GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #208: MY SHIT TOOTH (REVISITED)

For those of you who have known me a while I've been having problems with my Shit Tooth for years. It all began when I started getting monstrously evil headaches, and I had no idea what caused them. I couldn't do anything about them at work, but when I got home I pounded whiskey to the point where I was downing 3/4 of a handle every night just to kill the pain. It was the only thing that worked. I went to several doctors, and none of them were able to solve the mystery until one of them came up with the brilliant plan to see a dentist.


I'd gone through most of my adult life without dental insurance. The last checkup I'd gotten was when I was getting into freshman year of high school. After that my grandparents, who raised me, lost their insurance plans. In 2007 I got a job that gave me benefits. (Just so you have a point of reference, I got into freshman year in 1992.) By that time I figured my teeth were fucked, and I didn't bother getting them checked out. To this day my mouth gives people The Fear.


I caved and went to the dentist. Apparently the tooth which would eventually be dubbed the Shit Tooth had a deep chip in it, which had exposed the nerve. The dentist put a giant filling on it, and everything went back to normal. Cool.


Fast forward a year. The Shit Tooth is killing me again. My alcohol use increased again. My dentist did a root canal and put a crown on the chip of tooth I had left back there.


A few weeks later I was eating pizza. Suddenly I took a bite and something seemed off. Something was missing. Holy shit, my tooth was gone! I have very little money. Crowns cost a lot even if you're insured. What did I do? I sifted through my shit for days looking for that crown. Hence, the Shit Tooth.


I never did find it, by the way. Not that it matters. It turns out the very little piece of tooth I had left had cracked. The dentist wouldn't have been able to put the crown back on.


This time he put a screw in my mouth to support the three centimeters of tooth I had left. It worked wonderfully after the crown got put on.


Fast forward to this year. My Shit Tooth acted up again. This time the dentist told me that there was decay built up under the crown. He sent me to another dentist out of hopes that it could be saved. The two options: remove the crown and drill out the decay, or cut into the gumline to drill out the decay. The other dentist said there was too much built up. The tooth had to go.


I've been through the process of an implant before. It sucks and it's expensive. I didn't want to do it. But I was told that if I didn't get it I would lose more of my teeth because the Shit Tooth took on a heavy burden in my under-bite.


I was going to go to another dentist to get the Shit Tooth pulled and to get an implant, but then SURPRISE! I got fired and lost my insurance. When I finally got a new job it took forever for my insurance to kick in. When it did I took a half-day to get a consultation. This was the day before I was going to go on a road trip with Kevin Strange to be on The Horror Show with Brian Keene. I thought the dentist was just going to take a look at it and schedule surgery for maybe two weeks later.


SURPRISE! It looked so bad that I was told it would crack out of my mouth over the weekend. The image of being interviewed by Brian Keene as I spat out my Shit Tooth horrified me, so I decided to do the emergency surgery then and there.


I should not have done that.


While the Shit Tooth is finally gone, it is still haunting me. Even now I have horrible pain in my mouth. The Orajel helps. The painkillers help, but they make me woozy. The whiskey is the best solution.


You know the phenomenon of phantom limbs? I have a phantom ghost tooth in my head right now, and it's killing me. (It doesn't help that I also have cadaver bone in my mouth to help make an implant possible. I don't know the guy or gal who donated it, but I do know that I've given Mike Lombardo a tickle in his tooth.) I've shoved a bunch of whiskey down my throat tonight, and it's only helping a little. I need this to go away. It would be so awesome to have just one day where I wake up and don't feel any pain in my mouth. I need that to happen tomorrow.


Goodnight, you wonderful people. Thanks for listening to me rant about this garbage.