Don’t flay the sheep.

I Take a Crack at the PIF, My Tooth Gets Cracked

Who knew granola could be so dangerous? While I was chomping away at breakfast, contemplating the possibilty of dragging Erik away from his books so that we could start our new year swimming regimen, my much abused molar cracked right in half. Fortunately, that abuse included a root canal 5 years ago, so it wasn’t as painful as it sounds.

But, it was a rather complicated morning. I’ve been pestering my HR department for months about my mysterious lack of a card from the dental HMO, they in turn have been pestering the HMO, and meanwhile said molar has been biding its time, waiting for an opportune moment to wreak havoc.

My intention today, other than the swimming, was to work at home on the PIF, the Presbyterian pastor profile I need to get together so that I can find a church. Fortunately, that meant I was at home for the day anyway. But when the molar cracked, the crazy phone tag began. I called HR. I called the HMO. I called a dentist. Everyone had completely different answers.

To drop a little more excitement into this, I’m also about 2.5 months pregnant (surprise, gentle readers!). While I’ve not been sick, my stomach has recently taken a turn of being oh-so-demainding about when and what it will accept. Liquid diet? Not very appealing. And I called an OB/GYN to check what the dentist can and cannot do to me.

The morning’s excitement culminated with the moment when I was on the phone finally scheduling an appointment with a dentist, and Erik was on the phone with the OB/GYN’s office (Can she wait a few weeks? No… OK, then. Local anesthesia, OK; x-rays OK with really really good protection.)

Erik says this whole snafu clearly makes the case for a national health care system. Maybe, although as someone who had a British National Health Care card for 6 months, I’m not so sure.

All I know is that by 4:00pm, I hope to be reclined in the dental chair, draped with layers and layers of those lead blankets, getting ready to have some sort of fix performed on the poor molar so that I can chew again because I have a major hankering for some pretzels.

And then, I can come home and take a crack at that PIF!

Update: After an hour with the new dentist (who was excellent), I left with my tooth patched together with the dental equivalent of silly putty and estimates for my two options: a rather involved crown process that might fall apart anyway since half of my tooth is essentially gone, or a bridge. A bridge, as far as I’m concerned, sounds like full on dentures, but apparantly will be more secure. Both options are costly. By the time we got home, I was exhausted from having my tooth probed and rotated, so the PIF has been tabled until tomorrow. Meanwhile, I feel like a dental hygiene failure. Dentures before 30?! A dance-line of every dental hygenist I’ve ever had is tapdancing through my head telling me to floss more often.

This entry is filed under Journal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.