Something much worse

Yesterday I had a dentist appointment. Not my favorite thing to do. I truly loathe going, even if it is just for a cleaning. I just have this thing about people sticking their hands in my mouth and banging around in there, plus I have extremely sensitive gums and teeth.

Well, yesterdays appointment was to have a few small cavities filled. (I haven't been to the dentist in 5 years...of course there are going to be cavities) Anyways, as my dentist begins to drill on my first tooth she makes a comment that this cavity is bigger than she thought. About half way through she mentions to her assistant that she cannot finish this one and for the assistant to prepare a temporary filling. She continues on with my other 2 teeth. After she is mostly done she explains to her assistant to finish my teeth and explain to me "the procedure". At this point I am starting to worry....What procedure??. The assistant finishes her work, sits me up and explains that the first tooth she was working on, my wisdom tooth (yes i had all 4 wisdom teeth) has extreme decay and if she continues to drill the tooth will basically crumble so the only option is to pull it. So I am given the option to have the tooth pulled while I am already there and numbed up or to come back on a different day. Assuming it would save some money and time, I gave them the go ahead to do it while I was already there. I asked the assistant if it would be painful. She assured me it would be completely painless and all I would feel is a little pressure...well...let me tell you...it was more than a LITTLE pressure. Do you remember the old Norman Rockwell type pictures of "the first dentist" where there is a patient sitting in a chair and a dentist standing on top of him yankin on his teeth?? Well, this is the best description I can give to how this whole thing felt. I had the assistant standing on my left holding my forehead and lower jaw firmly in place and my dentist on my right holding my upper jaw still with her left hand while she put these massive pliers in my mouth with her right hand and just started to yank and twist with some serious, heavy duty pressure. Eventually after about 10 minutes of tugging and twisting the tooth did come out, after which, my dentist proceeded to wipe my face with a cloth. I must have given her a confused look because she said "we prefer to have our patients blood-free before leaving our office". Apparently when they pulled the tooth, my gums squirted blood from the pressure. So they packed my mouth with gauze and sent me on my way informing me to eat only soft foods, take tylenol for pain,swish with salt water and keep my mouth packed with gauze for a while to stop the bleeding. It took all night for my gums to stop bleeding and I had pounding headache and jaw ache til this morning, even after taking Tylenol.

Today I am in better condition, but still have some pain. I can hardly eat...at least anything that requires much chewing. Hopefully the pain in my jaw (from having my mouth stretched open for 2 hours) will be gone by tomorrow. And people wonder why I would rather go through child birth than to go to the dentist....well...almost.