268
R. Linda:
It be amazing how memories, bad ones, come sliding back when someone you see experiences something you had long ago. Only in this case, it wasn't me who had the experience directly, I was the experiencer indirectly. It was back when I was living in Boston and Tonya and I were getting serious. She had complained for a week about a back molar that was bothering her. She went to her dentist and he could find nothing wrong with it. She visited him three times in one week and he declared, "Root canal!" Which is what he did. The process was painful and the after-effects were more painful. She had it done in segments, and when finished, it still hurt.
I remember it was a Friday night (I wanted to take in a flick but we couldn't because of tooth pain). I had fallen asleep in front of the telly snoring (I didn't know I was) and she was up looking for something to stop me from snoring, probably a pillow to push over me face, but thankfully, the pain was too intense and she couldn't think straight. I was glad I had given Flanagan back the muzzleloader he let me borrow for an article I had done on ancient firearms because Tonya told me she couldn't take the snoring and the pain at the same time and wasn't it lucky I didn't know how close I had come to life's end?
The next morning I told her to call the dentist, there was no reason she should go on in such pain for the weekend. Dr. Hannibal Lecter, her dentist (she called him that) did not work weekends. He had no one covering for him, just a recorded message informing the caller he'd be in the office Tuesday.
I asked, "He doesn't work Mondays?"
"No," says she.
I be thinking I be in the wrong business.
By Saturday night, Dr. Lecter's name changed to Dr. Mengele. Tonya left a message on his machine telling him the pain had gone beyond agony, "to a place there is no word to describe it." He called back Sunday morning!
"Gee, that's too bad Tonya."
Uh-huh. Yes, it certainly was.
"Well, let's try the ibuprofen again. Stick with 600 mgs." He suggested.
"No, let's extract THE TOOTH instead," Tonya suggested back with some force.
"Well, like I told you there are no oral surgeons working on Sunday."
"But, this is an emergency!" She shouted.
"Oh, take the ibuprofen and stick with the augmentin, and by tomorrow you'll feel better. That combination worked last week. Let's give it a chance."
And those were his feelings on her and THE TOOTH. But the med cocktail only worked for a few hours last week, it wasn't consistent. She took it anyway. After taking the ibuprofen she was immediately ill. I called her good friend (because that was what he was becoming) the pharmacist, and he switched her back to aspirins with yoghurt. Now there's a combination! If you ever need a medicated snack, that's it. Yummy.
By 11:45 that night she was once again doing the pain jig around the bedroom, and wailing up a storm like an Irish banshee. She got the whole second floor up with her she did. They, her sympathetic audience, decided to call their doctors who were less than pleased to be awakened for a dental emergency. One said it was Dr. Mengele's problem, but recommended -- are you ready? -- "Take 800 mgs. of ibuprofen with ice cream." Do you know what her mouth would feel like with ice cream in it? Do you know how long it would take me to stop her screaming? Can you just see all of us trying to peel her off the ceiling?
Yes, if we could have found a dentist that night, Dr. Mengele would indeed be history. However, after the Monday morning threatening phone call from Tonya, he decided he better see her. Upon poking about at THE TOOTH, he still saw nothing wrong, so he finally gave up and went to his back office to make an appointment for her to have the thing extracted. So concerned were people on our floor for her they went with her for this appointment. Can you imagine seven people shuffling in with her and what Dr. Mengele must have thought? No wonder he would make an appointment for extraction. And it wasn't with him, he didn't do extractions. So back he went as we all stood there waiting and listening to the moans coming from the chair that contained me poor darling Tonya.
Prior to this, Tonya had announced Sunday night to all assembled that, "Tomorrow I go see him, whether he has hours or not he better make em'! And tomorrow I get THE TOOTH extracted whether it still pains me or not. And then, after I have the name of an oral surgeon, Dr. Mengele will never see me again, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER!"
It turned out that almost everyone on the second and first floors had Dr. Mengele as their dentist. The whole lot of them were pulling out. The wagon train of mass exodus was about to leave Dr. M's office, teeth and all. Even the children of Mrs. Bentley at 105, two of whom had appointments, were pleading on hands and knees not to have to keep those appointments with the "butcher" as they referred to him. Mrs. Bentley granted the requests and said she felt like a royal granting her minions favours.
