The Teeth

I'm having a root canal on Tuesday. It will be my third or fourth (I've lost count) in the past nine years. All of this is triggered by being completely asinine on December 31, 1998.

I had been in DC for nearly a year and 1/2 at that point, so I'm not sure why I was so convinced that I was going to get lost in Chicago. But, I was. Terrified. My sister and I went to visit her friend from nursing school, Connie--my first visit to the Windy City.

I was always the responsible one, so everyone decided at the beginning of the night that I should be the keeper of the keys, cash, id and lipstick. I put the coat check tickets in my pocket and we headed into what looked like a high school gym decorated for the prom. There were about 5 stairs, a landing, and then 5 more stairs. My sister fell down the first set and Connie fell down the second set--both of them giggling the whole time. I knew I was in for it at that point.

If you can't beat em, join em, right? So, little Miss Responsible decided to just loosen up. However, the fear was apparently still present because I remember trying to keep up with Connie's feathered coat after standing up and spitting out my teeth. It would seem that I hit a patch of ice on the sidewalk after Connie and I abandoned my sister at the prom. I don't remember the impact, just standing up and spitting my teeth out. It being New Year's and all, I didn't want to impede anyone's good time, so I popped right back up. I remember looking at the top of my left wrist and noticing it was "scratched," so I pulled my coat down over it and dashed to keep up with Connie.

I caught her as she was walking into the bar. I pulled my ID out of my pocket and handed it to the bouncer.

Ya'll, I had just spit my teeth out and I HANDED THE BOUNCER MY ID LIKE IT WAS A TUESDAY NIGHT AT CAP LOUNGE. Can you imagine what he thought? I often crack up wondering about the people who MUST have seen me hit the pavement. Don't you know they are still telling the stories of that girl who bit it on New Year's that time?

At any rate, Connie turned around to ask if I wanted a "bee-OH MY GOD! What happened?" she hadn't even noticed that I fell. I must have convinced her to just head home, because my next real memory is sitting in her den while she called the doc on call for her practice (she's OB GYN) to ask if losing a tooth is like loosing a finger, "Do we need to go back and get it?"

I finally convinced her that I didn't need to go to the OR and headed to bed.

When I woke up the next morning, my first thought was, "Oh, God. Please let that have been a nightmare," but the washcloth on my hand gave it away. A quick run of my tongue over where my teeth used to be confirmed that I was remembering things correctly. And I just cracked up. I mean, what are you going to do at that point?

So, I called my dad and asked him to call the dentist I had just met a few days before and I rearranged our flights and we headed to the airport. My sister had to sit down in the middle of O'Hare a couple of times, she was laughing so hard, and I had to inform a crazy lady that her "kind" solicitation of moving seats was not going to happen considering I felt worse than I looked (capped off with a big smile), but all in all, the flight was uneventful. Ends up, my arm was broken, too, so that was our first stop once we got back to Mayberry. The orthopedic surgeon who lived down the street said he wasn't worried about my arm; it was my mouth that was troubling (his wife burst into tears at the sight of me).

We met the dentist at his office, and fours hour later, I had some front teeth again. I had to come back on Monday (I think this was a Friday or Saturday) for a root canal and some finish work, and returned the following April for another root canal.

I'm pretty sure I had another root canal a year or two ago, so they are pretty much old hat at this point. But when I started having pain in my right front tooth last week and googled "tooth pain in a tooth that's already had a root canal," I panicked a little. I tried to hedge my bets at the dentist on Friday, but it became crystal clear that the nerve in my right front tooth is dead as a door nail. I just knew it was going to have to be pulled, but ends up, old righty had been spared a root canal up to this point. So, because of one too many awful cosmos at a grown up prom nearly 10 years ago, I get to have my fourth root canal on Tuesday.

And that's the story of how I lost my teeth.