I’ve been very lucky that my body didn’t start betraying me till my twenties. Growing up I saw my pediatrician exactly once a year for my sports physical and whenever I got sick it was nothing more than a cold. My junior year of high school every single girl in my grade got mono except for me (okay I did go to Christian high school so the grand total of people in my grade was 13). To this day I’m unsure if I just had a superior immune system or I was not invited to a very cool party.
So besides a season of chronic bronchitis that just allowed me to watch Lost in my dorm room for a month straight, the first time I had a “uh, what is this” moment about my body was 5 days before I started my senior year of college. Since I’ve never had a boyfriend, this week I am going to write about my most steady and tumultuous relationship- my teeth.
I was a few days away from starting my last year of college when a little twinge of pain radiated from one of my molars. The previous year I had a cavity filled in the same area so I figured it was related. My dentist was a very dry person and the only time I actually saw life come out of his thumb of a face was when I saw a commercial for his dental office (I am mean about him because he was mean about my teeth). He always gave me a blank stare followed by 10 seconds of gross silence before he would answer any question. I hoped the pain would go away so I didn’t have to go back to this dud mouth dentist, but it didn’t go away and just got extremely worse- to the point that it felt like someone was stabbing my brain every few minutes.
I was living in Central Central Florida at the time. Double central cause not only was I smack dab in the middle of the state, I was also smack dab in the middle of two major cities, Tampa and Orlando. I saw the potato dentist who told me I needed a root canal but, of course, they didn’t do those so he sent me on my painfully merry way with Vicodin. In fact, no dental office in Central Central Florida offered that service. At that point I hadn’t slept in two nights and had figured the best way to manage the pain was to swish lukewarm water in my mouth or chomp on Uncrustables peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. The Vicodin didn’t help because I would immediately throw it up anytime it hit my stomach. After several calls I was able to find someone to do a root canal and the only obvious available time was the morning of my first day of classes. I’m not sure if this is still the policy but back then if you didn’t show up to your first day, your classes were automatically dropped and since this was my last year I had painfully curated my schedule so that I could fit all the credits I needed to get the fuck out of Central Central Florida christian college (Southeastern for short). I got my friend Victor to make the hour long trek with me to Orlando and had promised him we would be back before classes started that day.
The summer olympics were also happening during my teeth hell which got me through those sleepless nights. I remember distinctly feeling hopeful that night as I settled into the last bottles of water I had to swish and a fresh box of Uncrustables that finally tomorrow I will have relief and I just have to make it through tonight by watching this Russian olympic team do some flips. Since this was night three of no sleep, I had the drill down pat and was ready to go.
The next thing I knew, I woke up to my phone blaring and I was covered in water. At some point I had simply passed out still holding an open bottle of water. The blaring sound was my friend repeatedly calling me because it was already 7:30am. We raced to Orlando where the Endodontist told me I was simply too late so I burst into tears which made her backtrack on my late consequence and she filled my gums with Novocain to start that sweet, sweet root canal. To this day I’ve never felt a greater relief. I ended up going through my first day of senior year with half my face numb but I simply did not care what the gator boys of Lakeland thought because I no longer had knives in my brain.
Exactly 4 months later, the second filling from that doodle brain dentist would begin having the same pain. This time I was back home in Ft. Lauderdale and it was a few days before New Year’s Eve. I immediately had my mom get Uncrustables and a carton of water while we searched for any open Endodontist during that cursed holiday week. We were able to track one down and it felt nice to have my mom be with me because the dentist we found said I had the smallest mouth they ever worked on while they held a blowtorch inches from my head.
My teeth decided to be nice for a few years and it was a beautiful relationship. Until I went to New York and was eating a piece of orange chicken when I realized that my crown had decided to consciously uncouple away from my gums and hitch a ride down my esophagus. There was slight panic in the moment but I was 25 and still not convinced that my body could do bad things.
