A little bit of a pun and a play on words today.
May - it's MAY! It's the time of year when all of the flowers bloom and the gardens come alive with colour and life! The butterflies are out, the bees are buzzing happily around and the joy factor starts exponentially increasing for me.
May also seems to be notorioiusly my most expensive month. This year I get to experience what it is like to have dental work done. I got my very first cavity (the tiny little thing is was) last summer. At the time I was a little upset, as I'd gone #@ years without one. It didn't require freezing, the dentist barely turned the drill on, filled it and voila fixed tooth. So, when see also found a tooth in my mouth that was completely cracked all the way in half and told me I'd need a crown, I was scared.
I've never had to experience anything like it. The tooth didn't even have a cavity in it. However, there was a very small, perfectly symmetrical crack between the cusps all the way through the tooth. So, we scheduled a cleaning and some time to create the crown I would have in my mouth for however long it takes for it to break.
Crowns aren't necessarily covered under dental plans. The type of issue I have with my tooth is not covered by any dental plan anywhere. It's going to cost me $960 for this new crowning tooth. I actually thought about just having it pulled out. At my age though, and with the fact that my parents spent $4,000 on orthodontics to make my smile look like I had teeth and not grand canyon spaces in my mouth, pulling the back molar would mean my teeth would move, negating the work I had already had done to make it all nice and lined up with no spaces. Obviously the other option was to leave it alone and do nothing. Doing that wouldn't have covered the crown or the cavity work I would have to have in the future because it was already documented and X-rayed.
$960 dental work it is then.
Scared is an interesting emotion to control. I'm not really into needles. I do not handle anaesthetic very well (the few times I've been under it), and I'm not looking forwarded to needles in my mouth. I've asked about 4 separate people questions concerning the entire procedure, each time to be met with a confused look, like it's something I should already know since I have had cavities. The answer I always give them is that I didn't get my first one until last year, and she barely did anything to it, except fill it. When they learn I've just now had my first cavity, AND the tooth in questions WASN'T the tooth with the cavity, they get much more sympathetic.
So - freezing gel on. By the way DO NOT swallow that stuff. It numbs everything. The lady on suction didn't get it all and I got a smidge down my throat - what a weird feeling that is! Eyes firmly and tightly closed. Needles in - yes they didn't feel good, and one hurt because she caught the nerve and the bone at the same time. And then we had to wait for 5 minutes for it to actually work. It wasn't instantaneous like some people. The process of feeling your face slowly grown tingly and cold is an odd sensation to go through. Eyes remainder closed with they open and close and open and close and open and close and open and close my mouth, as she shaves down my poor tooth.
Here is where I get a little strange, as I was silently mourning my near flawless teeth, as the one I grew in my body and that has been residing in my mouth for ## years is now being set up to be covered by a foreign object.
Nothing smells great - think of when you file a nail and get a little bit of that burning bone smell. Same thing. Then you put your teeth together and bite down a bit so she can figure out where else she should shave down so when the actual crown is placed your mouth, your teeth aren't too changed and your mandibular muscles not too fatigued from learning to deal with the new tooth. All of this in an effort to save me both cavities and a potential root canal later.
Lots of stuff flies about. This dentist is a bit of a perfectionist - we did three molds of things so the crown could be just right. A temporary crown is cemented into place and 3 hours later you are out of the chair with an enlarged yet frozen tongue, and half your mouth - lips and all - frozen from cheek to chin.
Whem you thry tho thalk, you thsoumd fummy! And the toofph feels weird!
The freezing will stay in until sometime later in the day. Eating is difficult unless its mashable in your mouth. With the detox diet I'm on - high protein, veg and nuts - I'm not able to chew things like red meat today, or eat nuts for about a week. Eggs will be my best friend for a couple of days until my mouth feels better.
Basically, this is the most expensive not-fun thing I've done in a long long time. Two weeks from now my actual Crown will be in. They have to uncement the temp that is in my mouth to put it in.
Other things that started for me this month, include Statistics. Ugh! So far it isn't too bad - an assignment every week, a quiz every other, and three exams this summer to get through. A bit of a busy summer.
Still plugging away at the debt. I'll update that over the coming weekend. And of course, there are some life decisions that will need to be made this month. Some very big things are sitting in the forefront awaiting decisions.
