GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #253: A HUMBLING EXPERIENCE

Some of you are familiar with the saga of my shit tooth. Also known, thanks to filmmaker and author Mike Lombardo, as the cadaver tooth. It's too long to go into here, but suffice to say it is the story of me getting my second dental implant.


I went into the dentist's office yesterday to get the implant. (Which didn't happen. They took measurements and levels of bone density. I get it--probably--next month.) It's not my usual guy. It's the guy who pulled the tooth in the first place. I sat down, and he worked in my mouth for a bit and fiddled around on a computer for even longer. He's an attractive man in his late fifties with a full head of hair and a fabulous smile. He advised me to get another bone graft, this time in my sinuses. It's $2K extra. Otherwise we'll have to go with the shorter implant that might not succeed. Fuck. I'm already out of my price range as it is. I can't do it. I'm going to have to roll the dice on the smaller implant.


Here's the thing, though: they no longer use the molds. I'm okay with that. I've choked on each and every mold they've ever tried on me. The taste is too disgusting. My saliva has nowhere to go but dribbling out of my mouth . . . or down my throat, which is even worse. My gag reflex is bad enough as it is.


They have a new method: scanning your teeth into a computer. Sounds easy, right? Well, not so much. Someone has to run a heated scanner (heated so it doesn't fog over) across all of your teeth in all directions several times. It's a longer process, but you don't have to taste the horrible goop from the mold.


It was truly a humbling experience. I had to keep reminding myself that I had to breathe through my nose, and forget about the saliva that kept building up. The assistant who did this was very courteous. She tried her best to be encouraging. To be reassuring. I might be reading my signals wrong, but I think she might have flirted with me a bit. I'm an idiot when it comes to that kind of thing. For years my friends have been telling me that women were flirting with me when I didn't even notice. So maybe I'm wrong.


She is a very attractive woman with a wonderful set of teeth, just like the dentist's.


My teeth suck. I've never been pleased with them. Even as a kid I would look into the mirror and curse that gap in the front ones. It's only gotten worse over the years. I went for more than a decade without dental insurance. When I don't use whitening toothpaste it looks like my teeth are made of cheese. I've had dental coverage for a while. I take very good care of my teeth. But it's not enough. Still, they look pretty good if you're not paying much attention. (And if I keep my lower teeth under my lip.)


I watched as the scanner replicated my teeth on the computer to my left side. I was horrified. It looked through the whitening shit and saw my teeth for what they really were. I saw brown spots. I saw dark spots. I saw black spots where I'm surprised my own mouth hasn't rejected these teeth yet. It was a very humbling experience because I could see it all in 3D. The assistant cut out the unnecessary gum parts with two swipes of the mouse. Even that horrified me.


It was a very realistic representation of my garbage mouth. It didn't look like a scan; it looked like a photograph. I could see all the horrible things in my mouth, and my instant impulse was to have all of my teeth pulled and replaced immediately. It was that bad.


I was reassured that other people have the same reaction. Still. It was an incredibly humbling experience. I expect the rest of my life to be spent dealing with dental problems. A friend of mine once advised me to just pull my lower teeth and get a plate. It works well for her, but I want to have actual teeth down there. I like how they feel, and I appreciate the way I don't have to worry about them staying in the right place. I have nothing against people who are OK with the plates, etc. For me, I would rather have something anchored in there.


When I was a kid, I predicted I would only live to 40. I'm turning 39 this year. I'm sure I was wrong about 40 (that's a story for a different day, as I'm sure I stated here before). But if I make it to 50? Shit, I'd better be making more money than I am right now if only for the dental problems I'm going to have.

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.