Teeth on the Way

Yup, there are going to be Chewing Surfaces in my mouth by the end of the summer. No more trying to grind with incisors (and looking like a squirrel in the process), no more accidentally biting off chunks from the inside of my mouth. No more fearing carrots. After all these years I'll probably have to learn to eat all over again, but that's okay, I'm up to the challenge.

I know, some of the kids have (or have had) mouths that are just as bad. They got bad genes *plus* lack of dental care (due to lack of insurance and lack of money) growing up. My dental genes were fine, but all the pregnancies plus that same lack of dental care did me in. Tooth after tooth broke apart. Abscess after abscess. (Abscessed tooth or ear infection? Which one hurts more? Hmmm ... ) I recall one (upper left molar, long gone now) that hurt so badly I couldn't numb it with anything and I got out of bed around 3 am, went downstairs, took more Extra-Strength Excedrin (total of 8 tablets that night -- don't try this EVER) and sat in a wing-backed chair with my throbbing cheek pressed against the wing, in the living room, in the dark, in N.J., and watched 'Back to the Future" and whimpered until I finally fell asleep. That was the night the pain peaked as the nerve died, and from there it was just a matter of the tooth breaking off bit by bit. I went for years with jagged shards in my mouth, and for awhile I used a substance (which seems to be no longer available) from which you could mold a sort of tooth and stick it around a broken tooth to cushion it. I've self-medicated abscesses by dabbing tea tree essential oil on them, and that would work for awhile. But as soon as I had a job that provided insurance and once I had the younger kids as patched up as I could manage considering the amounts of co-pays, I went gratefully into having all the damaged teeth pulled. On the top I had enough repairable teeth and wisdom teeth that everything could be allowed to move around a bit and fill where others had been extracted. Lower jaw ... nothing to work with. But 'nothing' has been infinitely better than painful abscesses or shards stabbing the sides of my tongue.

So I chewed funny, so what? I was fine with it. My dentist here spent a couple of years convincing me that if I didn't do something with those empty spaces, my front teeth would eventually get loose. Well, I don't want that. With nothing in the very back to connect to, I couldn't get bridges. So the choice was a couple of bits that spent their evenings in a glass or implants, and my insurance wasn't going to be a whole lot of help either way. David was strongly in favor of the implants, even though to my mind they're monstrously expensive.

We're doing implants, and I am hugely grateful. This began with a series of exams and scans and molded plastic *guides* made from those scans to indicate where to drill around my nerves and the roots of other teeth. Yesterday we drilled.

I was in the chair on IV anesthesia for nearly 3 hours. No pain. The guy was even super good about installing the IV. I would have said I was conscious through the entire thing except that I have no memory of the right side being stitched and that was a really fast three hours. At one point I was beginning to feel a bit, as the left side was a little more hassle than the right had been. He asked me if I wanted more drugs and I said more drugs would be swell, thanks, and he handed his assistant three little tubes and said, "You can give her all of these," and then time just flew by again.

I was very out of it when we finished, but David brought me home and tucked me in and I took my first vicodin. I was allowed yogurt and ice cream and soup, and as much sleep as I wanted. Okay, I can do that -- I've always envied the cats, just napping whenever. I read, I knit, I watched four episodes of Heroes (from Netflix Instant) on my laptop, I ate some yogurt and a bowl of sugar-free ice cream and took the vicodin every four hours. The swelling went down in a few hours and the numbness wore off and there wasn't much bleeding.

It's nice and chilly here, making a pile of quilts a comfy and delicious thing. David brought me a steaming bowl of tomato-basil soup for dinner and my dentist called to see how I was doing. (Great, thanks.) Read some more, slept well. This morning the pain is almost gone and I have four little pegs in my mouth. Once they're *settled in,* there will be teeth placed over them.

And then I can chew like a regular person. YAY!!!!!