THE TOOTH was still with us. Tonya was very disgusted. Dr. M gave three oral surgeons a call. All three couldn't see her until the following week!
"Can you believe this?" She stormed.
She gave the last surgeon a call herself and gave the nurse on the other end a song and dance about THE TOOTH and she at least was sympathetic, especially when Tonya told her what medication she was on. The nurse was aghast. So, she talked to the surgeon and Tonya got an appointment with him at three the next day. Good.
She hung up the phone, looked at Dr. M and said, "THERE, that is how it's done! So that's the saga of THE TOOTH for the moment," and out she slammed, all seven of us running out behind her.
She got in the passenger seat and with her arms akimbo said to me, "And, how are you doing my dear?"
I didn't know what to say.
The next day at three we were at the surgeon's office. THE TOOTH was removed and she told them not to throw it away she wanted it. She'd have it dipped in gold and wear it. The nurses shrugged and said they'd save it.
Interesting thing about that tooth, the surgeon said to us afterward he could see nothing wrong with it. Why was a root canal done on it? It was a perfect molar. HUM.
Nowadays, doctors associate unexplained jaw pain with heart trouble in women. This phantom pain had come back but not in the waves of sheer agony, Tonya had experienced before. The strange is that once the tooth was removed the pain disappeared for a long time. She had a stress test to make sure her heart was all right and it was. So she will continue to watch it.
But all this came back to me today as I visited Dr. Daven for me annual chopper checkup. All is well with me choppers, but as I was leaving a woman came in holding her jaw and moaning in pain. Flashbacks of THE TOOTH came crashing back. I left the office for me snowy drive home to New Hampshire, thinking about Tonya and THE TOOTH, which resides in her jewellery case in a small brown envelope. I had asked her if she was having it dipped in gold, but she said no, she'd rather forget about it, yet she can't seem to throw it away. She did call her former dentist after the extraction and informed him of the perfect molar comment. He didn't know what to say. Neither do I.
Gabe
Copyright © 2010 All rights reserved
Be prepared to be grossed out. THE TOOTH.
R. Linda:
It be amazing how memories, bad ones, come sliding back when someone you see experiences something you had long ago. Only in this case, it wasn't me who had the experience directly, I was the experiencer indirectly. It was back when I was living in Boston and Tonya and I were getting serious. She had complained for a week about a back molar that was bothering her. She went to her dentist and he could find nothing wrong with it. She visited him three times in one week and he declared, "Root canal!" Which is what he did. The process was painful and the after-effects were more painful. She had it done in segments, and when finished, it still hurt.
I remember it was a Friday night (I wanted to take in a flick but we couldn't because of tooth pain). I had fallen asleep in front of the telly snoring (I didn't know I was) and she was up looking for something to stop me from snoring, probably a pillow to push over me face, but thankfully, the pain was too intense and she couldn't think straight. I was glad I had given Flanagan back the muzzleloader he let me borrow for an article I had done on ancient firearms because Tonya told me she couldn't take the snoring and the pain at the same time and wasn't it lucky I didn't know how close I had come to life's end?
The next morning I told her to call the dentist, there was no reason she should go on in such pain for the weekend. Dr. Hannibal Lecter, her dentist (she called him that) did not work weekends. He had no one covering for him, just a recorded message informing the caller he'd be in the office Tuesday.
I asked, "He doesn't work Mondays?"
"No," says she.
I be thinking I be in the wrong business.
By Saturday night, Dr. Lecter's name changed to Dr. Mengele. Tonya left a message on his machine telling him the pain had gone beyond agony, "to a place there is no word to describe it." He called back Sunday morning!
"Gee, that's too bad Tonya."
Uh-huh. Yes, it certainly was.
"Well, let's try the ibuprofen again. Stick with 600 mgs." He suggested.
"No, let's extract THE TOOTH instead," Tonya suggested back with some force.
"Well, like I told you there are no oral surgeons working on Sunday."
"But, this is an emergency!" She shouted.
"Oh, take the ibuprofen and stick with the augmentin, and by tomorrow you'll feel better. That combination worked last week. Let's give it a chance."
