$1100 later, and I sound like Mushmouth.
I worked the first half of today from home because I had an appointment to have a permanant crown installed in the top-left side of my mouth. At the same time, Dr. Hong was to start drilling out tooth #30, the first molar from the front on the bottom-right side of my mouth to take care of a fairly nasty cavity that's also been giving me trouble lately.
Four hits of novocaine later and I was still feeling the drill and trying to run away from it. No matter what he did, he wasn't able to knock out the nerve to do the job. Family Dentistry managed to get me another emergency appointment with Dr. Suh down on route-7, so after stopping off at home to change clothes (I didn't realize that it was supposed to hit the high-70's/low 80's Fahrenheit today) I was off to have more inflamed nerve tissue extracted from my jaw with a series of small metal drill bits and a rapidly spinning drill. Thankfully this trip was just as easy as the last one, save for the fact that I took another three hits of lidocaine to the jaw and one right down inside the tooth (thanks for finding that extra nerve, by the way), this time accompanied by an ominously wet crunching noise coming from somewhere below the gum line. The deed was as rapid as it usually is under Dr. Suh's care, and much easier to handle thanks to the placement of this particular tooth.
At this moment most of my face is numb, the hinge of my jaw hurts like somebody kicked me (I hurt all the way up into my temples), and my front teeth feel weird, as if one of them got knocked loose somehow (it didn't; I checked several times).
I don't have much else to say on this matter, save for the fact that I'm going to bed to sleep this off.