Retaining My Sanity

Okay, sit back and settle in because this story goes back a long ways. Right at 56 years, in fact.

So when I was 12 years old I swam on the first swim team that Sevier County had ever had to the best of my knowledge. We swam at an olympic-sized pool that was down in the parking lot at Goldrush Junction which now goes by the more familiar name of Dollywood. I think we were called the Goldrush Guppies or something to that effect. 

I was pretty good at the backstroke, and I managed to get the bronze medal in my age division at the Knoxville Inter-club meet. So I was quite accustomed to being in the water. Didn’t have gills, but it was close. 

At the end of the year we were having a party of some sort at another pool. I had dived into the pool and come out on the side when someone asked me what was wrong with my teeth. I didn’t know there was anything wrong with them—until I put my finger up on the bottom of my incisors and hit an exposed nerve. Somehow, and I really, really don’t know how, I had chipped the bottoms of my front teeth—it was a semi-circle of space where tooth used to be. In those days we didn’t really have an emergency dentist in town, so I spent a terrible and restless night of trying not to let that nerve be touched or disturbed. The next day we went to the dentist and I got fitted with some bright silver-medaled ‘temporary’ (remember that) crowns. 

Those bright crowns kept me from smiling for pictures for years. They stood out too much in the flash! After initial teasing and taunting about my silvery smile, I got used to them and life went on. 

It was about 14 years later (that’s a long, long temporary!) I was at Berea College. I noticed that there was some swelling above the left incisor. I went to the college dentist and discovered that I was developing an abcess. So I spent that summer working in the woodshop in the mornings and then heading over to the dentist’s chair for the afternoons. He had to do a ‘reverse root canal’—meaning that he went in above the gum line and filled the tooth from the back end—and all the rest that went with it. It was a long process of fixing my temporary crowns with something more permanent. It was tedious, but at least now I could smile for pictures once again. My only complaint was that he had closed the narrow gap between those two teeth, and that meant I had lost one of my favorite ways to whistle. Ah, the price of appearance! 

So let’s forward about another 50 years. I notice that the same left incisor is starting to get a bit loose. Not like falling out in my hand loose, but enough to where it was affecting my diet. No corn on the cob, no candied apples, no peanut brittle, no caramels of any sort, in fact, I had to be careful even biting into a sandwich. I could wiggle it and I was pretty sure that this couldn’t continue. 

So at my last cleaning I told the dentist that it was getting looser. She agreed. Her office contacted the insurance company to find out how much fixing could be done with their finances. An implant would have required some bone grafting and would be the most expensive—a definite ‘No.’ A bridge would be cheaper, but it was still more than they were interested in investing in my mouth. So they decided I could get a partial done. Good enough, I guess. I’m getting to the age where I don’t need to worry about another 50 years of chewing. 

Yesterday I went to get the tooth extracted. I joked around with the staff. I got to point out my BB in my jaw (a whole other story for another day!) to the young dental student who was shadowing the dentist on this day. After numbing agent, and novacaine, and some gentle pulling and tugging, the tooth slipped out pretty easily. It only had about a quarter-of-an-inch still much attached to the bone. 

I was not bleeding profusely. The dentist said I would probably only need some over-the-counter analgesic for the pain. She was right on that score. I took a couple acetaminophen before the novacaine wore off and then a couple more before bedtime. So all of the procedure and aftermath went very well. 

They took my tooth and cut the root off the back end so they could glue it in the ‘temporary’ (uh-oh, there’s that word again!) retainer that I would have to wear until I heal enough to fit the partial. It retains my long-used, broken, crowned tooth so that it looks like I’m still good, or as good as possible. It’s not picture quality, but I’m not in any beauty contests in the near future. 

The bigger issue is that I’m trying to retain my sanity! I think it’s easier to put up with pain than to put up with this strange apparatus that is now in my mouth! Chewing feels strange. I want to go floss all day long. It feels like I haven’t brushed in forever. I am used to having a toothpick close at hand, but that doesn’t feel right either. This piece of plastic is testing my neuroplasticity! I guess I will get used to it, but honestly,  I’m not enjoying the process! While it’s holding my tooth in place, it’s driving my mind to distraction. 

Good news—by and large my teeth are in good shape and have served me well. Not so good news—getting them fixed is revealing the cracks and chips in my mental abilities. I guess I shouldn’t complain since it’s all only ‘temporary’!