I do not like needles...

I do not like needles. I do not like needles in my arm. I do not like needles in my hip. I really do not like needles in my mouth.

But the old 41 year old crown had allowed a cavity to form underneath it so it had to be replaced. And it was needles in my mouth and an extra gallon or two of nitrous oxide going through the mask on my nose.

My amazing dentist who babies me told me in the beginning that there might not be enough tooth left to hold a new crown once the cavity was drilled away. But I'm an optimistic person. He was going to remove the crown, slap a new temporary crown in place and I was going to eat a hamburger on the way home.

Optimism lost the war.

What was left of the tooth when its crown finally gave up the ghost was not enough to work with so it had to be extracted, a bone graft slapped into place for an implant on down the road and there would be no hamburger on the way home.

So the process began after I informed the dentist that I wanted him to be sure he chose bone from a genius to put into my mouth. He promised that he would and the tooth was supposed to pop right out so the next step of the procedure could start. However the root decided that it had hugged up next to the jaw bone for more than 60 years and they'd become good friends. I think there was even something about the jaw bone telling the root bedtime stories but that might have been the nitrous.

An hour later I told the doctor that he could cuss the thing out if it would help since nothing else was working. It must not have wanted to hear bad words because it slipped out and I named it Henry and decided that it should have a birth certificate.

End of story?

Oh, no! I do not like pain so I said yes when the dentist asked me if I wanted a prescription for pain pills. I took one at bedtime and my brain did crazy things for 48 hours. Thinking all the way through a whole sentence was impossible. I wasn't sure if I was asleep or walking in a time-travel novel.

My grandmother used to tell me that food will cure anything and I believed her. But after the procedure I was only permitted to have cold liquids for 24 hours and then very soft foods for a few days. So there I was in pill la-la land and could not eat to cure it or the sore jaw. No wonder I couldn't finish a sentence.

I really like my dentist. I have faith in him. I give thanks for nitrous. But I will never like needles.