Well, the first half of it's done, and the worst of it is over. That's the dental appointment of yesterday I'm talking about. The fun part? It didn't take long, and it didn't really hurt as it happened. The doc jacked me up with plenty Novocain (and assured me there was a lot more where that came from, if needed) and set to work. Since both sides of my mouth needed work, he didn't want to do all the work yesterday and leave my mouth pretty much useless for the rest of the day, so I go back in a month for the other half of the work.
That said, the big stuff is done, and for that I'm happy. The tooth that was missing a pretty good chunk had really been bothering me. So that was the first order of business. The doc drilled back there for a while, and I was nervous about it. The last time I'd been drilled, the dentist who did it managed to find the places that made me jump. This guy, though, was gentle and the drugs were good. Drill away, Doc.
Finally he got things bored out where he wanted them. (When he took a break, I ran my tongue back where the broken area had been, and it was weird feeling this bored-out area back there. Spooky!) I was warned that a root canal may be in the cards in a few years because the damage went pretty deep, but the doc said he'd try his best to fix things to minimize that possibility. Before filling everything in, he coated the bored-out area with some treatment material, and then set to work with the dental resin. A few minutes later, my tooth had four corners again, and after final shaping and finishing it was good again. He was so good that I didn't realize he'd done a second tooth until he told me "Okay, you can go home now." The mouth dope wore off a few hours later, so until then I walked around feeling like the Tears for Fears guy, but when the dope wore off all was well.
So that's done, and I'm relieved. There are three teeth left to fix, but according to the doc, they won't require a lot of work and some of them won't even require being numbed up. I'm relieved that the big work is done. Now I just hope that treatment takes, and that I won't end up going through a root canal down the road. If you have spare fingers, please cross 'em for me.
:: This episode of existential dread is brought to you by Western Electric I don't know what kind of chutzpah has been in me of late, but I've been having to use the phone more, initiate calls and everything, and the immersion has been good for me. Yesterday, for instance, I had to initiate three phone calls for various reasons, and I was getting nonchalant about it. One of them was to the gift shop at the Edwards AFB Museum, the one place where it's possible to get Muroc Models products. I needed a couple of the Muroc decal sheets for the R4D project, and they hadn't answered my e-mail out to the museum, so I gave them a call yesterday. I ended up talking to a really nice lady in the gift shop and had a wonderful conversation with her. (Gee whiz, how I can turn on the charm sometimes despite myself! You should have heard how repulsively smilin' and small-talkin' I was with the DirecTV representative last week trying to get the new box activated. I almost made myself sick listening to myself joking with the rep.) And now it's all sorted out, and the little airplane will have her decals soon.
So why do I dread this stuff? Good question.
:: Miss Brahms is free at last Wendy Richard died the other day. An actress with many roles to her credit over the last several decades, but to me she'll always be the lovely Miss Brahms on the beloved Are You Being Served?
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