Another one "Bites" the dust

And then there was one.

Today I had oral surgery to extract a fractured wisdom tooth. Ever since Thanksgiving I have been plagued by toothaches that have sometimes flared up annoyingly. Initially, the dentist attributed it to "night grinding" and he tried to smooth out the high spots on several teeth. But the pain was not beat.

This past weekend the pain flared with a vengeance. So first thing Monday, I contacted my dentist. As I feared, he could not find anything overtly disastrous and maintained his mantra of "night grinding" (by the teeth).

However, he had the assistant take some x-rays. That was something of a chore because the modern digital x-ray machine couldn't reach the tooth at the back of my mouth (perhaps that is why they are so quick to remove kids' wisdom teeth - the x-ray machine can't read that far back). So they had to use the old-fashioned film method. The dentist said it's been 5 years or so since they did it that way.

Again, the x-rays did not reveal anything drastically wrong. The "clincher" was a bite test. When I bit on that last tooth: "Zoowheee! There she blows...!"

We had known for several years that the tooth was fractured and would someday need to come out. It's time had come.

When I went in this morning for the extraction, I did not know if I was having one or two extractions. My dentist had recommended that the matching wisdom tooth above be also removed. The two on the other side are long gone (funny-I thought I was only missing one. Guess that explains why I'm not as smart as I thought I was).

After discussing all the options with the oral surgeon, I decided we would just stick with one extraction for today. The major factors were that the top one was fine and not bothering me and, very important, there was not quantity discount (i.e., 2 for the price of one). 

I'm not exactly a big fan of injections, especially novocaine. On the other hand, the idea of not having anything was less pleasing. God must really love these kinds of situations because they get people to think a lot more about Him. I was even chanting to myself, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." [Phil 4:13]  That sorta helped. I also brought along a couple old "Power of Positive Thinking" pamphlets from Norman Vincent Peale. Those also were a big helped and calmed me down. In his time, a lot of folks thought NVP's Christianity bordered on heresy. But it makes a lot of sense to me. And it really helped me get through this. Thanks God!

Boy, am I glad I only had the one out. Some may accuse me of low pain tolerance but I can't imagine having to deal with twice as much pain as I have now. I don't think the extra strength Tylenol would be enough; probably would need some real drugs.

So now I just have 1 wisdom tooth left. Guess it will have to last me to retirement.