TALES OF DENTISTRY CHAPTER THREE

Why wouldn’t I be nervous? I was going to have a tooth pulled, and if that’s not enough to make one jittery, I don’t know what is. I settled into Dentist Two’s chair as best I could, and I tried to be calm. I could feel my heart jack-hammering away, and I knew I was good at hiding it whenever I was nervous, but there was no hiding from the blood pressure cuff.



She slid it on and checked the results. Naturally, they were off the chart. She asked if I was on medication to ease this, and I said I wasn’t. My problem was, I don’t know, I WAS GETTING A TOOTH PULLED! She explained the process in an attempt to get me to relax. She said they weren’t just going to yank it out, but they were going to wiggle it back and forth until it was nice and loose. Then, they’d pull it.


This did not ease my mind. Nor did it ease my heart. While my blood pressure came down considerably, it was still not in the range she felt comfortable with.


We tried a few more times before she finally said, “Would you prefer it if you were unconscious when getting this tooth pulled?”


Unconscious? You bet! I nodded. “That would definitely help.”


“Well, we don’t do that here, but I know of another dentist who would be able to help you out with this. He would also take care of the other implant preparations. Would that be better for you?”


I would have preferred to do it that day, since I was running out of time off from work. But there was no way I’d be able to take a tooth-pulling while I was awake. She recommended another dentist, and I thought that was that.


Whoops! Actually, that wasn’t it. This guy who could have been Dentist Three was located too far north, and I wasn’t driving at the time due to a few legal issues. I needed someone closer to Elmhurst.


Lo! and behold! Dentist Three was found five minutes away from home. They said they could fit me in for a consultation, and best of all, my grandfather was familiar with them.


If you’ve been following my non-fiction work for a while, you know that my grandfather knows EVERYONE in Elmhurst. There is no escape from his acquaintance. As it turned out, this other dentist had done some work on my grandfather, specifically the pulling of several teeth. In fact, he’d known this guy for so many years that we eventually got a 10% discount from the guy.


But as it turns out, Dentist Three is actually that guy’s son. Dentist Three is a young guy, and he apparently remembers shopping for a suit when he was a kid . . . at the clothing store my grandfather used to work at.


Dentist Three took a look at my mouth, and then he explained what would happen. As soon as the tooth is pulled, they need to put a bone graft into the remaining socket. If they don’t do this, I will lose bone tissue in my jaw, so much that an implant would be impossible. The bone graft slowly becomes a part of me, and when it’s solid, they can drill an implant into my jaw. This takes about three to four months.


By the way, you may be wondering where one would get a bone graft. As it turns out, it comes from donors. As in, people who are dead. Yep, I was gonna’ get dead fella’ bone in my mouth.


He then told me that before the implant goes in, I’d need a CT scan to make sure that there was enough bone there to do the job. Three months after the implant, I would get an abutment installed, upon which my new crown will go. Good times.


Can you pull the tooth today?


Well, since I was going to get put under, no. I had to fast and everything in preparation for that. After I got the tooth pulled, I’d be given antibiotics, pain killers, and mouthwash.


“Will I be able to drink booze?” I asked.


“What? Of course. I would never recommend the procedure if it meant quitting drinking.”


I think I came to the right place.


“Just don’t drink while on the antibiotics, or they may not work. And if you take the pain-killers, avoid alcohol. That’s bad news. After that, well, don’t drink to your heart’s content, but you know what I mean.”


I found this agreeable.


The next week, I went in, ready to rock and roll. They started prepping me to go under, and they got me ready for the needle. Dentist Three looked at my arm and said, “Jesus, that’s a big vein. If I miss this, I need to go back to medical school.”


It was surprising how fast everything went. I closed my eyes and when I opened them again, it was over. I had this vague memory of coming out of it for a moment, but they turned up the general anesthesia and put me to sleep again. That was it. It felt like five seconds had passed, and the next thing I knew, Dentist Three was telling me to bite down on a bunch of gauze.


I was led to the recovery room, which was really just a closet with a couch in it. I lay down, and after a while, Dentist Three came back with my meds. Antibiotics twice a day, Vicodin as needed. (Sadly, I learned the next day that I am immune to Vicodin.) After a day, I could use the mouthwash stuff every morning and night. There were stitches in my mouth once again, but this time, they were there to hold a plastic platelet thing down over the hole in my gums. This was going to keep the bone graft in until the gums were closed enough to keep it in. Best of all: the stitches would dissolve and fall out on their own. When the platelet comes out, just throw it away. Come back in a few weeks.


Groovy, right? Well, after a few days, the platelet was feeling pretty loose, and I kept feeling like I had grit on my tongue. I started getting the paranoid feeling that the bone graft was splintering and slipping out. I called Dentist Three, but he told me that it sounded like the stitches were coming out, which was natural. A bit early, but natural.


When I went back in to see him, he said, “Wow, that is pretty loose. I’m just going to cut it out of there.” He snipped it away and pulled out the stitches before giving me a quick examination. “It looks good. Just keep up with the treatment, and you should be fine.”  He also gave me a syringe, so I can flush food out of the trench in my gums after every meal.


The bill for his services: more than $1,100, and that’s with the discount. Dentist Two gave me a credit for the crown lengthening, since I wound up losing the tooth, but I still owed her about the same amount for whenever the implant would go in. I was never billed for Dentist One’s root canal, so I can only assume that he wasn’t going to charge me for it. Still, that’s a lot of fuckin’ money, and none of it was going to be covered by my insurance.


Tune in next time for the implant . . . .