A few weeks later I was lazy enough to call a dentist. I thought it was gonna be an easy breezy refitting of a crown and the only thing that would shed tears would be my bank account. The dentist was initially a lovely woman but as I told my story, she would widen her eyes just a little bigger with each detail. After a few tense, silent seconds she asked in the most ominous of tones “have you coughed?” My crown’s trip down my throat happened three weeks ago so in that amount of time I surely had coughed at least once. After saying this she firmly stated “well this isn’t good” as she pulled down a diagram of a tooth implant. She went on to tell me that I would require a chest x-ray because I most likely had aspirated this tooth crown into my lungs where an infection was surely brewing. She then brought down the rest of the brick house on me by pointing at the implant diagram and telling me it will cost $5000 to fix this cursed bite of orange chicken. At this point my eyes filled with tears so she popped in a “and you will need surgery to get the crown out of your lungs.” She had her assistant bring a box of tissues into the room as she tried to comfort me with “It’s just so sad that you are so young and have to go through this.” I left her office and drove one mile to a parking lot to deliver the news of my young beautiful life being destroyed to my mom and also my LA mom. Immediately both told me to get a second opinion and to skip the x-ray. My LA mom said that their pediatric dentist was married to a dentist and that I should check him out. That’s when everything changed.
I met the love of my teeth life Dr. Jay at a high rise office overlooking beautiful LAX. I told my story in the most serious of ways a 25 year old can, sad I was about to break this poor man’s dentistry heart. But instead of having his assistant bring in a box of tissues, he erupted in laughter. He almost couldn’t talk as he said things like “this dentist said WHAT” and “she thinks you still have that crown in you” followed by a “oh okay yes we’re gonna crack open your chest right now.” He told me that if I had aspirated it, I would have known immediately (DUH) and that the problem wasn’t I needed implants I just needed bigger gums. After some x-rays he also pointed out my wisdom teeth had arrived and needed to depart and said that they could take those out and re-lengthen my gums with no tears to both myself and my bank account (luckily, my insurance was just kicking in).
Months later the surgery would happen in his wife’s pediatric office so I could watch Netflix as I was soothed to sleep by the anesthesia. When I finally awoke, there was a little girl peeking her head from over a chair. A bit haunting but the little girl turned out to be Dr. Jay’s daughter who wanted to give me some toys. It was a nice, startling way to wake up and Dr. Jay waited with me for my ride and offered me a cupcake. “Just chew it on the side that didn’t have surgery, knucklehead” was his response to my post surgery saliva dribbling mouth questioning if this was okay to eat.
Jay will always be my Tony Soprano, my Coach Taylor. Meaning I will always be unsure if I want this man to be my dad or my husband. A few years later after some TMJ issues Jay would tell me that he didn’t want to prescribe muscle relaxers because he didn’t want to possibly send me on my way to a drug addiction so he simply told me to “go green before bed” as he did an exaggerated toking motion. I have sent friends to Jay who have told me they drank margaritas with him and his office on Cinco de Mayo. This man is unfortunately married.
I know teeth are what you need to care for most. If you don’t your brain can short circuit and it usually is the beginning of bad things to come. Taking care of my teeth from the headache face dentist to the woman who I hope isn’t practicing anymore to finally my Lord and Savior Dr. Jay is honestly the best love story of my life. It was the first time I was fully aware of my body’s capability to turn on me and the need to aways advocate for said two faced body. I still am not perfect and do not floss but I also need excuses to go talk to Jay, who desperately pitches me to write a dental office comedy every time he looks in my mouth.
re: what’s going on
I have never been good about daily journals or morning pages, but I found this Five Minute Journal that sometimes takes less than five minutes. It’s a way to start each day remembering something you are grateful for and end each night with another small reflection. I’ve been using it for a month and do enjoy it!
A show I liked: Lupin! I loved it. I want to move to Europe more than ever these days, so this knocked me out.
My brief thoughts on the 2021 Los Angeles Marathon that I would like to get out somewhere but feel like social media doesn’t care but this is my newsletter so I get to feel more in control: the marathon should be virtual over the span of a month, not postponed to the Fall where running 20 mile weekends in LA takes place in October when it is 100 degrees outside (also pandemic). I still am aiming to run one marathon this year and I am close to 100% that it will happen by myself.
What I am reading, just if anyone is interested: Caste, which I would highly recommend even outside of Black History Month. Also off a rec from Jess Tholmer’s newsletter: Pachinko!
I spent $13 on one pair of running socks and that has been ruining my brain all week. That is it.
See ya in two weeks! Always feel free to comment or email me, I do enjoy your responses.
Haha your teeth are awesome. When’s your next update. I’m getting antsy and it’s been over 2 weeks!