The "Waiting Place"

If you've ever read the Dr. Seuss book "Oh, The Places You'll Go", you might remember the Waiting Place. As the good Dr. says, it's the most useless place. This is where I've found myself.  I've had the hardware removed, and I have an appointment next Thursday to begin with my dental work. I've been so looking forward to this part (root canals, oh my!) because it means the beginning of the end of the ongoing pain I am experiencing with my teeth.  Once the root canals are complete on some teeth, the pain should go away.

However, when the arch bars (or "grillz", as I prefer to call them) came off, Dr. M found that the lower left canine, the 33 tooth that came out during the accident, was not re-attaching as well as he had hoped. In fact, it's very loose. It's also being squeezed by the teeth beside it, so whenever I yawn, chew or touch it I can feel it grinding on the adjacent teeth. It's not pleasant to imagine it moving so much, and it's also incredibly painful. So, Dr. T (my dentist) will pulp it (root canal it) and bond it to the adjacent teeth in a last gasp effort to get it to stay put, but the prognosis isn't good and so I'm preparing myself to lose it.  It's a pretty important tooth for mouth structure and is also located right above one of the fracture sites, so may require a bone graft to be able to place an implant. It also needs room to exist so I will likely be without it for a while if it does come out. Braces will help to make room. The other tooth I'm likely to lose is the 14, which is the 4th tooth from the back on the right side. Not a "front" tooth, but also not really a "back" tooth. It's likely vertically fractured to the root, which is completely unsalvageable if that's the case.

I'm most concerned, however, about my top front teeth. They were moved with the block of bone they sit in, which is the part that was actually damaged. They need pulpotomies at minimum, but they have also both changed colour. It's not obvious because I had them both capped in a previous dental life, but if you look at the back of them (which I can with a makeup mirror) they look ghastly. The right one in particular is quite painful, and if they are broken at the roots, they will need to go as well. Just the very thought of this is horrific to me. This, in combination with a couple of others being gone, just breaks my spirit. There are a couple of others that might go too - the 35 and the 45 are broken very badly, and may or may not be salvageable. So in total, I stand to realistically lose any combination of 6 teeth. We won't know until Dr. T gets in there and takes a look.

So waiting to find all this out is, in the least, very nerve racking. I've been oscillating between feeling like it's all not so bad, I'm not critically ill, I will survive this and it will all be ok in the end, and then feeling like it's all so traumatic and awful and preparing a bunker in my basement to hide in until it's all over. I can't tell if it's one or the other, or maybe it's both just at different times, or somewhere in the middle all the time. I mean, let's get real here.....

I'm a 33 year old woman, who fancies herself at least somewhat attractive. I've lost bone in the sides of my face, making it even skinnier and longer than before and it's really not very pretty. This can be fixed with bone grafts in the future - BONE GRAFTS!  Come on!  Then, possibly losing a bunch of teeth, including the front ones....and having to wear a "flipper" until I get permanent replacements put in. Or braces with hopefully some fake teeth attached to look somewhat normal. I want to have another baby sooner or later, but how do I even manage to feel attractive enough to smile in front my husband, let alone feel sexy. I love him, but if he lost a bunch of teeth, let's be honest. I wouldn't look at him the same way either. At least not until they were replaced. And all this because what? I went to a gym class?? I wasn't in a car accident, I wasn't sky diving or doing a extreme sport, or in a street fight. I was trying to do something good for my body. I know several people who've made the risky decision to engage in street fighting and THEY have all their teeth! Why did I deserve this??

So there you have it. I'm trying to stay sane in the meantime....hopefully I can keep  my head (and teeth) above water.