Antarctica Starts Here.

I know I should probably change the title, given the one of my last post. I can't be arsed right now.

I've been offline for a couple of weeks and not writing because I've been giving my body a chance to heal up. If you haven't guessed by now when I say something like that, it's just about a given that some form of emergency dental work was involved, and along with it pain, prescription drugs, and something gross. You would, unfortunately, be correct. About halfway through February of this year I noticed a rather large, loose blister on the floor of my mouth, right beneath one of the problem molars I've been contending with for several years. The one that had an infection that ate part of my lower jaw and left me with two gold teeth, now one.

It's going to get gross from here on out. If you can't deal, just close the tab. It's okay. Believe me, I wish I could have done so.

That blister ruptured about a week after I noticed it, spraying the inside of my mouth with an opaque yellowish liquid that tasted truly foul. Stomach turningly foul. As if something was dying or rotting. I try not to think too hard about it, to be honest. Then the blister shrank and a much smaller one appeared in its place in almost the same location, followed by intermittant pain. I unfortunately remember all too well what happened the last time such a thing occurred so I made an emergency appointment with my dentist. I'm fairly certain it was sheer luck that they were able to work me into their appointment schedule, and after a couple of x-rays two days later it was determined that I had yet another infection beneath one of those pain-in-the-ass teeth, the root canal had once again gone bad, and the damage to my mandible had progressed somewhat (but not nearly as much as previously).

Thinking back on it, ten years or so in between root canals isn't too bad a record. I might have set a personal record there, but that's not the point.

So I was put on a fairly hefty course of antibiotics (amoxicillin, 500mg, three times daily), with emergency dental surgery scheduled three days later. Basically, they were going to pull that tooth entirely, clean out what was left of the socket and the gap in my jaw, install a bone graft, and give me a while to heal up before prepping for a dental implant. They figure it'll take three or four months for everything to heal up enough to continue.

Actually getting the tooth pulled wasn't nearly as big a production as I thought it was going to be, mostly because the last time I had that done was the summer of 2000.ev. I must confess that I'm a little curious about what actually heppens because my endodontist used something not unlike a little pry bar and not the stereotypical big pair of pliers folks usually imagine (thank you, childhood cartoons), but I can't say I'm in any particular hurry to look up videos of the procedure to catch up on what I missed due to my compromised point of view. Cleaning out the infection involved sticking what looked like a rasp deep inside my jaw over and over again; I didn't want to look at what he was scooping out to be honest. I can say, however, that the bone graft wasn't nearly as big a deal as I thought it was going to be. I'd been envisioning something like a chunk of cadaver bone that had to be carved to fit and a more invasive procedure. What it turned out to be was a syringe, sans needle, full of crushed-up donor bone. It looked like the sort of syringe that you'd get heat sink grease in. He just kept pumping that stuff into the hole in my jaw until it was full, put a few stitches in to close the sides of my gum over it ¹, and sent me on my way with a couple of prescriptions to pick up.

It's now two weeks later and I have a rather large gap in my teeth on the lower left side. The sides of the gum are collapsing inward as the tissue fills in from the bottom up, and presumably what's left of the living stuff inside my jaw is growing into and assimilating the bone graft. This is normal, it's how a sudden gap in one's teeth close over. They say it should be sufficiently healed up in three or four months and then we can start planning the implantation procedure. Fine by me, it gives me some time to get a few payments in ².

Something I don't normally talk about is my collection of trophies. Any time I go through something extensive that results in losing bits or pieces, I try to take them home with me. The way I see it, if something's caused me that much pain (and/or cost that much money), I'm keeping it. So, I asked if I could keep what was left of the extracted molar. It had come out in three somewhat large pieces and a couple of smaller fragments so it was placed in a sterile envelope to keep them all together. A couple of days later I ripped the envelope open to let it dry out a bit, and the smell of necrotic tissue hit me in the face like a sodden pillow. My sense of smell isn't great at the best of times but this was truly something one should never behold. I opened the windows, dropped the fragments into an old pill bottle and splashed in some hydrogen peroxide solution (nothing fancy, same stuff from the drugstore). It didn't quite erupt like a baking soda and vinegar volcano but it came pretty close. Hydrogen peroxide solution is a debriding agent ³ so the moment it touched the dead tissue it started fizzing like mad. When the bubbles subsided a bit I capped the pill bottle and let it do its thing for a good hour or so. After it subsided I carefully tipped the used up solution down the drain, added more and let it fizz in a much less vigorous manner for another couple of hours. End result: Three rather large pieces of tooth (including the gold crown and plastic buildup) and rather fewer tiny chunks of bone (because most of it was actually necrotic tissue that dissolved). I have them in a rather handsome looking notion bottle from the local art supply store with a paper tag on it.