Today has been a hell of a day. There's really no other way to describe it. I woke up late for my dental cleaning, but made it in time to see the dentist about my toothache. Turns out there's nothing he could do for it, except recommend that I go to an endodontist for a root canal. I was then taken into a consultation room and given the bad news. All of the procedures that were related to the root canal but not including the root canal add up to $1600. When I asked how much a root canal itself might be, I was quoted a whopping $800. After this, I'm sorry to say I broke into tears. The woman didn't know what to do with me. I didn't know what to do with me. I've never felt so hopeless in my life. I left the place and sat in my car and sobbed. I had two choices. Ask my parents to pay for the whole root canal or get the tooth pulled.

I mulled over it all day, asking everyone at work about it. The bottom line became, I don�t want to make my parents go into debt over one tooth that's in the back of my mouth. No one will see it if it's pulled and it will be about a tenth of the cost of the root canal. I have decided to have it pulled. This is not easy for me. At first, I wasn't sure why. I'm not really a vain person. Scars are part of my charm. I guess having a tooth pulled represents a last resort. Something that poor people do. I guess it's time to face it, I'm poor. Not in the living on the streets sense, but in the "choosing cheaper over better sometimes" sense. I am currently the only one in my immediate family that has all their real teeth. I guess it was bound to happen.

On an interesting dental note; I am apparently a shark. On one of my x-rays (which were taken by a handsome, young, Russian immigrant turned dental hygienist with beautiful eyelashes) showed an extra tooth growing underneath my right molars. There it was, plain as day and so out of place. Yet, I've seen this before in my own dental x-rays. Before my wisdom teeth were pulled, I was given a full mouth x-ray. You know the kind where you stand while the machine moves around your head? Anyway, that x-ray showed two evenly spaced, small teeth growing under my other canines. At the time, I was really excited to learn that I had vampire teeth. Later, when I found out that the surgery to remove them was only half successful, I was really bummed. I was also positive that I would never, ever go in for that kind of dental surgery again. Well it looks like there may be more on the horizon for this sharkbaby.

I just realized that I've written an entire entry about teeth. I apologize.

Kelly