What a Week!

I know, I know. It’s only Tuesday; how bad could it be? Well….

Sunday night while eating dinner, I bit down on something. It felt hard and crunchy. A moment later I felt something poking the side of my tongue, kind of like I had something stuck in between my teeth and my gums. I couldn’t get the offending poky bit free with my tongue. I got up went into the bathroom, looked in the mirror and realized the crunchy bit was likely part of a tooth.

Monday, I tried making an appointment to see a dentist. No, not my dentist. I hadn’t been to a dentist in years as my teeth never bothered me. I do brush and floss regularly, so I left the dental checkups at the bottom of my priority list. Part of the reason it was so far down my list is… frankly, I hate going to the dentist. The most pleasant possible outcome of going to the dentist is being told you don’t have cavities and then you walk out with that weird uber smooth feeling to your teeth. Bah.

Tuesday, I hadn’t heard back from the dentist’s office. Yesterday I’d submitted a request for an appointment via their website. But since I hadn’t heard anything and I was tired of my busted tooth poking my tongue, I called them. I was able to get myself an afternoon appointment and headed over at the appropriate time. Oh and about an hour before I started over to their office; snow in large quantities started to fall. [INSERT CURSING HERE] I got over to their office in plenty of time and started filling out the paperwork. All the staff at the office were unfailing polite and helpful but it didn’t make me feel much better about being there. After a short wait, I was taken into the back and had my teeth examined by a dental hygienist.

I have to say things have changed in the years since I’ve been to a dentist. Now the x-ray machine is digital and they have a computer monitor attached to the patient’s chair to display the x-ray. Also they’ve got a digital camera about the size of a ballpoint pen used to take photos of your teeth. Side note: eeeew, cavities and broken teeth look terrible blown up in full color on computer monitors. They also have a new diagnostic tool which measures the density of the tooth to determine if there’s a cavity (and to tell if the cavity is bad enough to need fixing).

The end result of all this new technology is I got to see how bad my teeth are. How bad are they? Well, I’ll be getting 3 fillings and a crown. Wheee!

*sob, sob*

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