Quite deliberately, I made my latest endodontist appointment for after the festival was over. I suspected (hoped) that the rush of all that was happening there would carry me over, and it did, thank heavens. But what is an endodontist, you ask? In simple terms, an endodontist performs root canals, among other procedures. By that sentence alone you can tell I’m getting pretty close to the top of the dentistry tree here. There’s no where else to go. His Audi in the driveway is the fanciest one in the neighbourhood for good reason. You so much as walk through the door and your credit card starts to sweat.
Last time I went he drew me a lovely little flow chart of what to expect and how matters might progress (… or stagnate …). The first stage being a band placed around the cracked tooth – like a corset to keep everything contained – and then get the existing (practically new!) filling replaced by an anti-inflammatory one and THEN get it all crowned. If that didn’t work… well, a root canal was mentioned. As were the words $2,500. As were my words, “Oh, hell, no.” Then came his addendum, “Okay, let’s talk extraction.”
In the end, we made the appointment for the ‘band and refill’, which was today.
It did not go well.
After eight (I think it was eight; I lost count after six) shots of local anaesthetic into my gum region, the nerve was still alive and kicking and zinging and electrifying me if he came anywhere near it with his little drill. We’d gotten the band on, but that was the least of the procedure. The hardest part was digging out the filling and replacing it. This was two and half hours after he first starting injecting me, stopping for breaks to let the area become numb. In his defence, I should add his mobility was compromised because, let’s face it, there’s only so much you can do with someone who can only open her mouth 30mm wide.
But my leg kept kicking like a Ziegfeld showgirl, I kept crying from pain, and when he said he’d give me two more injections, I said no. I’d had enough.
“If I’ve had this many and can still feel it, I hardly think two more will make a difference,” I said.
I expected him to fight me. I wanted him to say, no, I want to get this finished.
Instead he nodded, stepped back and said he’d leave it there. He gave up, basically. At least, that’s how it felt like to me, when I was sent on my way, still blubbering, and the bitch of a receptionist didn’t ask how I was doing; only bothered to talk to me when the credit card didn’t read.
I’ve been told to go back in six weeks to ‘see how I’m going’. I don’t think I’ll ever go back. If the tooth is still bad then, I’ll have it out. I’ve realised that I’ve pursued this route for this long almost thanks entirely to vanity. Well, vanity can be dammed now. I just want the pain to stop.
And this afternoon, while thinking about this, I came up with my own little chart in my head. It looks something like this:
It may not be subtle, but it sums up everything so far.
