Break a Tooth, Watch Ya’Self
I’ve never had good luck with my teeth, and that’s resulted in major fear and anxiety in regard to dentists. It’s why I haven’t been for a checkup in years and why I can’t stand hearing about other’s dentist related stories.
Growing up, I can’t remember losing a single tooth that wasn’t pulled by our dentist. My permanent teeth have shitty enamel, so every tooth has a filling somewhere. I’m missing some permanent teeth because they came in so much bigger than my mouth, there was no room for them all to fit. I spent 6 years in braces just to force this smile to be somewhere close to respectable. And despite any brushing, flossing, and mouthwash regimen, it’s only a matter of time before a filling needs repair or a cavity gets through.
Recently, though, I did some major damage to my mouth. On two seperate occassions. The first was while eating a salad; I chipped my front tooth and have looked goofy in every picture from this summer. But that wasn’t even part of my real tooth, it was a replacement from when I hit the side of a pool face first and broke it in half as a kid. I’ve been living with that, saying to myself I would find a dentist and get things fixed before the holidays get here, but then the second major thing happened while eating a veggie sub and I couldn’t ignore it...
I broke a molar.
I have experienced all kinds of oral pain in my life, but this one took the cake. I’m not sure it was as bad as kidney stones, but that’s the closest pain I’ve known that compares.
Since I don’t have a dentist, I tried Debbie’s, but they couldn’t fit me in until after the holiday. So I tried to hold out. And I made it a few days. But the combo of Ibuprofen, Maximum Strength Tylenol, and OraGel couldn’t keep me from suffering big time last week. It kept building up, I was waking up in a cold sweat every few hours of the night, and by Thursday I was in so much pain that I spent my lunch break driving between dentist offices, begging for an emergency appointment. I was eventually referred somewhere down the road that could fit me in and after a quick check, I was set up with an emergency root canal for Friday morning.
It was the first week of teaching my class. It was leading into an long weekend where I was driving home. It was the first real test of whether I could juggle my day job, teaching, podcasting, and Daily articles… and I failed terribly across the board…
Even if it didn’t feel like an ice pick was being wedged through my gums and up into my brain, I’m not sure I could have knocked out an article on the days I taught. Those days become 15hr marathons where I can’t find any freetime… my lunch break isn’t a great time to jam out blogs, driving isn’t conducive to writing, and by the time I get home my brain is stuck in the loop of unwinding from class and scrambling to prepare for the next one.
That doesn’t mean I’m giving up, but it does mean there won’t be posts on Monday’s or Wednesday’s for a few weeks while I try building up a backlog and sticking to it. I have more dental work on the horizon and class will only eat up more time as the semester progresses and grading projects starts to be a thing.
So, thanks for sticking with us through these bumps in the road. And if anyone wants to write for Pixel Pointless, now would be a great time to shoot me an email. I’d love to debut some awesome guest articles on Mon/Wed and get some fresh voices in the mix. Hopefully we come out of this with a more workable schedule and even more awesome content.
In the meantime, be very careful when eating soft foods. It could save you a lot of pain and money.
