i have these damn receding gums, see. really receding, maybe it’s cause i’ve brushed my teeth way too hard, maybe it’s a genetic thing. baaaad gums, and so my dentist sent me to a periodontist for an evaluation. the results were baaaaad. he sent a letter to the dentist that said about half of my teeth have receding gums, but three in particular are reeeeeeeeeeeally bad.
my dentist examined me and said that really, just one is reeeeeeeally bad right now, and i won’t have to get the horrible procedure soon for the other two, and he’ll keep an eye on them.
but that one tooth…
wednesday was the day of my appointment, and i was dreading it. i’d had this procedure done once before, 10 years ago, on another tooth. it involves numbing your mouth, then CUTTING A PIECE OFF THE ROOF OF YOUR MOUTH and then SEWING IT ONTO THE RECEDING GUM.
the thought of it makes me cringe. i mean, doesn’t that sound like something you’d seen in a horror movie?
i never remember things anymore, but i have a vivid and awful memory from 10 years ago of having the piece sawed off the roof of my mouth, and then looking over at the periodontist’s tray and THERE WAS THE PIECE OF MY MOUTH, and feeling queasy.
i don’t remember the aftermath, which makes me think it mustn’t have been so bad, just that sickening feeling of looking at my own skin on a tray.
so you see why i was dreading wednesday.
this time, though, i had a plan. i was gonna SHUT MY EYES AND NOT OPEN THEM AGAIN TIL IT WAS OVER.
good plan.
but still, as i was lying there almost tipped upside down, i knew that a bigass needle was going into my jaw, and then again, into the roof of my mouth and it seemed to go in forever and wasn’t it going to BUST RIGHT THROUGH to my sinuses???
yuck. even though my eyes were shut, i knew what he was doing. there was some tap tap tapping on the roof of my mouth, and i knew that CUTTING WAS TAKING PLACE. he would have his assistant suction the area, and he made a point to not say BLOOD, but i know she was suctioning the blood.
and then there was the sewing of the skin beneath my lower tooth, and i could tell that some kind of thread was going in, and then the snipping of the cord.
and so much suctioning. after an hour, when it was finally over, they whisked away the bib around my neck. they did this because, of course, it was SPLATTERED WITH MY BLOOD.
the periodontist was very nice and told me i’d done a great job, but of course all i did was KEEP MY EYES SHUT AND PRAY IT WOULD BE OVER SOON.
he then told me all the stuff i couldn’t do for a couple of weeks, like eating nuts and spitting, and NO STRAWS. he told me it was the best thing, to keep my eyes closed, but i wonder why he doesn’t tell all his patients to do that? maybe if they’re sitting there watching the horror, then he tells them.
i told him that i closed my eyes because of the skin-on-tray memory, and he said, surprised, “you saw the skin on my tray?”
I DON’T USUALLY SEE SKIN ON ANY OTHER TRAYS ANYPLACE ELSE IN THE COURSE OF MY DAY.
maybe he doesn’t set the skin on the tray anymore, i don’t know and i hope to never find out.
he sent me home with a prescription for vicodin, and luckily kevin had driven me to my appointment because i felt completely worn out.
i started taking the vicodin but it made me so loopy and tired but also kind of zazzed up, so i only took it on wednesday.
there was actually surprisingly little pain, but the periodontist said that when i got home, and then all day thursday, i needed to put an ice pack on my swollen chin for 20 minutes on, 20 minutes off.
it wasn’t so bad doing it on wednesday because i was so out of it.
but thursday, a very bizarre day. all day long, staring at the clock, as the 20 minutes on dragged out forever. i didn’t even have the energy to read, so found things to watch on tv – there was a kathy griffin marathon running, and i watched a lot of her. the 20 minutes on dragged out, but then i would find something to do for the 20 minutes off, and that 20 minutes always flew by. 20 minutes on, 20 minutes off, it was strange to watch the whole day go by in those very small chunks of time.
kevin was down in the basement and at one point came up and was going to turn on the air conditioning because he was concerned that i must be hot, but since i was just lying there like a slug with an ice pack on my face, i wasn’t hot at all. just really, really tired and drained, like i’d run a marathon or something.
i had quizzed the doctor about exercise – could i do zumba thursday night, could i go running on friday, could i do zumba on sunday?
no, no, and no. no impact til at least monday, because he didn’t want the stitches to get loose. is that why? it must be.
i didn’t even feeling like moving on thursday anyway, much less doing any zumba.
friday, i was a little better – i could at least read. friday night we we went to dinner and i was gnawing on a very soft breadstick, and i felt a piece of the bandage thing on the roof of my mouth fall off. the doctor had put these blobby bandage things on both the roof of my mouth and over the stitches; the one over the stitches looked like silly putty. i don’t even know how the stuff stuck to the roof of my mouth to begin with, but a chunk of it fell off. the doc had given me a page of instructions, and one was CALL ME IF THE DRESSING COMES OFF.
well, i tried sticking the piece back up there, and it stayed for a while. we got home and mollie was trying to climb up my leg to get at the leftover container i was carrying, and the chunk had fallen off again and stuck it back on again and i was trying to call the doctor (he’d given me his home number), and..i swallowed the piece.
i left him a message, he called right back and said that if i didn’t feel uncomfortable, it was ok for the bandage to be gone.
it really didn’t feel bad, just weird to touch the place where a layer of skin was missing.
so your mouth heals really fast. i had a glass of wine and an ice cream bar, and the other piece of that bandage came off, too.
i felt good enough to go to the fair yesterday, and i feel pretty good this morning but i think i’ll wait til tomorrow to go running.
meanwhile, what about the other two teeth? i know there’s some kind of procedure where, instead of BRUTALLY SAWING AT YOUR MOUTH, instead, they build up the tooth with enamel so the gum won’t recede. i’d had this done to yet another tooth when i lived in LA, but i guess i figured that they didn’t do that around here, or maybe they’d decided it didn’t work, but then kevin’s friend wayne told me about how he was putting off HAVING HIS TOOTH BUILT UP. so my question now is, why didn’t my dentist recommend THAT instead of the barbarism of the cutting and stitching??? i will be finding out. i would really rather do anything in the world than having the whole deal done two more times.
that is all for sunday morning.
ok then,
mrs. hughes.