Should be grateful, should be grateful, should be grateful...

BUT I'M NOT!

My dad is retiring in February of 2009 and with that comes the ending of my insurance benefits. So, now I have to make all of those dentist and doctor appointments that I have purposely been putting off. So, I said to myself, "Self, why not just be a winner and get it taken care of." So, I called the dentist and made an appointment. Turns out, thanks to the Chavez soft teeth genes, I had a looooong list of things that I need to have taken care of.

First off, I had a cavity under a filling that my quack dentist did before. It had gotten to the point where they couldn't tell by the x-ray if it needed a root canal or not. It was way close. Anyway, they started drilling and finally got down deep enough to look and it didn't need a root canal. It did need a crown though. So, they filled 'er up and put a temporary crown on and took impressions for my crown. Man was that fun or what. So, for two weeks I had this temporary crown that felt like a biiiiig piece of cement in my mouth. I couldn't stop feeling it with my tongue and it eventually made the tip of my tongue raw. Ouch. Two weeks later I go back in for my permanant crown! Yesss, right? Nope. Crown didn't fit. My 30 minute simple appointment turned into an hour and a half appointment with a numb face and goob all down my cheek. Then, they were going to make me a new temporary, but that would be too easy. The impressions they took didn't even remotely fit my mouth. I almost wanted to scream at them, "Do you have the right one!?" Goodness gracious. So they put the OLD temporary back on (that was chipped from 2 weeks of eating food. That night, I sit down, just chillin' ya know, and the temporary crown popped off. Yay! It has now been two weeks since. Anytime I eat ANYTHING that causes suction, the crown pops off. Once, I was eating chocolate and I bit into something hard and I thought, "Man, I didn't know this had nuts." It didn't, I bit into my temp. crown and chipped it even more. I've called the dentist many times, but I can't make myself be pushy with the receptionists. They just answer phones.

Anywho, the other thing that was wrong was I had to have a root canal! Yay! I've had a stainless steel crown on one of my back molars (19 to be exact...) that I've had since I was about 6 or 7. I remember that exact day vividly that I got that on too. A couple of days before that I was chillin' in the bathroom suckin' on a sucker just minding my own. I was sittin' on the counter checkin' myself out in the mirror and the impatient little girl I was couldn't wait to get the tootsie roll (or was it gum?) out of the middle, so I decided to bite the sucka! I ended up breaking a huge chunk out of my tooth. I was horrified. I didn't want to tell my parents so I even tried to super glue the piece back on. Haha, obviously that didn't work. Anyway, they put that "silver tooth" on and I've grown up with that hideous piece of grossness in my mouth until recently. They couldn't see through the crown in the x-rays so they had to "pop" it off. After 15 minutes of the dentist yanking and drilling, I never did hear a "popping" noise. Haha. The dentist said before they took it off, "Now, I don't know what's under there. I'll prepare you for the worst. It could be mush and I we might need to pull it. Or, it might just need another crown." I almost wizzed in my pants right there. Thankfully, there was no mush and a root canal was all that was needed. My root was curved so I had to go to a specialist. Now, that was an experience. They didn't put me under or give me laughing gas. The locals however made me feel way weird. I didn't like it one bit. After two hours of my mouth wide open and drilling I was done. They cracked my temporary crown when they pulled it off, so they just put a sealant over it. When I get my permanent crown for the other tooth I'll get fitted for a crown on the bottom. Then wait another two weeks (if the lab doesn't mess up again).

And saving the best for last, I have to have my wisdom teeth out. Yay. This is the least of all the others I think. My wisdom teefers have been in for a good year or more and they won't even put me under. Just yank those babies out and I'll be good to go.

But really, I am grateful that I have the blessing of being able to go to a dentist and have my teeth fixed and my parents' insurance will cover it. For this, I will be eternally grateful.

I am not, however grateful for numb faces and drooling on my self with sideway smiles.