[Caninelaw]

Yesterday I had to have a tooth extracted. It was loads of fun. Anyway, the story on this tooth is that about 6 years ago or so I had to have a root canal done on it. Last November, during a duck hunt, on a weekend of course, the tooth starts hurting me. By the time I got home it was really hurting. I call my Dentist and he says he might be able to see me on Sunday morning. About a half hour later he calls me back and says meet me at the office. (Great guy! What other dentist would do that on a Saturday night!). So I meet him there and it turns out I have an abscess in this same tooth that a root canal was done on 6 years ago. He tells me he doesn't know if he can "save" the tooth and might have to pull it. So he has to drill out the old cap, drill out all the cement inside and remove a post he put in there. He works on me for about an hour and a half and finally he says, "you're going to like this" and he put this little camera in my mouth that shows on the TV screen above the dental chair and there all kinds of puss and blood coming out of the tooth. Man, that felt a lot better!! Anyway he re-does the root canal just to make sure everything is out of there. Anyway, a couple visits later I've got a new cap and figure every thing's okay now. Well, fast forward to yesterday. I'm at the bank paying my mortgage payment and the cap just falls off. I look at it and there's a post sticking out of the cap and I'm thinking, "That can't be good". So, I drive around the block to the dentist office and go in and show them the tooth/cap and the gal at the desk says, "uh oh, that's not good". So after about a half hour wait they take me in, shoot and couple x-rays and then the dentist sees me. He looks at the tooth/cap and the x-ray and says, "What's left of the tooth is cracked in half. That's not going back on, we'll have to do an extraction", (DAMN!!) So he numbs me up and starts digging and pulling (I should point out that this is a three root molar, of course, not one of those smaller one root teeth - the good part is at least it doesn't show being that far back, LOL). Anyway, what's left of this tooth in my head is so brittle its coming out in pieces. He digs and pulls and digs and pulls and finally gets it all out after about and hour and a half of work. I'm bleeding like a stuck pig and it feels like a mule kicked me in the mouth. Well, took the day off work today because of it and at least it isn't bleeding any more but it still aches, although more like a small pony kicked me now. I'll have to go back for follow up next week and then decide if I'll get an implant or a bridge. And then, the fun part, pay the bill for all this...which I think will hurt more then what happened yesterday.