I was in a conversation today. Someone was nervous because she was having 2 wisdom teeth taken out. It made me think of some of the dentists which have had me in their chair.
Dr. C was discovered when I woke up one morning with a gum abscess. It seems that when I was 12, I was hit in the mouth by a thrown softball. Twelve years later, the abscess finally blew up. He told me that abscesses would sit for several years. He would usually see them in men who would get into fistfights. However, he had not seen an abscess which had remained in situ for such a long time.
Many years later, I had a renter who had planned to go on a motorbike tour of some duration. He would be leaving on a particular date, which he did. But he returned only a couple of days later. I asked him why he returned so early. He said that he had a gum abscess. I related what the dentist told me, and his frown turned into a glorious smile. I smiled back and I said, "you were in a fistfight." He said yes, and he was thinking of the other guy, and the pain he must have had.
Anyway, back to Dr. C. He treated the abscess, then when the infection was gone, he did a root canal. That was not so bad because the tooth was dead in the first place. He had carefully placed a wire apparatus in my mouth and draped the rest of the mouth. He started drilling on the backside of the tooth. Partway through the procedure, he uttered a single word. "Damn." Huh???? I never asked him what happened, and I probably should have. He told me he would have to cap the tooth. I would have to do that within the next 5 years or else the tooth would fall out. Here it is, 35 years later, the tooth was never capped and I still have that tooth.
