A Tooth Fairy's Tale

When I was studying in the States, we were required to do some sort of assignments called “reflexive questions”. It consisted of several questions about activities you have done and how you felt and what benefits or loss you might conclude from the experiences. The purpose: do something, learn from it, which in the end, learn about yourself. That, plus the great possibility that I suffer from histrionic personality disorder (really, the more I think about it, the more I am sure I have a personality disorder), makes me reflect on what has just happened to me and the reason behind it.

Some of you who have known me for quite a long time – especially if we went to seafood restaurants quite often – might have seen me crushing crab shell or opening a bottle of beer or biting off a label tag with my teeth. You might have felt the pain within yourself, as if YOU yourself had done one of those things.

Well, last weekend I had toothache (again, the same tooth for probably the last three years). I knew it clearly, as it has always been, that I wasn’t fit. This particular tooth was filled when I was in the high school. And everytime I am dehydrated or about to catch a cold, it hurts, as if giving me signal that I need to pay attention to my body and health. I took it for granted. I drank a lot of water, slept or recuperated myself as soon as I noticed the signal. Good thing is: the pain went away as soon as my body was fit again.

But, this time, things are different. The pain stayed put. It dragged my gum since Thursday (or probably Wednesday) and didn’t go away until Monday, regardless what I did to reduce it. On Tuesday, I decided to see a dentist, which I believe is not anyone’s favourite thing. The dentist decided to drill a hole in that tooth so that the heat, as a side effect of inflammation on the gum, to break out from my mouth. I had to go back the next day. He couldn’t pull it out as the inflammation was still there. “Come back tomorrow and hopefully it is fit enough to be pulled,” he said.

On the next day, I was ready and so far three dentists have handled me. The newest dentist tried to pull the whole tooth. This is understandable as it takes shorter time, less work and everybody is happy. But he failed.

“I need to cut the tooth into two so that I can pull each part of the root,” he explained.

I looked at the four surgery lamps above me with the hope that they could blind all my senses. Maybe this is why people hate going to see dentist.

He finally cut it and tried one more time. I don’t need to explain how it felt like when he hold the half-tooth and made a circular movement. He couldn’t do it, either. Oh, good. Then came the second doctor, a rather cool one with ponytail. He took a look and took over the surgery. Oh, man, I bet he does weightlifting quite regularly. I even felt numb on my anaesthetized left jaw when he finally pulled out one part of the tooth.

Thanks. That helped.

The new doctor continued the work. After a little more efforts, he finally took the second part.

Oh, thank God.

“Wait, what is this part?”

Wait. What?

“There is something more. Be patient, we’ll be finishing soon,” he looked at me smiling, trying to soothe me.

After the cracking and wooshing sounds from the machine, the tooth was finally gone. And here comes the explanation.

“Your tooth has three roots, that’s unusual. As you may have known, most teeth have two roots only,” he showed me a picture of anatomy of tooth. “We didn’t see it on X-ray because the film is two-dimensional, and this one hide behind the other.”

“Another thing that makes our surgery today a little difficult is that the root is not pointy at the end as the usual root. Yours are a bit thick at the end. Imagine pulling a bended nail,” he smiled.

As a bonus, I was allowed to see my tooth before it was thrown away. I saw at least six pieces bloody calcium. 

What a tooth!

After that I kind of thought to myself: That is why, I was able to bite off those hard things. Some of them might have more than two roots. I felt grateful that I decided not to wear a brace seven years ago. Maintaining my uniqueness is more important than having the same look like others as I might be defined by my teeth.