And those were his feelings on her and THE TOOTH. But the med cocktail only worked for a few hours last week, it wasn't consistent. She took it anyway. After taking the ibuprofen she was immediately ill. I called her good friend (because that was what he was becoming) the pharmacist, and he switched her back to aspirins with yoghurt. Now there's a combination! If you ever need a medicated snack, that's it. Yummy.
By 11:45 that night she was once again doing the pain jig around the bedroom, and wailing up a storm like an Irish banshee. She got the whole second floor up with her she did. They, her sympathetic audience, decided to call their doctors who were less than pleased to be awakened for a dental emergency. One said it was Dr. Mengele's problem, but recommended -- are you ready? -- "Take 800 mgs. of ibuprofen with ice cream." Do you know what her mouth would feel like with ice cream in it? Do you know how long it would take me to stop her screaming? Can you just see all of us trying to peel her off the ceiling?
Yes, if we could have found a dentist that night, Dr. Mengele would indeed be history. However, after the Monday morning threatening phone call from Tonya, he decided he better see her. Upon poking about at THE TOOTH, he still saw nothing wrong, so he finally gave up and went to his back office to make an appointment for her to have the thing extracted. So concerned were people on our floor for her they went with her for this appointment. Can you imagine seven people shuffling in with her and what Dr. Mengele must have thought? No wonder he would make an appointment for extraction. And it wasn't with him, he didn't do extractions. So back he went as we all stood there waiting and listening to the moans coming from the chair that contained me poor darling Tonya.
Prior to this, Tonya had announced Sunday night to all assembled that, "Tomorrow I go see him, whether he has hours or not he better make em'! And tomorrow I get THE TOOTH extracted whether it still pains me or not. And then, after I have the name of an oral surgeon, Dr. Mengele will never see me again, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER!"
It turned out that almost everyone on the second and first floors had Dr. Mengele as their dentist. The whole lot of them were pulling out. The wagon train of mass exodus was about to leave Dr. M's office, teeth and all. Even the children of Mrs. Bentley at 105, two of whom had appointments, were pleading on hands and knees not to have to keep those appointments with the "butcher" as they referred to him. Mrs. Bentley granted the requests and said she felt like a royal granting her minions favours.
THE TOOTH was still with us. Tonya was very disgusted. Dr. M gave three oral surgeons a call. All three couldn't see her until the following week!
"Can you believe this?" She stormed.
She gave the last surgeon a call herself and gave the nurse on the other end a song and dance about THE TOOTH and she at least was sympathetic, especially when Tonya told her what medication she was on. The nurse was aghast. So, she talked to the surgeon and Tonya got an appointment with him at three the next day. Good.
She hung up the phone, looked at Dr. M and said, "THERE, that is how it's done! So that's the saga of THE TOOTH for the moment," and out she slammed, all seven of us running out behind her.
She got in the passenger seat and with her arms akimbo said to me, "And, how are you doing my dear?"
I didn't know what to say.
The next day at three we were at the surgeon's office. THE TOOTH was removed and she told them not to throw it away she wanted it. She'd have it dipped in gold and wear it. The nurses shrugged and said they'd save it.
Interesting thing about that tooth, the surgeon said to us afterward he could see nothing wrong with it. Why was a root canal done on it? It was a perfect molar. HUM.
Nowadays, doctors associate unexplained jaw pain with heart trouble in women. This phantom pain had come back but not in the waves of sheer agony, Tonya had experienced before. The strange is that once the tooth was removed the pain disappeared for a long time. She had a stress test to make sure her heart was all right and it was. So she will continue to watch it.
But all this came back to me today as I visited Dr. Daven for me annual chopper checkup. All is well with me choppers, but as I was leaving a woman came in holding her jaw and moaning in pain. Flashbacks of THE TOOTH came crashing back. I left the office for me snowy drive home to New Hampshire, thinking about Tonya and THE TOOTH, which resides in her jewellery case in a small brown envelope. I had asked her if she was having it dipped in gold, but she said no, she'd rather forget about it, yet she can't seem to throw it away. She did call her former dentist after the extraction and informed him of the perfect molar comment. He didn't know what to say. Neither do I.
Gabe
Copyright © 2010 All rights reserved
Be prepared to be grossed out. THE TOOTH.
