First root canal

Back on October 21 of last year - the day after BlueBear died - I had some fairly major dental work done. Drillings and fillings, deeper than ever before. The dentist warned that if these fillings didn't hold, the next step would be a root canal.

A few weeks later, one of the fillings fell out.

Well, not exactly fell. I had been eating some chicken for lunch at work, and a bit of chicken got caught between my teeth. I discreetly attempted to extract the intruding bit of meat. It eventually gave way - along with a pyramidal bit of filling larger than a piece of rice. My tongue could now detect a significant hole in the side of my tooth.

Uh-oh, I thought.

I called my dentist and she got me in right away. I showed her the filling that had fallen out, which I had saved in a piece of tissue. One of the points of the pyramid was discolored. She told me that this indicated infection under the filling. A root canal was now called for. Putting in another filling on top of the infection would be futile, and would prevent any drainage from taking place, making things worse. She supplied me with a one-week prescription for amoxicillin and a recommendation for a local oral surgeon to perform the root canal.

Root canal surgery is apparently very popular. It would be weeks before I could get squeezed in. A preliminary appointment was set for late January, but I couldn't get the time off. The next appointment wouldn't be available until early March. In the meantime my employer changed our dental insurance, and colds and the flu started to race around at work. I was sick at least twice in December and January, and it wasn't clear that I would be at 100% for the March appointment. That one was cancelled and rescheduled for today, April 10, at 8:30 AM.

I started another one-week course of antibiotics a week ago, to be sure I would be infection-free at the time of surgery. Today was the big day. I headed out early to be sure to have time for the paperwork and the insurance stuff. After just a few minutes of reading a now-outdated article about mass shootings in a TIME magazine from last October, I was called into the office to get started.

The process began with a topical anesthetic help against the back of my jaw of the left-hand side. After a few minutes, I was numb enough to take a dose of novocaine into the nerve. A few more injections followed, and then I was ready for the root canal.

I don't know the technical actions that go on during a root canal. I know it involved a lot of drilling, and something involving a cordless thing like a low-speed drill, and several pauses for X-rays, and at one point the oral surgeon wryly noted that I had "four canals." The anesthetic was very effective. I didn't feel a thing. I tried to pay attention throughout the process, but towards the end I started to doze off. Before I knew it, it was all over. By 10:00 I was checked out and on my way.

About four hours later the anesthetic began to wear off. Now I can feel it. I'm going to my dentist for a follow-up in a week. With any luck, this will be the only root canal I'll ever need.