Royal Pain

I’ve had a temporary crown for a little over a year. No I haven’t been king regent for a small nation, I’ve just had a broken tooth. Temporary crowns aren’t supposed to be in that long. Usually they are replaced as soon as the actual crown comes in. I however kept delaying the date. I don’t know why I put off finishing my crown for over a year. Actually, that’s a lie; I do know. It was mostly procrastination, with a little bit of a busy schedule thrown in and a whole bunch of fear. On my first appointment to get the actual crown (Jan. 24′)in I got the dreaded words: root canal.

Because they couldn’t proceed without a root canal they sent me off to schedule it and I, being a rational adult, did what any responsible person would do, I ignored it.

I made it to my six-month checkup, still rocking that temporary crown like some kind of dental desperado, and was reminded, once again, that I needed to get the root canal before they could put on the permanent crown. I said that there was no longer sensitivity or pain but they said no dice. Since my temporary crown wasn’t painful, I reasoned that getting a root canal (which has always been hyped up as the worst dental procedure of all time) would cause more pain then it would help. So, naturally, I continued doing nothing.

Fast forward to my next checkup, January this year. By now, even my dentist seemed to have accepted my commitment to avoiding this procedure, so they brought in a second opinion from another dentist in the office. She took a look, and like a tenacious tooth tangler, told me that it could be done sans root canal. I no longer had any pain around that tooth and had dodged some major suffering. The pain I was feeling, we formulated, was from the initial drilling to put the temporary crown in. I finally agreed to finish the job.

Thinking I had gotten out of everything scot-free, I of course hadn’t. This wouldn’t be an all luck situation. Because I had left the temporary crown on for way longer than intended, gaps had been open, and I needed some fillings. What should have been a straightforward procedure of replacing the crown, turned into a much longer one. An almost two hour long dental decathlon. But honestly? It wasn’t bad at all.

The staff at my dental office was amazing. They made sure I was comfortable the entire time, to the point where I actually fell asleep in the chair. That’s right, while having my crown put on, I dozed off, only to wake up to them politely informing me that I needed to stay awake so they could finish properly. To keep me engaged, they asked if I wanted to put something on the TV. To keep me engaged, they let me pick something to watch. I went with The Great British Bake Off, a decision I immediately regretted.

The dentist immediately told me that was “just cruel” because it was right before lunchtime. Now they were all hungry staring at the lovely cakes glinting on the T.V. screen. Since I was the one who wanted it put it on, I was told I would need bring them a cake (or pie of equal quality) the next appointment I had. We all laughed, or at least I tried to while having multiple tools and fingers crammed into my mouth.

The moral of the story? If you have something, especially medical, that needs to be taken care of, just get it done. Don’t put it off until you need multiple people trying to work around your broken teeth while you try to pretend everything’s fine. Save yourself the hassle. And maybe don’t put on a baking show before lunch unless you’re ready to follow through on dessert.

One bite of cake at a time.

K