must have jammed that needled halfway to my eye, because that is where I felt it.

He gave me the shots while the nurse was trying to keep all the blood and gak sucked up, and then after about 5 minutes he started working on getting the wisdom tooth out.

It would have been nice if he had waited until I was totally numb. I guess he figured that since I had handled the pain for so long that I must be pretty tough, and I guess I am, but when you can hear things cracking in your skull over the music you have blasting to try and distract you.

I closed my eyes when I saw the blade he used to cut around the tooth. We all know my issues with knives, but at that point I was so exhausted by the pain I just couldn't find it in myself to care. He started cranking on the tooth again and it took him a good 10 minutes of twisting and cranking and fighting it to finally break it apart enough to get it out. Then he started on the one in front. All in all, it took about 15-20 minutes, I grunted a couple of times because I was feeling it. Blood was everywhere. I was pretty stressed out when he was finally done, and the fact he dropped part of the tooth down my throat and then had to fish for it, didn't help, but I was glad it was over with. It took a bit to get my face cleaned up, and the bleeding did not want to stop, so I had to sit in their waiting room for a half hour with my face packed with cotton until they were sure I wasn't going to pass out. I paid the rest of my bill and headed home before it started raining too hard and I tried to not scare people too bad by opening my mouth or anything, because if I did, blood fell out. I still got funny looks and when I got home I saw why, My face is bruised up pretty bad. I had the beginnings of a black eye and I looked like I had lost a fight.

Once I got home I just laid down on the couch and went to sleep. I woke up much later feeling like a human being for the first time in months!

I have an appetite again, I am not in pain and it doesn't hurt too bad to smile. Its still bleeding just a little, but thats just part of my wonky genetic issues, but I feel so much better!

Son commented I dont smell or look "Sick" anymore and that I seem much happier. Well, duh! I am not in pain. I dont need Vicodin to function and hopefully the worst of it is over with. It would have been nice if it hadn't been so rough and if I wasn't so bruised, but we all know I can take it, I have been through worse, and in the grand scheme of things, its a minor bump in the road.

I got up the next day and took daughter to her testing to determine what kind of gifted she is, I cleaned house and I did my normal stuff. I didn't even take a Tylenol after lunch time.

In the words of someone I miss, I have "driven on".