Just last month I passed my annual dental exam with flying colors and reported, "Another year without a new filling or crown anywhere; outstanding!" Famous last words, indeed.
For no apparent reason, this weekend my upper left bicuspid started twinging whenever I ate anything hot, cold, or containing sugar. No, let me rephrase that; the sensation was no mere twinge. It felt as though someone had inserted a red-hot needle in the tooth's nerve. Since the tooth in question was home to a silver filling old enough, were it human, to vote, I called my dentist on Monday and visited him today. Alas, both the filling and the tooth were cracked and I am now considerably poorer and possessed of a temporary crown.
On the positive side, the experience was totally painless. I had to eat lunch much later than usual, though, because most of the left side of my face stayed numb for several hours. I don't recall ever having a numb nose before; that was a really bizarre feeling. The numbness also affected my lower eyelid although not, thank goodness, the upper. My upper lip was the area that took the longest to come back to life; by the time it did I was beginning to worry that I would never be able to drink without dribbling again.
Everything is back to normal by now, except my bank account. I can hardly wait to go back in two weeks for the permanent crown.
"Some tortures are physical
And some are mental,
But the one that is both
Is dental."
~Ogden Nash
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