What is Pain?

So I talked to my mom tonight, and she was asking how I felt following having my teeth yanked from my grill. I’ve actually been doing remarkably well. Considering how many horror stories you hear about wizsom teeth, I figured I’d almost be dead by now. But I’m still here. But wisdom teeth is not the entire story. So I have to tell it, even if it’s the short version. Plus, my mom told me I was lagging in not getting pictures up on the web.

I only had three wisdom teeth ripped. The fourth was a tooth right in front of a wisdom tooth. It was broken and in bad shape. I first went in to the dentist to talk about my problems in October. I was in pain and thought my wisdom teeth were the cause. But they were not. It was that bastard. Infected. So my dentist looked at it, gave me antibiotics and sent me to two more dentists – an oral surgeon for the wisdom teeth (despite their not being the problem, they still were a problem) and a root canal guy to look at the bad one.

The oral surgeon wanted to leave the wisdom tooth behind the bad guy in, and I wasn’t all fond of that. I wanted them out. In my head, they were still the problem, and until I heard from an expert on the bad one, I wasn’t buying any of it. So I told him I’d wait and see. Then I went to the other guy. he told me that the bad one was not worth saving. I appreciated that, as he stood to make no money off of me. The dentists all seemed to know each other pretty well, too. Plus, they were all cool guys, so I figured I was in decent hands.

I sort of forgot about it all because when I saw the third guy it was right around Christmas. Things were going on. Then I got another infection. So I called my dentist and asked for more antibiotics. He gave them to me, but Christy insisted that I get my shit together and make the appointment to have things taken out. I did, and made it for the week the kids would be on Spring Break so I would have people to take care of me. All of them would be home. So I saw my dentist to get a new referral and made an appointment with the oral surgeon.

The oral surgeon was a bit surprised I was asking for the fourth tooth to be removed. But after the procedure (the first time in my life I’d been put under) he remarked that there was no way that tooth could have been saved. He was nice enough to keep it intact for me to keep forever and study. And I’ve included shots of it from various angles for all of you. Please click the image to see it bigger, and enjoy.