woe is me, the final episode (hopefully)

The tooth is out.

I tried to justify skipping the visit or even postponing it. It's kind of hard to be willing go to a place that inflicts pain. Meaning that I have to be in an utmost and dire condition to willingly go to the dentist for an extraction. Problem was that I wasn't feeling that way at the time. Last week, I was and would gladly go through just about anything short of the way Tom Hanks took out his tooth in the movie Castaway. (Eek! Just thinking about that scene gives me the heebie jeebies). But of course they couldn't pull the tooth then because of the infection and how the anesthetic wouldn't take. OK so yeah, I'd better wait.

After just a couple doses of the antibiotics I was feeling better, so much better. I went through the whole "I'm better now" excuse. Yes it was denial. I knew that once the antibiotics were done, I'd be back to misery. Then there was the issue of the promise I made in prayer during the pain crisis interfering with Taylor Swift. I try to keep all of my promises, and God is definitely not one I want to break a promise with...cause I sort of already did...for a couple of weeks. OK the dentist was a must. I got plenty of pep talks, even from Kelley who has the worst case of dentist fear I've ever seen.

This is how it went down...a couple not so fun needle sticks to numb my mouth. Which didn't work. Followed by a few more really dreadful needle sticks into the sorest parts of my mouth with a different anesthetic. Ouch. But the dentist and assistant assured me I was doing great. And I was now numb. As far as I could tell there was some poking and prodding. A warning of feeling some pressure, not too bad. Another warning of feeling a lot of pressure. Yikes, yes that hurt. Oh crow, what's next?!

And what was next? "OK, you're all done. You did great!". Say what? All done? This was nothing at all like having four impacted wisdom teeth removed. This was a like in the park compared to that. Well, maybe not quite that. But you know what I mean. Of course I was still numb. Like a good patient I took my pain meds before the anesthetic wore off. Then my feeling came back and that was not good...at all. However, it wasn't as bad as some of the pain I had before I went to the dentist.

So, that's that. I hope this truly is the final episode and that my "empty spot" will heal quickly. Still needing to decide what to do with this spot. I have 3 choices, a bridge that would affect the teeth on each side (the problem tooth was the next to last molar on the bottom right). I prefer to not do that, my teeth are pretty healthy and I don't want to do anything to compromise them. Then there is the "frankenstein" tooth, which is essentially a tooth that connects to a screw in my jaw. That sounds creepy and of course is the most expensive option but would not interfere with the surrounding teeth. It would completely use up the year of Mr. H's health savings account and then some. Or I could just leave it as an empty spot. But I just don't know if I could do that. I'm kind of a freak about teeth. And I'd feel all uneven. (Just a little OCD thing I have about my body. Worthy of it's own post. I'll spare you that...for now).

Any input? Have any of you been faced with with similar choices? What did you decide? And thanks for following along with all of my woe is me posts. I know this hasn't made for the most captivating blog series. *blush*