Day 3 of ~ 120 Tooth Saga

*****Section one- tooth history and deciding a course of action************ I have a tooth I have affectionately called "my freaky tooth" for my entire life. It is one of my front teeth. It has it's own medical history and a variety of procedures performed on it over a life time (oral surgery at 10, root canal at 13, braces twice to hold it in place, etc.)
I started having trouble with the gum around it a few months back. After a few trial and error procedures, my dentist (Dr. Mazur) decided that he thought it might have a fracture in the tooth so he sent me to the endodontist (Dr. Hart) to determine that. Dr. Hart did a couple procedures (including drilling out a 20 year old root canal that they must have used concrete to seal since his drill bit kept getting caught in it) and trimmed away some gum tissue and still did not see a fracture. Hmmm. So he sent me to the periodontist (Dr. Gomes) so see what he suggested before Dr. Hart did any more. Well... he and Dr. Hart decided the best treatment would probably be to extract the tooth and do an implant, much to the dismay of my regular dentist, Dr. Mazur. After a long conversation and some 5 year guarantee of failure, Dr. Mazur was convinced that was the right course of action too.

******* OK- If you knew all that already... you can skip to here**********
Ok- so for aesthetic purposes they make something called a flipper that is basically like a retainer with a fake tooth attached so I don’t have to walk around with this huge hole in my head. I was supposed to go pick up my flipper from Dr. Mazur's office last Thursday so I would have it in hand when I went for my oral surgery this past Monday morning. Well... Dr. Mazur's office called and said they did not have the flipper yet, but they would have it directly delivered to Dr. Gomes office so not to worry about it, it would be there in time for my surgery Monday morning. So we get to the office at 8:15 Monday morning and my first question is- do you have my flipper. The appropriate retort was, no we thought you were bringing it with you. Nope... they said it wasn’t ready and it would be here for my surgery. So they sent out a search team to find it and Dr. Gomes says not to worry about it because he will "do something" if we don't find the flipper. Did I mention he's from Venezuela and has a fun accent? :) It's so much more fun to read that way. So when they take me back there, I ask him what the something is that we are going to do if we don’t' find the flipper. (OK- they aren't finding the flipper- did I mention that Dr. Mazur's office is closed this week so they can't check to see if it got delivered there instead? :) ) So here's what they do...
He took out the real tooth and he cut off the root of that tooth and then used resin to glue it to the 2 teeth next to it. Interesting concept and not such a bad idea since unlike the flipper, it would stay in. So he says we will leave this as long as it stays, but if it falls out then come right in and we will put the flipper in. Turns out there was a fracture in the tooth too..so it was the right thing to do... and now I have a titanium post in my jawbone that feels like it goes up into my nose. :)
So... I go home... bleed a lot... don't rest much.. eat soft foods. Tuesday, stay home from work, sleep most of the day... eat soft foods... feeling pretty good by Tuesday night. So I get up this morning, get in the shower... and feel a pop. Sure enough... one side of the resin had popped loose... so I went in this morning and now I have been flipperized afterall. It's a pain...literally.. pushing on the incision and hard to talk with it in. So its lots of fun. :) And it's only day 3 of approx 120 days of fun! Dr. Gomes said I will only have this for a few weeks and then we will, of course, "do something else" :) I can't wait...