teeth!
| | Have I told you about my worst nightmare? You know, my teeth dreams?
I have? Oh, I didn't know you ever paid attention when I typed.
Anyway, when I get stressed I have teeth dreams. Usually about my teeth falling out, or breaking apart when I chew something. It's pretty damn awful. Like the most awful thing I can imagine reasonably ever happening to me.
So let me tell you about my day today.
See, ever since a few weeks after I got my wisdom teeth removed, the back gum of my remaining rear molar on my right side has been inflamed. My dental hygenist asked about it when I went in for a regular cleaning. I brushed her off because I didn't want to think about it.
That was the end of February.
All throughout March, the swelling has been getting worse (there's a noticable lump on one side of the gum). And I've still been ignoring it. Because I kept hoping it was one of those I worry about it, so I worry it with my tongue inflaming it worse things. That when I forgot about it, it would go away (working against my own best interest, I google pictures of inflamed/infected gums and get fodder for some fantastically graphic nightmares). It's been weighing on my mind, periodically.
Yesterday it started driving me crazy (like irritating), so poked at it a bunch with my fingernail. Yes, I know bad idea. There is blood, but I felt a little better.
Today, I run my tongue over the bump in my mouth and it feels funny. Not smooth, kind of hard and scratchy. And I think "oh man, I've done it now. I've broken up my gum to the point it's no longer firm but is crunchy. That's like freak show level gums " So I spend like a good two three hours pointedly not thinking about it, but running my tongue over it constantly while Ed and I go out and do fun things. When we get home I decide "screw it, I'm poking at it again." And I poke it gently with my finger.
And I tear the pokey piece off. And I think, "oh crap I've torn off my scab, this is going to get seriously gross."
I'm wrong and I'm right.
I peer at the little "once was a piece of my mouth thing" and hold it up to the light.
It's not a scab, it's not gum tissue at all.
IT'S A FUCKING PIECE OF TOOTH.
There's a moment of terror where I'm =sure- that either all of the rest of my teeth will fall out, or I'll wake up.
I do neither.
A quick tongue check of my teeth indicate that none of them have a 1.2 cm chunk missing from them (I frantically make Ed check my teeth with a penlight for secondary confirmation. The fact that he did so is, I think, a sign of the strength of our relationship).
I figured it out. this tiny chunk of tooth is part of my wisdom tooth that my oral surgeon just missed during surgery. During the healing process, it must have gotten pushed through my mouth and ejected from my gums.
After Ed confirmed on the internet that this is a thing that I did not make up(he wouldn't let me look it up so as to spare me more nightmares) my heart-rate dropped back down to normal.
It looks like my teeth won't be randomly falling to pieces on me anytime soon (and hopefully I am also safe from: giant waves that proceed to block out the sun and run me down no matter how hard I try and run away, ghosts who try and kill me, and attacks of dry mouth that no water can quench [a dream I have nearly every time I have a completely stuffed nose]).
Although I suspect I'll be spending the next few days obsessively running my tongue over my teeth just to make sure.
posted by Amber at 10:32 PM
|
0 comments
0 Comments:
| |
