Fun as a Root Canal

Dear Diary,
I began yesterday at a dentist appointment. It's been more than a week since I gave my eye-tooth there - had it pulled. It looked like there was no other option after trying many others to remedy an old root canal I had when I was 16. That procedure was long and involved, and if that's not bad, the doctor said afterward said it might give me some trouble since they didn't drill deep enough. It lasted 23 years.

Remembering that experience, I was braced for a pretty bad morning. The doctor said the only way to check for sure that the tooth next to the pulled one is really dead is to drill without novacaine. That sounded like a blast from the past so we tried it and it worked! No pain as he drillied about and inch or so up into the canal of my very front upper tooth. Then they have these neat rasps that they used to drag stuff out of the hole that goes nearly up to the bone. Am I being too dramatic?

The crecendo was when he got something green about the size of a mosquito out showed it to me and said: "That's your nerve" At one point he dropped an instrument or somehting which I tried to grab for him, and he noticed my hands were kind of clammy. "You don't need to be afraid", he reassured. The one bright spot was I didn't have to get an injection or wait for the numbing to come.

Next to that, haggling over building materials and running all over town to find them, and trying to keep things at Kama going seemed pretty easy.

Only problem now is that they infection that was still in the old tooth socket seems to be leaking out and making me a bit sick. He said this chronic infection can be cleared out by something he injected through the front tooth's newly opened canal. I'm hoping that works.

On top of that I would welcome prayers to get this long episode behind me.

I'd rather have the fun of a root canal anytime versus the systemic sickness that seems to be associated and sticking with me at least 6 months now. But thank God I'm still moving. This truly may have been too dramatic, once and for all there it is....