The little tooth that could

60 mph
14 hours in the car
7 different potty breaks
3 screaming kids
All for a five hour root canal

That pretty much sums up my weekend.

Two months ago, at a routine dental check up my dentist notice something “strange” with one of my teeth. He told me he thought it was a bad cavity, possibly a root canal.

No problem.

I’ve had a root canal before and more cavities then I can count. (I have horrible teeth)

So he opens the tooth up. Yup, it needs a root canal. But something was wrong. It wouldn’t stop bleeding. Several times he explained it was the worst tooth he had ever dealt with before. After an hour of working on it, he put medicine in it, put me on an antibiotic and told me to come back in a few weeks to see if he could work on it again.

After that I called my mother to see if my father had ever experienced anything like this before. Come to find out my uncle, (her brother) is an endodontist. (This happens a lot with my mother. There are things that happen in her family, like someone having a baby or getting married or being an endodontist that she never tells me about until years after the fact. My aunt once had a baby and I didn’t even know I had a cousin until she was six months old) Anyway, so I tried to call my uncle, who lives in Boise, to talk to him about it. But I couldn’t get through because his family was in Disneyworld. (Oh, the pains of being an endodontist.)

I went back to my dentist. Again he opened up the tooth, and proceeded to clean it out. Unfortunately, after two hours, he decided it was too much and that he needed to refer me to an endodontist. Good thing I had talked to my mom, because I knew which endodontist I wanted to go see.

So on Friday morning I loaded the car, prepared to haul my kids up to Boise so I could get me tooth drilled. I wasn’t thrilled about dragging three small children in my old van, but I felt this would be best because: one, even after gas and food it would be cheaper, and two, it’s always nice to have family treat you with a medical problem, rather than a stranger. Well, then my sweet father-in-law called me. After much thought and prayer he felt that I shouldn’t drive alone and offered to drive me—in his car no less.

It was so much easier having the company, having another adult and being able to be with my kids. What wasn’t the most exciting part of the trip was the speed my father –in-law drives. Oh he is a wonderful man, a very righteous man, a very safe and courteous driver. And I’m not nearly as safe. I must admit, when the speed limit is 75mph I imterpert that to mean 80 mph and sometimes I have found myself getting up to 90mph before. Not my father-in-law. Especially once it got dark. 60mph up and 60mph back. Though I did see the speedometer creep above 70 a few times, (usually when Hyrum cried) I will admit that it was a great lesson in patience. With all the potty breaks and our speed, Boise took over 7 hours. Not my best time. But we got there safe.

Saturday morning, my uncle opened up my tooth, (the third time for this poor tooth) explained that it has something called root absorption, where the gum has basically started attacking the tooth and eaten a hole through it. Then, using a microscope he spent two hours carefully cleaning out my tooth. Yes, two hours. But I did get to watch all of princess bride during that time. So all in all I’ve spent five hours in the dentist chair for this tooth, and I still get to go back to my dentist to get a crown on it. Fun stuff.

But, the tooth is saved!

Yeah!!

And so, I’m 29 years old and I’ve had 2 root canals, 6 crowns, over 30 cavities, two oral gum grafting surgeries, and braces. Hmmm, I would be so rich if my mouth would behave itself.

And then there’s my husband. He never flosses, (I floss ever night) will sometimes go a year without seeing the dentist, (I go every six months) and has only ever had one teeny tiny cavity. Maybe there is something to that fluoride in the water in California. It makes you wonder.