it's broken

After the drilling sound in the dentist's chair ended, he took pictures of the big gapping hole! It was worse than he thought. Not something you want to hear from a dentist. Already with two fillings in that one poor little tooth, there was apparently decay underneath the first filling. That was first done when I was 10 years old, I think? After I spent 3 non floride years in China, I had 8 cavities to fill that year! That was also a result of a lack of education on dental hygene. So as the dentist drilled, scooped (yes scooped out the decay! ah!) he came across a dark sliver that lead to a deep dark chamber... A superficial patch has been administered and now I await a root canal!

When I saw the graphic pictures of my decaying/decayed tooth, all I could think of was "broken!" It's broken and I felt a sense of sadness and grief. It's funny that it's just a tooth, but it's MY tooth. It's the tooth that God gave me to chew with til I die (and if I die with old age then I have at least another 40 years) and now it's broken and it can't be fixed. So sad. I thought to myself, I'm definitely going to be really diligent in teaching my kids good dental hygene. And I thought to myself, "now will I floss?" What is going to make me floss? And then I was flooded with thoughts about issues of discipline in my life and then to be interuppted by more drilling... sigh, a root canal! I cannot believe it!

Ok, now I'm ready for my root canal. At least I will still have a tooth. I also got thinking that if I lived in a different country (eeks, scary thought), different time, oh the pain... I'd rather have a root canal.