the saga of decay to extraction

It was Jan 23 when my tooth was on it's way to dying. That was about two and a half months ago! The dentist drilled it open only to find the decay was scoopable and it opened way to the canal. This was the beginning of the saga. And I anticipated the saga to end too early. Because there is more to the saga. Let's count how many times dentists have actually worked on the poor tooth... to bring it to the state that it's now in... (skip the painful details and go to the bottom for the update).
1. Dr. L worked on tooth to fill it, tells me root canal is needed.
2. Dr. L starts root canal treatment but is unable to finish because of the infection.
3. Dr. L works on it some more after I come back having taken some anti-biotics, and he finishes the root canal with a final filling. (it should have ended here!)
- (ulcer developes from pizza crust scraping the infected roof of my mouth aparently the root canal was causing my mouth to be inflamed. So this wide open ulcer causes me to be utter pain for a week, can't eat, can't drink, can't speak. I lost a few pounds of water but I was pretty sick of Ensure for all meals! Congee was a lifesaver! All that to say, I'd rather give birth by c-section again than go through that experience!)
- (Dr. B, a second opinion, sees ulcer and says, "oh!" and I cry in the dental chair(because that's not a sound you want the dentist to say when he sees your mouth!) Dr. B takes x-ray of tooth and tells me that something looks amiss, and he shows me the picture of a proper root canal and mine. eek, they sure don't look the same! Go figure.
4. Dr. Y is the endodontist (root canal specialist) who starts on my tooth again to re-do the root canal that was obviously unsuccessful. Drilling begins and he inserts medication to fix things.
5. Dr. Y drills through temporary filling and replaces medication again because I still have sensitivity.
6. Dr. Y drills through again because the inflamation still is there, bad sign. It was a bad sign a LONG time ago.
- (at lunch while chewing on a piece of bread I hear a loud crunch! I find that my tooth just cracked! I want to cry! Extraction! This was the word that Dr. Y kept talking about "if the root canal treatment is unsuccessful", I refused to consider the option, but now I must! Extraction!)
7. Dr. Y pulls out the hanging half of my tooth. This was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life! All he said to his assistant was, "please get her a kleenex."

No wonder my tooth gave out seven times! And Dr. Y tells me that it wasn't so much my chewing or anything that caused my tooth to break. There was likely a fracture that was causing all the problems in the first place. So my question now is, "how does a tooth get a fracture in the first place?" But asking this question is not so productive for my frustration. I asked God, "why didn't you heal my tooth? why didn't you do a miracle?" And I realize that I am not entitled to miracles, yet God has given me huge miracles in my life. Just because he doesn't grant the little ones, who am I to demand miracles from God? It is His gift of mercy.

So the gift of mercy this time was coming across a brochure about how teeth are replaced. And it just gave me that glimpse of hope for post-extraction.

I still don't look forward to the "extraction"--sounds like execution to me.