btdubz?

I went from 28 to 27 teeth on Thursday.  I, as a pale and pasty faced Drunkenatheist, made it to Penn oral surgery at 10 and was back in an exam room by 10:10.  Right away, the oral surgery students started to run a big shpiel about nitrous.  A minute in, my mouth said “yes, definitely,” while my eyes screeched “OH GOD NOW PLEASE I CAN’T BE AWARE OF THE WORLD WHILE THIS IS HAPPENING.”

For the first time in my life, I learned just how high nitrous gets you.  A few minutes in, I gave a stoned sounding “frankly, you guys can do whatever you want to me right now” to the three oral surgery students in the room.  They lolled.  I lolled.  It was a lollertastic time.  My tooth was out within 15 minutes, and aside from a brief yelp of pain, I felt nothing.  For the record, as soon as I yelped, they stopped immediately and gave me a fourth shot of Novocaine.  I was surprised that the whole procedure was so quick, and right as I was floating along on marshmallow clouds with jelly bean dreams, riding out the high after the tooth was just forcibly ripped from my body, I unfortunately remembered the worst part of crackers: your high ends as soon as you stop inhaling the nitrous.  Damnit.  I completely forgot that it wouldn’t be like my surgery for my wisdom teeth and I’d be back to normal as I walked out to the waiting room.

Unfortunately, my nerves got the best of me, and I can’t remember the names of my oral surgeon or the students who were on anesthesia rotation.  I can tell you that nitrous through Penn’s student dental clinic will only set you back $30 (just in case you happen to Google and come across my accounts of Penn’s dental clinic).

I left University City around 11 with one less tooth, gauze jammed in the mouth and looking all palsied.  (Which was great when I ran into a friend on the El.  Hey, JB?  My bad, didn’t mean to seem like a cock, I was just not too chipper at that second.)  Libertarian Boyfriend used my droopy smile to his advantage and went out of his way to make me laugh so we could see my best Mary Jo impression.

Oh yes, I went for the reference so played out that it’s vintage.

Like I said before, I’m very happy with the care I’ve received at Penn Dental thus far.  I have a normal appointment lined up for the 23rd and will need to get a filling fixed before then.  (Hopefully I can get into the emergency clinic before then; if not, I’ll just have to deal.)

But you know what makes me happiest about it all?  The fact that I was able to get in right away.  Yeah, it really sucked when I was sobbing at 5 am from the pain of my broken and abscessed tooth, but knowing that I just had to hold out for a couple more days made it a little easier to deal with.  Well, that and the half bottle of Three Olives and the old script of pain killers, at least.  I can’t imagine what I would have done if I had to wait longer.  Well, actually, yeah I can: I would have – quite literally – had Libertarian Boyfriend drive me to Camden to spend $60 on coke so we could get my tooth & the surrounding areas good and numb, then take a pair of needlenose pliers to the loose part.

I don’t think anyone should go broke because they get sick, and I think that health care does fall under the category of a basic human right, which is exactly why I don’t think anyone should have to extract their own teeth.  I’m the last person to tell you that health insurance companies are awesome, but I don’t think that government control should necessarily be viewed as better than our current system.

And I know that I’m very lucky, because although we are far from rich (thx, economy!), we are much better off than most people.  At the same time, I’m poor enough to know that stifling taxes aren’t going to help anyone, and certainly not the poor.

Oh well, enough about politics. For now, I’m just counting done until I can truly eat crunchy, munchy foods.  My head is filling with dreams of tortilla chips, crunchy tacos, popcorn, and caramel!

Yum!

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