"The Tooth? The Tooth? You Can't Handle The Tooth!"

     Sadly, my most favorite premolar and I got divorced yesterday afternoon.

     It had been problematic off and on.  It was on the upper right, not the side that's been so dreadful much trouble.  It had been given a root canal decades ago and later capped, and was intermittently loose and a little pressure-sensitive.  Over the last several weeks, it got even looser and the gum around it was tender.  Went to the dentist yesterday to have it checked and she didn't like the wiggle and thought the X-ray was mildly suspect.  She went to remove however much was loose and with very little effort, pulled out all of the cap and most of the tooth, including one of the metal pegs from the root canal.  Left another one and a big hunk to tooth root behind and decided it needed next-level attention.

     The oral surgeon was unable to see me yesterday, so I'm headed there this morning.  They will remove whatever is left and then my dentist and I will figure out what's next.

     Dental implants are still crazy-expensive -- and covered at 50% by my insurance, which is better than nothing and gets the price down from "a decent used motorcycle" to "still not even close to affordable."  With this loss, I may be able to get some kind of a partial plate and possibly get a molar-replacement on the other side, which would be something of an amazement.

     But all that's for the future.  Today, I have to face an oral surgeon, the one kind of dentist that fills me with apprehension.  This is the specialty that brutally yanked a tooth (and a 5mm chunk of bone) on the upper left and then spent weeks telling me there was no hole in the bone, I was just imagining thing things, etc. etc. until I insistently begged them to open it up and take a look -- and lo, a miracle, there was a hole there all along and gee, they sure wish I had told them sooner, gee at that angle it was so hard to see on the X-ray....  All manner of ego-salve was applied (to and by the oral surgeons, that is) while I sat there in the chair and did a slow burn.  Really hard to deliver an outraged lecture with your mouth numbed up and full of instruments, which probably saved the day.

       Oral surgeons are DDSes with the ego of M.D. surgeons; it makes them touchy.  I'll smile a lot and be mindful of the fastest path to the exits.