A picture would be too gross, so let’s just talk about my day.  Recall, if you will, the tooth I had filled in December.  Yes, that’s right, the one and only time in my entire life that I had to have dental work on my adult teeth (ok, my wisdom teeth were impacted and had to be surgically removed when I was 16, but I was asleep for that so it doesn’t count).  I felt fairly violated, in a dental sort of way, that fateful day when my back upper left molar was filled  and I think most of you know that my tooth was still bothering me when we visited the U.S. last week.  I went to see the dentist who filled it and he told me that I probably would need a root canal and to go see an endodontist.  Fortunately there is an endodontist in my language class.  He’s from France (actually he’s Franco-Iranian…very interesting guy) and he practices in Brussels.  We bumped into each other before class in the café I frequent back at the start of level 2 and we became fast friends.  I took my x-ray from the U.S. to class yesterday and showed it to The Dentist, who told me I needed a better x-ray and offered to do everything for me in Brussels.  It was very kind of him to offer, but Brussels is a bit far for a trip to the dentist, so CB called the UZ (Univerisair Ziekenhuis/ University Hospital) and made me an appointment for today.

So this afternoon we took the bus to the UZ, registered me and our insurance information and went to the dentistry building (the UZ is huge, sort of like if all the UPMC buildings were in one part of Pittsburgh) wherein several people in white coats (mostly students but an actual dentist as well) first knocked on my molar until I grunted, then attempted a new x-ray, but my mouth is very small so I had a very hard time biting all the way down on the plate (and the roof of my mouth was abraded by the little square pad thing that’s attached to the bite plate).  Then the x-ray got screwed up and came out too dark so they had to do it again.  After some consulting amongst themselves (with CB to occasionally translate) they decided that I most likely did need the root canal.

Well la-dee-friggin-da, if that didn’t make my day.  Leave it to me to need a root canal on my very first cavity.  I’m telling you what, I can’t do anything half way, can I?  It’s aaaall or nothing here in Lilac’s neighborhood, even when I’m not trying.  Being an overachiever is very trying at times if I do say so myself.

Anyway, they could take me right away (assholes) and that’s when the girl who would soon be mining the ruins of my back tooth led us into this sort of dentist factory of sorts.  Seriously, it was a room with about 20 dentist cubicles, all equipped with dental equipment so that a bunch of upper level dentistry students could be supervised all at once while performing whatever dental work needed to be done.  My eyes popped open and I began to hyperventialate.  It was a bit overwhelming (understatement of the year) as I was led to a chair and sat down and questioned again about my tooth.  Then another couple of dentist-type people whacked my tooth a few times and then finally one of the head dentists came over and poked my filling.  When I yelped and jumped halfway out of the chair they decided to do a hot and cold test on the tooth.  Couldn’t feel much of that, mostly just the residual pain from the constant thumping with the handle end of those little metal hooks.  So they told me that they were going to remove the nerve.  This is also known as the dreaded root canal.

And let me tell you, a nerve that’s supposedly dead still hurts like hell when they’re scraping it out.  And that tiny bit of drilling my dentist did in December? Child’s play, people, child’s play! It was one of the most uncomfortable processes I’ve ever been through. I think the infected pilonidal cyst I had when I was 17 still beats what I went through today, but that’s about it.  So anyway, they packed the sad husk of my tooth with some sort of medication and put a temporary filling in.  I guess I’ll go back in a week or so for a permanent filling.  Unless the tooth continues to hurt.  In that case I’ll recomend that they just drug me up and yank the fucker out, cause there’s no way I can handle anymore drilling in my mouth in the near future.  The smell of smoldering dentin is just too foul to take more than twice in three months.