The Crown

I came to work for an 8am meeting this morning. During the meeting they had bagels. As I was chewing on a bagel, I heard (and felt) this rather sickening "ccrrraaccckkk!!" in my mouth.
I had broken a tooth. Not chipped. Not cracked. But broken. I could wiggle part of the tooth independently of the other part. Upper right, fourth one from the middle. I thought it was one that I knew already had a small crack in it, but no, this is a brand new one. The one with the old crack is right behind this one, and needs a crown any day.
In pain, I call the dentist (Dr. Dakin). The woman says, "How soon can you get here?" I say, "In 20 minutes." She says, "We had a cancellation, and if you can get here, we can fix you up this morning."
Needless to say, I jumped (so to speak) at the chance to minimize the length of time I was in pain. I go into the office, and am ushered to the chair in just a couple of minutes (after they ascertain that, although I have no insurance, I can pay the bill). The woman asks how I am and if I'm comfortable. Yeah, well, what else does she really not wanna know? I ask if the head rest can be lengthened, and they take care of that. I am lowered until I think the back of my head will hit the floor.
The dentist makes his grand appearance and shakes my hand, grateful that he has a paying customer after all. He looks at the tooth and says, "Let's hope that the break radiated from the middle to the outer part of the tooth above the gum line, because if it cracked straight up the middle, we'll have to extract it and I'll need to make a bridge for you."
I slink even lower in the chair, certain that the worst has happened. I have visions of blood, gauze packing, pain pills, and a day off at home. Dr. Dakin grabs hold of the inside part of the tooth and pulls slightly. The chunk comes out and falls onto the back of my tongue. They suck it out with the suction thingy.
He looks at it again. "Hmm," he says. "Well, it radiated outward, so I think I can crown it."
Grateful for the small blessings, I said, "OK, let's do it." He dopes me up, grinds away, and makes computer images of what is left of the tooth. He sends all the info to his computer and crown-grinder and tells me to have a seat in the waiting room for about 30 minutes.
I go to the waiting room, doped up. I look for a magazine. There's one "Consumer Reports" that some woman is hogging. There is a magazine in the rack dated 1994. All the others are ragged "Woman's Day" or some other such tripe. No man stuff. No Reader's Digest. No more Consumer Reports. Sigh.
I decide to just sit there and wait. So I just sit there and wait. About 30 minutes later, the woman comes out, smiles, and says, "John, we're ready." So I go back and the Dr. tries my new crown on for size. When he pulls it off, he drops it and it falls onto the back of my tongue. My immediate reaction was to swallow, but fortunately, I was able to control that. He quickly sticks his instrument down there and finds it, bringing it up from the abyss, but never saying anything. I know, though, that he was sweating it for a minute or two.
He farkels with grinding it here and there, trying it on, etc., about 10 minutes, then shows it to me. I'm amazed at how big it is. He dries my tooth (which by this time is an exercise in pain, as the anesthetic has worn off, but I don't want any more), cements on the new crown, grinds some more, and I'm done.
So, two hours (and $750...thank heavens for HSA's) later, I am the proud owner of a new crown, courtesy of a bagel.
Isn't it wonderful!! Crowns made while you wait. No more wax impressions, temporaries that come off, waiting a week or more, etc. Of course, the cost is something to consider. When I went in last fall, the crown for the old cracked tooth was going to be $700. Now this year it went to $750. I wonder what happened that he had to up his price by 8 percent or so.
In any event, things are getting back to normal; my mouth feels like a truck drove through the right side, and I'm ready for the weekend.