It started out as a speck of bone popping through my lower gum where one of my wisdom teeth used to reside. My dentist called it a “boney spicule.” I called it a pain in the ass.
As this piece of dead bone made its way from where it spent the last 15 years untouched and unbothered, its arrival was accompanied by pain that was worse than the extraction it was left over from.
In an attempt to lessen the pain, my dentist tried to remove it, but it wasn’t going anywhere. He hoped that by grinding it down the gum would grow back over it, eliminating the pain.
After about a week of suffering from pain that I’d imagine would accompany childbirth, I had enough. Off to the oral surgeon I went to get this thing taken care of once and for all.
A couple of x-rays later and the only solution was to go in and shave down this portion of bone that was nothing more than pure evil. I signed off on a ton of papers warning me of every possible complication ranging from loss of taste to loss of my virginity.
“What the hell,” I said. I need to get this done before I go out of my mind.
A few minutes later I was strapped in the chair and nodded away while King of Pain by the Police was coming out of the radio in the background. I found that to be the epitome of perfect timing.
As the doctor and his assistant worked on me in a state of twilight, I could feel the pulling, grinding and scraping as they fought to chew up the piece of rogue bone. While coming to, I heard a “wow, that was something” uttered by one of them.
Yeah, that WAS something.
Still a little woozy, I left the doctor’s and headed next door to Walgreens where I waited for Vicodin and sobered up. A couple of those magic pills got me through the night, as did some Luigi’s Italian Ice and Jell-O which I haven’t had since, well, the wisdom teeth were removed.
Today, all is well and I’m looking forward to many pain-free days ahead.
As long as some rogue bone spicule doesn’t come along to screw it all up.