Credit bites

Things you really don’t want to hear from your dentist #2: “Well, let’s just open up wide and take a look back here at OHmygod.”

Twice this year I’ve been woken up early by pain. The last time it happened, I ended up in the hospital with a case of pancreatitis, and left without my gallbladder. Today the pain was in my mouth. It’s been there for a couple of days, and I was doing what I normally do with pain, ie. feeding it ASA and ibuprofen in the hope it would shut the hell up and go away. I’m only 47% idiot, however, and when the pain continues for more than a day and starts to get worse, that’s a definite Sign.

I did a bit of research on the internet, looking up information on root canals and abscesses, and then went into the bathroom and poked around inside my mouth with a finger and a toothbrush. The gums weren’t tender or swollen — good sign! But when my finger happend across my upper-left wisdom tooth, it reported back a few things. First of all, there appeared to be a rather gaping hole in the crown. Secondly, it felt a little bit of enamel crumble away at its touch. Thirdly, when it emerged from the mouth, it was coated not only with saliva but with something a little thicker and rather more reddish-beige than is normally associated with saliva.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have discharge. 9 August 2005: for my 34th birthday, my body starts falling apart.

Easily fixed, somewhat less easily paid for; although my insurance covers most of what I paid for the procedure, it does so after the fact. I get the money mailed back to me after paying the dentist and oral surgeon upfront. I don’t get paid until Monday, and the middle-of-the-month paycheque is the one that I use to keep my credit cards from hitting their limits — and at this point, after abusing my cards during my tSc days, that’s like trying to hold one of those kiddie styrofoam surfboards under the surface of the water. I knew I was close to the limit, but I still got a rather nasty shock when I double-checked the balances and realised just how thin the ice currently is.

(As I typed that last sentence, holding in my mind the sound of ice cracking softly beneath me, a car drove past my windows, crunching and popping over the gravel. Dude, bad timing.)

Soup and rice and water until December 2007. That’s the plan.

#1 is “Oops.”