Tooth and Consequences

I finally made it to the dentist this morning. In fact, it turns out her office was just down the street from me, a block from the PNC Bank on the White Horse Pike in Oaklyn. Both the dentist and the assistant were pleasant, cheerful young women, and their chatter helped me through what turned out to be a bigger deal than I'd originally assumed it was.

What I thought was a cavity and sore gums was a very, very large cavity in a fractured tooth that was poking into the gums. The cavity was so big, it was getting close to the nerve. Yes, I had to have anesthesia. Yes, I had to have it drilled. Two drills, in fact. She used a small one I barely felt and a larger one that made a lot of noise, hurt somewhat, and reminded me of the trains passing by across from my apartment. It took forever for the right side of my mouth to numb, too.

I'll be going back next week. I have to get my dental forms sorted out with the Union, and I still have a chipped tooth and another cavity that needs to be done. (And I should have done the chipped tooth last year, but I put it off because it didn't hurt...) My mouth is still a bit sore, and I can't bite down too hard on things on the right side, but the pain isn't nearly as bad as it was. If anything, I feel that needle jab in my gums and the side of my mouth more than anything.

I watched El Dorado to cheer me up before and after my appointment. El Dorado is one of John Wayne's most popular vehicles. A gunfighter rides into town, followed by a young man new to the area, and helps out a drunken sheriff and his deputy when a local family is hounded by a corrupt shipping magnate and his hired guns. The cast (including Robert Mitchum as the sheriff and a young James Caan as the kid) and the script (written by Leigh Brackett, who also wrote Han and Leia's classic banter in The Empire Strikes Back) makes an otherwise slightly cliched movie work. (If the story seems familiar, El Dorado is a color remake of an earlier Howard Hawks/John Wayne movie, Rio Bravo, and was remade as Howard Hawks' last film, Rio Lobo, in 1970.)

Thankfully, after all that, work was steady but not too bad. I rode to and from work in the rain, since I had some grocery shopping to do and I didn't want Dad to have to pick me up after his surgery.