This Has Not Been a Good Day (or, Another Trip to the Dentist)

Source: willisnowell/Photobucket.com

I’ve talked about my latest dental issues, where I’ve needed two crowns. Today was the day I went to have the two of them seated on my teeth. Driving over, Mary said, “I bet you’ll be out in less than an hour.” I wish I had taken that bet.

My appointment was at 2:00. I go in and the assistant, D, gets the temporary crowns off my teeth and tries the new crowns. One fits great; the other, not so well. I can feel it keep slipping around as she tries to put it on. “Okay, hang on a minute,” she says, and disappears.

In the time she’s gone, I managed to go to the restroom, play two games of Scorpion (solitaire), do a sudoku, and play a game of 2048, all on my phone. So, you know it was a good twenty minutes to half an hour before the dentist and D return. (I understand there was a dental emergency, so it’s not really their fault.) The dentist tries putting the troublesome crown on my tooth; after five minutes of both her and D’s fingers in my mouth, she says, “You’re not going to believe this. It doesn’t fit. I have to call the lab.”

So they leave the room, I go to the restroom again, do another sudoku, and am in the middle of another game of 2048 when they return and tell me they need to retake the mold of my tooth for the knuckleheads at the lab. This process, incidentally, requires they wrap string around the tooth post and push it under the gums, as I described here. D pokes and prods and tucks the string around my tooth, and the doctor returns. Before she pulls the string out, I ask her why they do that. She tells me it’s so they get a better impression for the lab, which in theory makes their job easier and the crown fit better. Okay, fine.

After ten minutes of having my mouth full of the silicone they use to take the impression, they take it out and go to work on the other tooth, the one for which the crown was built correctly. After cleaning the tooth and blowing it dry with air several times, D hands the crown to the doctor. She puts it in my mouth and tells me to bite down.

She reaches into my mouth and takes out the crown, which is now in several pieces. “I don’t know how you did it. They’re made of zirconia. We’re going to have to take another impression.”

To make a long story short…

• My appointment started at 2:00, and I didn’t get out of there until 5:00;
• They have to rebuild both crowns;
• I have the old temporaries in; and
• I have an appointment for two weeks from today to get the new new crowns fitted.

I’m exhausted. I’m going to bed.

Ever have a dental appointment go sideways like this?