Something not to chew on. Or with.
To dentists, teeth have numbers. They start on the top right, so your wisdom tooth there is #1. The numbers continue around to #16: your left wisdom tooth, then down to #17 below, and around to #32, your right bottom wisdom tooth.
I’m losing #2 today at 1pm. It feels fine, because it is dead: had a root canal a couple weeks ago. Turns out it’s kinda rotted, though, and will get worse. The rot is too low for a crown, so it has to go. The plan is to go for an implant after the wound heals. Meanwhile, a gap.
[Later…] First, my surgeon is a Starr, in more ways than one.
It took longer and was more complicated than I expected, mostly because I’m opting for a replacement tooth, rather than a gap or a bridge.
During prep, the nurse told me that fresh “bone matter” would be packed into the root cavities. The idea is that my skull will adopt the bone matter, make it my own, become skull, and then support the post that will be drilled into a solid mix of new and old bone. A new fake tooth will be emplaced on the post about nine months from now. In the meantime, I will chew on one side and mostly gum on the other.
“Where does this bone matter come from?” I asked the nurse.
“Cadavers,” she replied, adding that some corpse’s bone bits may escape from spaces between the stitches from time to time. Swallow it, and I’m a cannibal.
Also, no solids for several weeks. Also yum.
In the meantime, I have pain, addressed by my first opiates since getting my hip replaced eleven years ago. I’m not a fan, but we deal. Wish me sleep.
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