My dental nightmare

Right now-- as this is being automatically posted by my Blogger account-- I'm setting out on the next steps in my journey to dental overhaul.

Ever since I was a teenager I've been told that, remarkably, all four of my wisdom teeth were fine; I didn't need to have any of them removed. Even when I would ask (several times later in life) about the fact that it feels a bit crowded in my mouth, I was told not to worry about it.

Now here we are: I began to have problems with a tooth back in January, and finally got in to deal with it late in March. It turns out that its problem arose from -- surprise! -- the presence of my wisdom teeth. They are too close to the adjacent molars, and make it impossible for those molars to get clean which leads to decay. I was blessed with a root canal for that problem tooth, with a crown forthcoming. I was also informed of the problems in the rest of my mouth.

So today, I'm having all four of my wisdom teeth removed. Then in a week and a half, I'll fly to South Carolina where my cousin (who is also an Endodontist) will complete three root canals in a single sitting. In the weeks and months to follow, I'll get the crown for the root canal I've already had, the three for the teeth my cousin is doing, and probably one other as well. Oh, and I also need a filling elsewhere.

So that's what I'm up to today. In a few months, about a third of my mouth will be some sort of synthetic dental work. Woo-hoo!