Living on Anbesol and Advil

As mentioned, I had a root canal a couple weeks ago, and the pain was far less than the last one I had some 15 years ago. But then I had to have some work done on another tooth, and the mouth discomfort after that one was mighty steady; not a sharp pain, but a constant ache, for which I was surviving on certain medicines.

And it was not great timing. Last weekend, the daughter didn’t have soccer, but the Wife and I did have a wedding to go to, a co-worker of hers who I didn’t know to a guy I knew just as well. The service was at 2 pm in Niskayuna, in neighboring Schenectady County, and it was lovely. The reception wasn’t until 5 pm, in Altamont, in Albany County, a 30-minute drive, so we did what we needed to do

Too close to exploding manhole covers

For about four days, it started hurting when I would eat while using tooth 19. So this past Wednesday morning, I finally called my dentist’s office. Amazingly, I got an appointment that day at 2 p.m. (if not that day, then it would not have until tomoorow). From my symptoms , he believes I need a root canal. The tooth had been capped many years ago, not by him, and it’s a good chance that it has an infection, though nothing ominous is on the X-ray.

He referred me to an endodontist who has done work on his teeth, who can take me in a week. The bad news is that the specialist doesn’t take my insurance, which means that I’ll have an outlay of $1000 to $1500. The semi-good news is that my insurance company will reimburse me about 50% after the fact.

The Toothache

There is a great bit by Bill Cosby on the Why Is There Air? album from the mid-1960s called The Toothache. It’s only about 4 minutes long, but it is full of great wisdom. Without having heard it for possibly decades, I remember some great lines such as:
“Here’s the difference between novocaine and pain. Novocaine doesn’t deaden pain. It postpones it. It allows all its pain buddies to get together and say, ‘We’re going to hit that hole at five o’clock.'”
But the best line, and it’s the delivery, not the words:
“And the pain…was tremendous…”

Well, I went to the dentist on Wednesday.