A Plethora of Plenty

It's been one of those months. On the 28th, I had a molar pulled. Nasty little thing. Here's the saga of the molar. First though, a piece of advise. Despite what your gorgeous roommate who's incredibly intelligent tells you, don't go to a dentist who sidelines as an acupuncturist and whose most redeeming feature is his low cost. Yes, I should have known this, but I was in graduate school at the time and money was tight. So, I had gone to him several years ago because the filling in a molar had cracked and had to be replaced. As I recall, my jaw hurt for at least a week after that, as he really dug in deep. Well, fast forward to a year ago, when surprise, surprise, the filling popped out, leaving a hole big enough to hide a cyanide capsule in. The dentist here (Hurray dental coverage!) warned me that although he could fill it again, half of the tooth was gone and there might not be enough left to provide a foundation for the filling. Well, he was right. About 3 months ago, the new rebuilt molar split and fell out. It's weird finding a half-a-tooth in your mouth when you wake up. Enough back story.

So - I finally put on my big boy pants and get it pulled. The dentist says it'll be quick and painless, because it's the last molar in the line. I laugh at him. I look at the attendant and ask her to be a witness to the fact that the dentist said this. As it turns out, I was right. While it was painless, it surely wasn't easy. Apparently, every time he grabbed onto it, the tooth flaked. In addition, the sucker cracked so that he had to go in and take out each of the roots. Poor guy, he should have known better than to say it would be easy. The attendant, after all was said and done, grinned at me.

Driving to the pharmacy afterward, I grinned in the mirror and noticed that there was so much numbing agent in my face that only half of my grin appeared. I hadn't realized that it affected muscle control. Odd seeing what I'll look like when I have my eventual stroke.

At the pharmacy, I got Vicodan, which I've never had before and probably will never have again. I thought that since I could take some every 6 hours, the effects wore off after 6 hours. This was incorrect. Horribly incorrect. I took a dose before bed and was loopy for most of Friday. While I kept it together during my first class, I cancelled the second because I just wasn't going to be able to do it. Thus, we get to the weekend, where things went from run-of-the-mill-bad to wow-that’s-bad. You’ll have to wait for that update though.