duck-shaped pain

7 February 2003
Dental revenge.

Yes, I realize that it's been a while since I updated. I have good reasons for the delay, though, at least reasons that are good to me.

Organizing events for the club I am now in charge of has taken up a lot of time. I hope that future events will not be quite as time-consuming, but this week, I had to find out a) how much money we have, b) who would know how much money we have, c) where their office is, d) where the person I can get money from is, and e) what special forms I have to fill out to get a measly $25 out of our account in order to buy snacks for our event next week. Luckily, no one but me had a real opinion on the proper snacks (I was envisioning a spinach and artichoke dip vs. chile con queso duke-it-out battle, with screaming and crying, but it was not to be), which means I alone get to pick. So it will be fresh mozzarella balls and marinated olives, which may be to the dismay of the supermarket-onion-dip-in-a-plastic-tub crowd, who could have had their say had they shown up to the proper meeting. So there.

One of my so-called teeth is angry. I have a fake tooth, right in the very front of my mouth, which was put in after I lost a tooth in a car accident in 6th grade. I have had several fake teeth in there, since they inevitably wear out after a while. The last fake tooth I had put in was during my freshman year of college, which was a long time ago. Since then, the tooth has slowly chipped away until it resembled a small, dark iceberg jutting out of my gumline. I say "dark" due to some ineptitude on the part of the dentist who put it in -- he ground the porcelain down too far when he was making the tooth, exposing the metal, which eventually turned the entire fake tooth dark grey. It looks pretty gross, but is harmless, so my response was just to learn to smile without exposing my teeth. I've had either no dental insurance or completely suck-ass dental insurance since then, so replacing it hasn't really been an option: replacing the tooth would cost about $1500, and there have always been other things I've needed or wanted to spend money on, since it wasn't really affecting my ability to eat or talk or anything.

Anyway, at some point last night, another part of the fake tooth came off, which left the metal screw that anchors the tooth into my jaw exposed. (The process of putting this screw in my jaw was ugly and traumatic, I have to tell you.) Before, the tooth insulated this screw from varying temperatures, but today, whenever I've put something hot or cold in my mouth, Mr. Screw would heat up for freeze almost instantaneously and send a jolt of very hot or very cold feeling into my gums and jaw: aaaaaaaaa! The front of my mouth has been tender all day -- it might finally be time to see the dentist and save up for a new tooth. This sounds like the kind of thing I could hold some sort of yard-sale fundraiser for: Save the Tooth.

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